This chapter is developed in the context of over-tourism in the city of Lisbon (Portugal). There is widespread concern about managing this situation, which involves decentralization. The attraction of tourists to other tourist centers far from the city center has been accomplished by creative solutions. This research analyzes the perception of creative entrepreneurs in relation to this capacity of attraction. Moreover, authors compare two tourist centers of the city: coastal and non-coastal. Results from in-depth interviews show advantages and disadvantages of the coastal location.
TopIntroduction
There are more than one million tourists around the world, making tourism an engine of social and economic growth in a growing number of countries, creating jobs, business, infrastructure and revenue. It is the sector that registers the greatest growth. By 2030 the world will have 1.8 million people traveling to international destinations, according to the UNWTO estimate.
Portugal and its capital Lisbon, are experiencing this widespread growth of tourism together with other cities of the European Union (Horcajuelo, 2018), and has been highlighted as “Best Destination in the World” with 17 awards from the World Travel Awards (Observador, 2018).
Although it is positive in terms of national income, tourism causes saturation and loss of the historical values of the city, as already is happening in Barcelona and Amsterdam. In response, the tourism market is becoming segmented, and new profiles of tourists are appearing and new modalities are emerging, including creative tourism.
The emergence of creative tourism reflects the growing integration between tourism and the different strategies for creating places, including the promotion of creative industries, creative cities and the creative class (Richards, 2011). Creative tourism has clients who engage and experience local culture in an active and creative way and companies that deliver differentiated services through the convergence of various other services and technology (Lee and Lee, 2015).
Creative tourism attracts a new group of entrepreneurs (Richards, 2011) that can be defined as the individual who assumes a certain business risk, directing the energies to future profits and gains, the result of a visionary attitude (Costa, 2008). To become an entrepreneur, the individual must be visionary, know how to make decisions, make a difference, be passionate about what he does, detain know-how to explore opportunities, be a leader and take risks (Dolabela, 2010).
Within this context, the trend is that tourism destinations lose their identity and historical heritage, which has the power to attract tourists. Creative tourism together with creative entrepreneurs has the potential to preserve the historical identity and heritage, thus bringing a more sustainable tourism and continuous growth.
On this vein, this chapter addresses the decentralization of Lisbon as an overcrowded tourism destination as well the role of creative entrepreneurs in coastal and non-coastal areas. As such, we intend to analyze the dynamics of these two locations in relation to the creative entrepreneur and the decentralization of tourism in Lisbon.
As tourism becoming an increasingly growing reality that has negatively affected cities by their “excess”, our contribution is to bring more light on how to minimize their negative impact. In specific our research is focused on creative tourism and the creative entrepreneur. Some studies have already shed light on this aspect (e.g. Caragliu, Del Bo and Nijkamp, 2011; Agostinelli, 2018).
Within a globalized economy, the easiness of connection and travel, the reduction of transport costs, as well as the greater circulation of information, tourism has grown to huge proportions. It is inevitable that tourism establishes itself as an economic activity on a global scale. If on the one hand, we have a strong stimulus to the tourism activity, on the other, it is necessary to pay attention to the risks related to tourism destinations sustainability.
Recent news related that tourism pressure in Lisbon and Porto has been higher than London or Barcelona (RTP, 2018). In Lisbon, the number of tourists is nine times the number of residents. In Porto, it's almost eight times. The numbers only gain a real proportion when compared to other European cities. In Prague and Barcelona, the annual number of visitors is five times higher than the number of inhabitants. In London, four times.
According to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute (INE, 2018), Lisbon registered more than 14 million overnight stays and 6 million tourists in 2017, and the Algarve remains the national region that has received more tourists, whether nationals or foreigners. In this sense, the historical center of the city of Lisbon has been the focus of this increase of visitors with the increasing number of accommodation, causing an increase in housing prices and consequently driving the Portuguese away from the historic center.