Learning communities and co-creative tourism practices in NGDO projects

Abstract

In this study, we considered tourism collaboration for sustainable development as a co-creative practice of learning about tourism in order to achieve benefits for local communities. We focused on projects run by non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) and the challenges relating to their long-term impact. These challenges concern the projects' potential to facilitate the emergence and/or reinforcement of local learning communities. The study was conducted by an academic and a representative of the NGDO that constituted the empirical case. The empirical investigation was based on a variety of data sources and explored both the NGDO's strategic approach to collaboration and the experience gained from two projects. We identified factors that can be crucially important for the promotion of collaboration driven by local actors and extending beyond the limited time horizon of the NGDOs' projects. The paper contributes to the literature by adopting the concepts of co-creative practices and communities of practice (CoPs) to study collaboration, elucidating the evolving linkages connecting CoP constellations in learning communities. The study also presents some reflections on collaborative research with non-academics as a useful way of promoting plurality, depth and reflexivity.

Transformative roles in tourism: adopting living systems' thinking for regenerative futures

“…The second co-production stage involved key informant interviews and focus groups with case study participants and document analysis for the two case studies to determine how the transformative roles were applied. Co-production of knowledge with practitioners is a valuable methodology for exploring phenomena that explore real-world practices (Bertella and Rinaldi, 2020). Therefore, including practitioners in knowledge co-production of a TLS framework is crucial to this study to learn from the knowledge and experiences of those who have developed and applied living systems thinking to tourism.…”

“…To align with the practice-led nature of regenerative tourism and its corresponding adoption of living systems' thinking, we included the knowledge and values of non-scientist co-authors as integral to the process of scientific knowledge production (Bremer and Meisch, 2017) and co-learning (Bertella and Rinaldi, 2020). We adopted a research approach beyond integrating scientists across various disciplines (interdisciplinarity) to integrate knowledge held by scientists and practitioners.…”

“…Drawing from the methodology of Bertella and Rinaldi (2020), the research team collaborated with four of the exercise consultation participants recognised as world-leading regenerative tourism pioneers and practitioners, co-authors in this paper, to assess the applicability of the conceptual framework. The practitioner co-authors are familiar with these cases, three having worked directly with the chosen case studies.…”

Estudio bibliométrico sobre turismo creativo en Scopus, tendencias y futuras líneas de investigación

“…La tercera etapa, está integrada por nodos emergentes, representados por el color amarillo. Se distinguen la cocreación, elemento fundamental en el turismo creativo para la configuración de experiencias donde el cliente sea un agente activo (Bertella & Rinaldi, 2020) y el turismo urbano, a partir de las potencialidades de la ciudad en cuanto a recursos para la oferta de experiencias creativas (Adamo et al, 2019).…”

“…Además, el alto valor del índice de Price (0.87) muestra la vigencia de la temática en los últimos 5 años. En consecuencia, el turismo creativo se ha tratado desde diferentes perspectivas, entre ellas se han estudiado las atracciones creativas (Dean & Suhartanto, 2019;Suhartanto et al, 2018), el patrimonio cultural (Adamo et al, 2019), el desarrollo sostenible (Bertella & Rinaldi, 2020) e industrias creativas (Suhartanto et al, 2020). No obstante, se identificaron como principales líneas temáticas: el turismo y creatividad, estudiada por (Richards, 2011;Richards & Wilson, 2006) que abordan el vínculo de estos dos constructos; la experiencia creativa, abordada recientemente por autores como (Dean & Suhartanto, 2019;Suhartanto, Brien, Primiana, Wibisono, & Triyuni, 2020) y los espacios creativos (Marques & Borba, 2017;Richards, 2014;Booyens & Rogerson, 2019;Richards, 2020) a partir del desarrollo de estrategias orientadas a la creación de un ambiente creativo que llene de creatividad el espacio geográfico (Richards, 2020).…”