Elsevier

Tourism Management

Volume 27, Issue 6, December 2006, Pages 1209-1223
Tourism Management

Developing creativity in tourist experiences: A solution to the serial reproduction of culture?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2005.06.002Get rights and content

Abstract

As culture is increasingly utilised as a means of social and economic development, the cultural tourism market is being flooded with new attractions, cultural routes and heritage centres. However, many consumers, tired of encountering the serial reproduction of culture in different destinations are searching for alternatives. The rise of skilled consumption, the importance of identity formation and the acquisition of cultural capital in (post)modern society point towards the use of creativity as an alternative to conventional cultural tourism. This paper considers the development of creative spaces, creative spectacles and creative tourism from the perspective of supply and demand. The need for creativity in developing new products and how to address the challenge of serial reproduction are discussed, and examples of creative tourism projects are examined and contrasted to traditional models of cultural tourism.

Introduction

According to many commentators (e.g. Ritzer, 1999; Urry, 2001) culture has now become an essential element of the tourism system or ‘culture of tourism’. Cultural tourism is also frequently quoted as being one of the largest and fastest growing segments of global tourism (e.g. WTO, 2004). Tourism and culture both play an important role in image creation processes, providing a major rationale for the aesthicisation of landscapes (Morgan & Pritchard, 1998), as well as in shaping the environment to meet the needs of consumers. Indeed, the growth of cultural consumption (of art, food, fashion, music, tourism) and the industries that cater to it has fuelled the ‘symbolic economy’ of cities and regions (Ray, 1998; Zukin, 1995). The image of a city or region becomes based both on physical assets, and a series of experiences built around those assets, generally extending to the ‘living culture’ and the atmosphere of places (Wilson, 2002).

Culture has become a basic resource from which the themes and narratives essential to ‘placemaking’ can be derived (Gottdiener, 1997), often seen as tying the physical assets and the living culture together. It has also been argued that culture is the source of urban attraction (Fainstein, Hoffman, & Judd, 2003). Many declining cities, for example, have had to create new narratives of regeneration based on urban culture and heritage, as well as making a transition towards an economy of signs and symbols (Lash & Urry, 1994) and the representations of space positioned by Soja (1996, p. 79) as ‘secondspace’. Many rural areas have re-defined themselves as consumption spaces in which history and rural tradition take over from modern agricultural production as the key elements of identification (Cloke, 1993). However, as more cities and regions compete in (re)producing and promoting themselves for tourism and culture employing the same formulaic mechanisms, their ability to create ‘uniqueness’ arguably diminishes, often assumed to lead towards the ‘serial reproduction’ of culture (Harvey, 1989), ‘placelessness’ (Relph, 1976), non-places (Augé, 1995) or McDonaldisation (Ritzer & Liska, 1997). Similarly, Rojek, (1995) observes the growth of ‘universal cultural space’ that ‘provides the same aesthetic and spatial references wherever one is in the world’ (1995, p. 146).

Ironically, the strategies adopted by cities to avoid such serial reproduction and create a ‘distinctive’ image are also converging. In a study of the use of culture in the image-creation of Dutch local Authorities, Cachet, Kroes Willems, and Richards (2003) found that a large number of cities fell back on stereotypical pictorial images, and that many had even adopted the same promotional slogans. Zukin argues that ‘so-called “cultural cities” each claim distinctiveness but reproduce the same facilities in any number of places, echoing industrial globalisation with its geographically widespread production but concentrated consumption’ (2004, p. 8). This is especially evident in the case of the Guggenheim Museum, where the attempt by Bilbao to establish cultural distinction by ‘buying’ a Guggenheim museum has already been undermined by the recent proliferation of Guggenheims across the world. New Guggenheims have opened in Las Vegas and Berlin, with others under discussion in Salzburg, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Edinburgh. The waiting list of cities for a Guggenheim ‘kit’ has now reached 60 (Richards, 2000), so perhaps ‘McGuggenheim’ (Honigsbaum, 2001; Ibelings, 2001) is now a more appropriate label for this ‘museum chain’?

This paper examines some of the consequences of increasing serial reproduction of culture for tourism, and suggests that the reorientation of current models of ‘cultural tourism’ towards new modes of creativity-led tourism may represent one response to this problem.

Section snippets

Urban and regional cultural strategies and tourism

According to Amin and Thrift (2002) and Pine and Gilmore (1999), increasing competition in the market means that ‘goods and services are no longer enough’ and that producers must differentiate their products by transforming them into ‘experiences’ which engage the consumer. The same process is arguably affecting cities and regions worldwide, as they brand themselves into experiences for residents and visitors alike (Richards, 2001). Much of the experience creation that is happening at present

When nothing succeeds like success…

A major problem with all of the above strategies is that nothing succeeds like success, at least on the surface. Cities are increasingly accomplished at ‘borrowing’ ideas from their contemporaries, to the extent that some cities have become global models of culture-led urban development; emulated and copied the world over. Baltimore (waterfront development), Bilbao (iconic museum development), York (digging up the past) and Barcelona (event-led regeneration) are reference points for planners

The development of creative production and consumption

In terms of production, some cities have placed an emphasis on home grown (or even adopted) innovators to propel creativity forwards, contributing to the emergence of a creative, vibrant atmosphere. This is most evident in the case of cultural clusters, creative quarters or even whole ‘creative city’ strategies, where the growth of creative space is cultural production-led. But there are also signs that groups or classes of creative consumers are beginning to emerge along with these creative

The creative turn

Redevelopment strategies based on creativity have a number of supposed advantages over strategies based on cultural assets. Creativity, as a process which creates new cultural forms, is in a position to develop innovatory new cultural products and to nourish the cultural economy. The innovation associated with creativity also fits with an image of dynamism and change, appropriate to a wide range of political agendas. The ‘creative industries’ are also very much in vogue as underpinning the

Tourism, creativity and place

One of the major problems that places face in a competitive global environment is how to maintain, develop and utilise their distinctiveness. The development of distinctiveness, which used to be part of a ‘natural’ process of spatial differentiation, is now often a process that is managed to produce distinctive experiences for consumers. The application of creativity in this process can be achieved in a number of ways:

  • 1.

    Individuals or groups undertaking creative and innovative activities which

Discussion

The increasing employment of creativity in tourism products, as in many other areas, seems to stem from a desire to innovate distinctive products to meet specific consumer needs. Creative tourism appears to meet a need from tourists to develop a more active and longer lasting form of experience, while for the destination it provides an opportunity to embed experiences in the locality.

The examples given in Table 2 suggest there is some potential in the development of creative tourism, both as an

Conclusion

Processes of globalisation and symbolic competition seem to be leading to increasing serial reproduction of cultural attractions and ‘commodification’ of the cultural tourism product. Cities and regions are seeking solutions to this problem in a variety of strategies which seek to add value, diversify and animate the tourist and cultural product. The dilemma for cultural tourism development, however, is that such diversification strategies themselves tend to converge and become subject to

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