creative tourism

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. xx, No. xx, pp. 153–174, 2013
0160-7383/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Printed in Great Britain

www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2012.12.002

A MODEL OF ‘CREATIVE
EXPERIENCE’ IN CREATIVE
TOURISM
Siow-Kian Tan
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, ROC
Shiann-Far Kung
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, ROC
Ding-Bang Luh
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, ROC

Abstract: This study explores the essence of ‘creativity’ in ‘creative tourism’ from a tourist perspective. Creative tourism is receiving an increasing amount of attention, although the concept remains rather vague, and more research is needed. Data was collected using indepth interviews with tourists and observations at four ‘Creative Life Industry’ sites in Taiwan.
Grounded theory approach was employed, and the findings show that ‘outer interactions’ and ‘inner reflections’ construct the model of tourists’ creative experience. The former refer to tourists’ interactions with ‘environment’, ‘people’, and ‘product/service/experience’, while the latter refer to ‘consciousness/awareness’, ‘needs’ and ‘creativity’, and these dimensions ‘interact’ in tourists’ inner-self throughout the experience. Moreover, ‘consciousness/ awareness’ is a prerequisite for ‘creative experience’, differentiating it from other types of experiences. Keywords: creative experience, creative tourism, creativity, tourist’s perspectives. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION
The concept of creative tourism has been developed for a number of years in many countries, including New Zealand, Austria, Spain,
Canada, the United States and Taiwan. Although different places have their own definitions of creative tourism, there are commonalities among them, such as ‘active participation’, ‘authentic experiences’,
‘creative potential development’, and ‘skills development’ (Richards,
2011).

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