Chapter 6: Synthesis and Reflections

The creative tourist experience is dynamic, multifaceted and potentially transformative. In creative tourism, individuals interact with endogenous tangible and intangible heritage with the primary objective to expand their knowledge and develop some skills. Contrary to some commentators (e.g. Duxbury & Richards, 2019) who accept that creative tourism does not always include immersive, artistic practices, we believe that what makes creative tourism different from other forms of tourism and intrinsically valuable for both tourists and communities is precisely the integration of creative artistic practices and the tangible and intangible characteristics of place. What we have sought to demonstrate in this book is that creative tourists not only engage in place-specific resources for self-fulfilment purposes but they also seek to nurture and negotiate their own embodied identities. This quest is in itself a joyful creative process. Immersive, active and sensuous engagement in heterogenous spaces is a central feature of the creative tourist experience. Informed by a Deleuzian reading of space which underscores the relational (or rhizomatic) and fluid nature of the world, we have presented the creative tourist experience as a sociocultural, permeable space in which people play, enact new role identities and cultivate self-awareness. While creative tourist environments can be more or less contrived and regulated, we have demonstrated that heterogenous creative tourist spaces are prone to stimulate stronger emotions than regulated commercial environments and offer imaginative and enacted alternatives to normative everyday spaces. We have characterised creative tourist spaces as liminoid for their playful and transitional nature and as heterotopic for their disruptive capacity to affect those who dwell in them. In addition, we have argued that a sense of authenticity and intimacy are inherent qualities of heterogenous, creative tourist spaces. Experiences of existential authenticity and the intimate socialities of some creative tourist spaces are conducive to enhanced well-being through empowerment, bonding and self-transformation.