While tourism has been at the heart of the debates over the last years, the Club » Villages and Landscapes » of the Charentes region (France) – a program led by Charentes Tourisme DMO – has made it THE solution to boost its territories, as part of a pioneering collaboration with the World Creative Tourism Network®.
Indeed, this aims to create new travel purposes, particularly in the off-season. Charentes Tourisme thus wishes to provide its Club with an experiential dimension, creating new business opportunities for the local stakeholders involved in the tourism and hotel sectors, but above all from the arts and crafts, and creative industries, thereby consolidating the territorial and cross-cutting network.
Creative tourism, recognized as a « virtuous tourism » by the United Nations (*), offers visitors the opportunity to discover the culture and know-how of a place, thanks to authentic experiences provided by local stakeholders.
A unique solution to diversify the tourist offer, by promotig the cultural and creative DNA of the territories and, in fact, their economic and social ecosystem.
This unique offer aims to highlight both exceptional tourism and a sustainable model since it is based on creativity, the valorization of human resources, and local cultural specificities in generally rural places all year round.
In just a few weeks, around twenty experiences have been designed in the member municipalities, offering the guarantee of virtuous tourism, via training sessions, support, and technical visits led by the Creative Tourism Network®.
Among the creative experiences recently co-created, the tourists and residents can participate in a wide array of workshops, from leatherwork, to stained glass, through straw marquetry, ceramics, marbled paper, candle making, woodturning, linen or felt work, and Cognac making, to name just a few, as the process goes on!
These exceptional offers were presented at the beginning of the summer season to invite tourists and locals to enjoy more experiential and authentic holidays!
On this occasion, the director of the Creative Tourism Network®, Caroline Couret, delivered the “Experience Creator” certification to the artists, craftsmen, and project leaders who followed the training and co-creation phase.
These workshops are already being promoted at local, national, and international levels, as part of a joint strategy between the Tourist Offices of the areas concerned, those of Charentes Tourisme, and the various actions organized by the Creative Tourism Network® throughout the world.
To know further …
- About the Club « Charentes » Villages and Landscapes » :
Created at the end of 2022, the Villages & Landscapes Club brings together 18 municipalities in Charentes with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants committed to a quality approach with a cultural, heritage, and environmental offering on a human scale.
What are its objectives?
- create a dynamic network of authentic villages,
- share common issues related to the subject of transitions,
- encourage meetings and exchanges to anticipate the challenges of tomorrow
- What also makes our approach truly unique is our commitment to testing and innovating together,
as evidenced by the desire to develop in 2024 a creative tourism approach recognized for its interactive nature that invites residents, tourists, and stakeholders to discover local culture by participating in local craft and creative activities through the co-creation of experiences.
All this contributes to promoting positive and balanced tourism for a distribution of tourist activity in time and space.
- About Charentes Tourisme:
The Charentes Tourism Development Agency is a non-profit association (1901 law) created in 2017 from the merger of the Departmental Tourism Committees of Charente and Charente-Maritime.
Charentes Tourisme is committed to a CSR approach and is recognized as having the Quality of Mission Association under the PACTE Law of 2019. Its purpose is to meet the challenges of transitions with creativity and cooperation to embody and drive positive and balanced tourism.
- About the Creative Tourism Network®
The Creative Tourism Network® (CTN) is the World Organization of Creative Tourism. The CTN collaborates with UN organizations such as the World Tourism Organization, UNESCO, and UNOSSC, as well as global development banks and Ministries of Tourism and Creative Industries worldwide.
It was founded in 2010 as a non-profit organization with the support of the European Union, to promote destinations of all types that focus on creative tourism, on the one hand, to meet the growing demand of travelers in search of unique experiences and, on the other hand, to create a value chain in their territories. The Creative Tourism Network® supports them in a holistic approach that includes the preliminary diagnosis of the know-how and cultural specificities to be put into tourism, as well as the DNA of the destination to be promoted, training and personalized advice to local stakeholders, up to the creation of experiences and the promotion of the destination under the CreativeFriendly label.
The CreativeFriendly includes different sections and programs such as the Creative Tourism Academy (academic and professional training program), the Creative Tourism Awards (Creative Tourism Trophies), and conferences and events organized worldwide.
At this moment, the Creative Tourism Network® has around thirty CreativeFriendly labeled destinations, spread across various continents.
