Years of thinking about strategies that can offer sustainable tourism models, and solutions that are both concrete and adaptable to all types of destinations… Creative tourism offers us a practical and virtuous solution.
Perceived the world over as a model for meeting the environmental and socio-economic challenges facing territories, creative tourism made its debut in France at IFTM TopResa, THE B2B tourism trade show, which took place in Paris from October 3 to 5, 2023.
In addition to professional meetings and gatherings, creative tourism was officially presented at conferences on responsible tourism.
The opportunity for the director of the Creative Tourism Network®, Caroline Couret, to highlight not only the relevance of creative tourism to meet the expectations of new generations of travelers in search of authentic and human experiences, but also, as a sustainable development model. Adaptable to all types of destinations – from the villages of Provence to megalopolises like Medellín – creative tourism is fully in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations’ Agenda 2030, particularly with regard to the preservation of intangible heritage, the inclusion of the entire population through training and professionalization, the balanced use of natural resources and job creation through deseasonalization, to name just a few of the many assets of this virtuous tourism.
If the conference highlighted inspiring examples of destinations from around the world, labeled CreativeFriendlyDestinations, such as Recife (Brazil) or Jinju (South Korea), the Magdalen Islands (Quebec) or Tunisia, Caroline Couret, also pointed his enthusiastic gaze at France. “If France already has destinations that have been pioneers in the CreativeFriendly label, such as Cannes, Biot, Autour du Louvre-Lens, Perpignan-Méditerranée and Anduze-en-Cévennes, the diversity of its intangible heritage and its territories and know-how can become its new differential value, within the new era of tourism.
In fact, creative tourism has emerged as THE solution to maintaining tourist activity during the COVID-19 pandemic – thanks to its model designed for small groups offering a change of scenery on a local scale – and is now adopted by a growing number of destinations around the world, wishing to make tourism a lever for sustainable development for their territory.
Future French destinations labeled CreativeFriendly will be announced soon!
