TraCEs CulTour Is Capital promotes the cooperation between tourism and creative industries in European Capitals of Culture to innovate tourism experiences.
TraCEs CulTour Is Capital is working to promote innovation in tourism through cooperation with creative industries, with a focus on cities and regions in Europe which have been involved in the European Capital of Culture competition (candidate, winners, participants). The project believes that new tourism based on real experiences and engagement of tourists in the local communities is possible and that creative industries can contribute to the development of new experiences based on this transformative power. At the same time the project is promoting a European networking of CCIs operators among ECoC cities which has never happened until today.
The initial network of ECoC cities involved covered Matera (2019), Rijeka (2020), Gelsenkirchen for the Ruhr region (2010), Kosice (2013) and Burgos (building its bid for future application).
The CulTour Is Capital model is made of T-labs, co-creation laboratories where tourism operators and creative professionals design new experiences, of new narratives created around these experiences by travel bloggers and an interactive platform (https://www.gameoftraces.com/) where all the operators from the two sectors are connected to generate new opportunities for local development and promotion and tourists can discover ECoCs from the eyes of the operators of cultural and creative sector.
The network is already counting 19 other ECoC cities engaged.
Resources needed
Project funded by EC under TOURSYN COSME program.
The full model (Tlabs execution - Travel Blogger Tour organization) has a cost of approximately 20.000 euro.
The Game of TraCEs platform is free and open for access to other stakeholders from tourism and CCIs sectors coming from ECoC ecosystem.
Evidence of success
The project started with a partnership covering 5 cities/regions which have been or were ECoCs but managed, during its life, to connect a network made of 19 other cities/regions that are part of the ECoC ecosystem (candidate cities, winners of the title, cities that participated in the competition).
http://www.cultouriscapital.eu/contributors/
The project has launched its own platform where it is promoting ECoC CCIs and new tourism experiences.
https://www.gameoftraces.com/
Potential for learning or transfer
The project is an example of how to exploit the cross-fertilization and cross-innovation potential of creative industries. It is also an example of how ECoC can be considered as laboratories for innovation and local development based on culture and creative economy. Last but not least, it is about understanding a new concept of tourism made of real experiences and involvement in local communities of visitors.
The transferability of the practice is based on its model open for cities which have been, will be or are planning to be European Capital of Culture.
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Tags: Art, City, Community, Creative, Cultural, Economy, European Commission, European Union, Networks, SME, Tourism, Innovation
