What we do

The CREATOUR Observatory is an intersectoral platform that brings together researchers and professionals from the cultural/creative and tourism sectors, linking academia to the public and private sectors in a logic of critique, evaluation and reflection towards the production of knowledge regarding practices of culture, of creative tourism and of other associated disciplinary areas.

The profound impacts on the cultural and creative sectors and tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the precariousness of its workers as well as the fragility and dependence of the sectors. It is therefore essential to address existing vulnerabilities and inequalities as well as to rethink and promote new intersectoral development strategies.

In this line, regenerative and integrated sustainability approaches should include cultural planning, circular economies, social innovation, and responsive entrepreneurship, aligned with efforts to identify, understand and strategically mobilize the resources and cultural identities of places. For this, and since the cultural–tourism links are explicitly assumed to strategically guide and boost territorial development, an effective alignment between the political, economic, cultural and environmental spheres is essential. Cross-sector linkages and collaborations and participatory governance practices can recognize and work with conflicting perspectives, identify and critically reflect on development paradoxes and public impacts, and promote holistic approaches that focus on community well-being, inclusion and collective benefit.

Objectives

The CREATOUR Observatory aims to establish itself as an open communication channel between academia and civil society so that there is a sharing of knowledge and experiences. Its work will focus on cultural and creative practices as well as sustainable cultural and creative tourism in extra-metropolitan, peripheral, rural and remote areas of Portugal.

In this way, the Observatory aims to monitor and critically analyze dynamics and impacts of and on the development of the spheres of culture and tourism, as well as emerging opportunities for socially responsible approaches that can interconnect agents in culture, tourism and other sectors. It intends to analyze and criticize public policies, programmes and decision-making, with special attention to the intersection of cultural and tourism interests in local and regional development. Its objective is to contribute to the definition of public policies sensitive to the different perspectives, dynamics and problems inherent to development processes. It aims to design and promote training, capacity building, clarification and awareness-raising actions that stimulate reflection and dialogue on ideas and practices, reinforce broad knowledge and establish links between researchers, professionals and public decision-makers in these allied, but often disconnected, fields.

For this, the Observatory’s work will be based on methodologies and approaches of cultural mapping; strategy, ideation and prototyping in creative tourism; intersectoral collaboration and cooperation; and strategic planning and governance, involving different types of organizations and target groups, such as companies, municipalities and other territorial administration entities, cultural agents, local communities and tourists. At the same time, it will serve as the hub of an emerging international network – CREATOUR International. Thus, its main objectives are:

  1. Monitor and evaluate cultural and creative practices and sustainable tourism with a cultural and creative base
  2. Generate knowledge and know-how that promotes the link between culture, creativity and tourism
  3. Relate research to practice by adapting and disseminating academic knowledge for civil society
  4. Stimulate the co-production of knowledge between researchers and professionals
  5. Promote and develop capacity-building mechanisms
  6. Develop and provide advanced and specialized training to researchers and professionals
  7. Generate information and recommendations that support the development of public policies in the areas of culture, creativity and tourism
  8. Promote international dialogue, debate and exchange of knowledge about cultural and creative practices and sustainable tourism with a cultural and creative basis, through the initiative CREATOUR International.
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