Creative tourism in destination development

53 Tourism Review, Vol 62, No 3+4/2007

K. Lindroth, J. Ritalahti, T. Soisalon-Soininen: Creative Tourism in Destination Development

Kaija Lindroth

Phone: +358-9-2296 5685

Fax: +358-9-2296 5655

E-mail: [email protected]

Jarmo Ritalahti

Phone: +358-9-2296 5622

Fax: +358-9-2296 5655

E-mail: [email protected]

Tuovi Soisalon-Soininen

Phone: +358-9-2296 5621

Fax: +358-9-2296 5655

E-mail: [email protected]

HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences

Aleksanterinkatu 20

06100 Porvoo, Finland

1st submission: January 8, 2007

Accepted: September 6, 2007

Purpose – The aim of this article is to identify the stakeholders’ attitudes, values and feelings on desti￾nation development in the framework of creative tourism.

Design/methodology/approach – The research questions focus on tourist participation, innovative

partnership, guest-host meetings and money spent in the destination. The focus group method with

snowball sampling was chosen as the research method.

Findings – Central outcomes can be divided into ten different categories: socio-physical environment of

the destination, service structure, consumer behaviour, information and communication technologies, traf￾fic, logistics and accessibility, networking, tourism demand and supply, local resources, marketing and PR.

Research limitations/implications – Although focus group research has many advantages, there are

limitations. In this case the moderators did not have full control all the time due to the more topical

themes that interested the participants; focus group research is often open-ended.

Practical implications – The whole issue of the present case revolves around the question why destina￾tions want to be creative or why they need to be creative in the present competitive situation. Creativity

should be an integral part of the tourism offering just as tourism is an integral part of the planning and

development of a destination.

Originality/value – It can be concluded that the future issues and research topics seem to focus on five

themes. Most of what was said can be ascribed to the need for a forum for decision makers and tourism

actors to discuss holistic and long-term planning of tourism in the destination.

Keywords: Creative thinking, Tourism development, Networking, Consumer behaviour

Paper type: Research paper

Creative Tourism in Destination Development

KAIJA LINDROTH, JARMO RITALAHTI

& TUOVI SOISALON-SOININEN

Abstract

1 Introduction Contemporary societies are moving to￾wards an economy where cultural compe￾tence together with human and organisa￾tional creativity acts as the driving force.

Creativity and innovation are seen as key

components in company and destination

management strategies. Organisations are

slowly getting rid of the old belief that cre￾ativity and business are contradictory

forces. Combining creativity, a prerequisite

for product and service development, with

business activity is what brings results in

today’s economy (Pine and Gilmore, 1999;

Florida, 2002).

Strategy planners see the potential for

developing the creative sector in order to

enhance the competitiveness of the region.

Simultaneously, measures are being taken

to bridge the needs of the actors represent￾ing the cultural and the tourism sector re￾spectively. Therefore, it is necessary to iden￾tify the existing situation in regional

tourism co-operation.

The aim of this paper is to identify the

stakeholders’ attitudes, values and feelings

on destination development in the frame￾work of creative tourism. Further aims are

to identify innovative partnerships, gener￾ate new product ideas and identify the exis￾tence and possibilities of creative tourism.

The case study deals with the town of Por￾voo in Finland. Porvoo is a cultural desti￾nation with a mediaeval cathedral and

town plan, 50 km east of Helsinki, the cap￾ital of Finland. The research was conduct￾ed under the umbrella of the KUTUR pro￾ject which focused on the role of heritage

tourism in resort development. The KU￾TUR project was financed with Interreg II￾IA funds. Within the same project a com￾parative study was carried out in the town

of Pärnu in Estonia.

The town of Porvoo has about 47,000

inhabitants and an area of 654 km2. It is the

centre of the Eastern Uusimaa province. Por￾voo is a bilingual town with about 33 per cent

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