We strongly agree with this reflection of Greg Richards about creative tourism, as a key to boost a new type of relationship between visitors and locals:
«The main drivers of creative tourism development therefore currently seem to be the cultural creatives in search of like-minded souls and economic support for their lifestyles, and tourists seeking creative entry points into local communities. As Couret stresses there is a need for re-humanizing the relationship between visitors and locals. In fact, this is linked to an evolving need of ‘becoming’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980), which corresponds to the human desire for transformation through action, in a process where the subject assumes no longer a passive role, but makes, plays and interprets their own role in society. It is a process related to the construction of identity and personal narrative. This co-creative act increasingly centres around the intangible and symbolic, and situates itself in the sphere of the emotional and spiritual, where the individual looks actively ways to follow a certain lifestyle in a specific creative atmosphere. Places become in this sense a result of co-creation, acquiring more and differentiated meanings, both for service providers, local communities and visitors. This is also why more and more everyday (authentic) life seems to affirm its necessary presence in creative tourism» (Maitland, 2007, 2010; Richards, 2011).
