Creative Tourism Consumption: Framing the Creative Habitus through a Bourdieusian Lens

Abstract

Creative tourism studies remain a newly developed field, pointing to changes in the consumption of tourism and culture while influencing how creativity and co-creation differentiate tourism supply through exploring the existential dimensions of creative experiences, the latter remaining an under-researched theme in the creative tourism literature. In addition, this type of tourism is presented as more responsible and sustainable than other types of massified forms of tourism. Building on a Bourdieusian approach, an updated version of Bourdieu’s main sociological thinking tools was used to analyse the creative habitus of both the supply and demand involved in the co-creation of creative tourism experiences. The authors developed 42 semi-structured interviews with creatives and creative tourists using the Loulé Criativo network in Portugal as a case study and applied qualitative techniques for the data treatment. The results showed that the creative habitus could move successfully between fields, expressing a sustainable agency towards creative tourism consumption. Autodidactism is important for skill development and knowledge replication resulting from the co-creation of creative experiences. The creative habitus, endowed with intercultural and creative capital, is characterized by self-education and ecological awareness where co-creation and coexistence with other creative people enhance the development and replication of creative competencies outside the tourism field.