Reaching the New Tourist Through Creativity: Sustainable Development Challenges in Croatian Coastal Towns

1. Creativity In City Tourism Development

Creativity in tourism can best be described as an opportunity for tourists to develop their creative potential by actively participating in learning processes that are characteristic of the destination in which they are staying (Richards & Raymond, 2000). Bacon (2005) sees creativity as originality and usefulness, while Virfinija (2016) argues that creativity in tourism is a part of cultural tourism; it can greatly contribute to developing new experiences thus driving social, cultural and economic growth, and its focus is on intangible resources such as learning, developing experiences and traditions. The growing role of creativity in tourism is further bolstered by the generation of the value-added of tourism products, which is reflected in the creative economy through the aspects of creative space, creative events and creative tourism (Richards & Wilson, 2006). Creative space gathers creative producers and artisans to make a creative environment for tourism consumption (Marques & Richards, 2014). Creative environments encourage the development of creative industries. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) views creativity in the context of the creative industries as industries that make, produce and commercialise intangible goods and services of a cultural nature. Creativity can also be viewed from the perspective of sustainability that ensures the authenticity of experiences of local cultures (Raymond, 2007) or from the perspective of participative learning in the field of art or cultural heritage (Garcês, Pocinho & Jesus, 2018). Enabling creativity helps to ensure sustainability and, vice versa, sustainability helps to ensure future creativity. The future of tourism development is not only about the number of attractions and how they should be market managed. It is also about the creativity of projects and programmes and the ability to bring together and coordinate sustainable development-based projects (Valeri, 2015).