Chapter 18: Creative Tourism Development in Small Cities and Rural Areas in Portugal: Insights from Start-Up Activities

The rise of the “experience economy” (Pine & Gilmore, 1998) has led to the recognition of experiences as intrinsically embodying economic (and other) value. In the tourism context, this translated into a focus on creating memorable and unique events and activities, initially designed as “staged experiences.” However, in a “prosumer” culture with a growing desire for interaction and involvement, this progressed further, with tourists increasingly desiring “co-creation” experiences and taking on more active roles (Campos et al., 2015). In parallel, tourists’ growing desire for direct and meaningful involvement in the face of “massified” cultural tourism offers and organized experiences has fueled the development of “creative tourism” (Richards & Wilson, 2007). In this context, creators of creative tourism experiences need to think carefully about the aspects of creativity that are related to a place and that offer creative tourists a specific motivation to visit it (Richards, 2011)…