cultural tourism

On 4 October, 2012, the public Thai organization DASTA (Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration) spearheaded by a dedicated team around Dr. Jutamas Jan Winsansing, of Perfect Link Consulting Group and PATA Thailand Organization Chair, convened the first International Forum on the Creative Tourism Network Thailand.

For this purpose, both me and my colleague Caroline Couret of Barcelona Creative Tourism and the International Creative Tourism Network travelled almost 20.000 kilometres in order to be part of this special forum and to experience Thai culture through a series of networking events and hands-on workshops.

Creative Tourism: Hands-on workshops experiencing local Thai culture

Throughout the week we spent in Thailand (Bangkok & surroundings), it felt as if Caroline and me had been given the status of “unofficial Royals”! It is amazing what the hospitality of the Thai people stretches to given the international context and the wealth of creative tourism activities on display.

I would like to discuss a brand new article on the relationship of tourism and creativitiy that Greg Richards of Tilburg University has sent me after being published in the Annals of Tourism Research, Volume 38, 2011.

Fortunate enough to know him personally since the 2010 International Creative Tourism Network Conference, Greg really knows a great deal about research in cultural and, more recently, creative tourism. “Creativity”, he says, is about to “transform traditional cultural tourism”, bringing about “greater involvement with the everyday life of the destination”. Arguably, it is an “escape route from the serial reproduction of mass cultural tourism, offering more authentic experiences” that are “co-created between host and tourist”.

What do you think? Have your say here and read through a brief summary of this article!