Abstract
Over the decades, tourism has experienced continued growth to become one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world. With this continued growth, cultural tourism globally has become one of the most attractive developmental options for tourist destinations around the world. In the past, cultural tourism was often viewed as a good form of tourism, intended to make the negative impacts of tourism diminish as much as possible. Developed from cultural tourism, creative tourism is now considered to make cultural tourism more sustainable and add value and creativity to the cultural tourist experiences.
Although creative tourism has evolved from cultural tourism, it has not been associated with the masses of visitors to cultural attractions. Instead, creative tourism focuses on acquiring authentic and creative experiences at the destination, due to the active interaction between visitors and residents. This key characteristic of creative tourism stems from the expansive definition of the term, which has been defined and used by several scholars and organizations to encompass the growing demands of the creative tourists.
This study seeks to address how creative cultural tourism can support the empowerment of local communities, specifically women. Empowerment has been an important concept in research, focusing on a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from community development to sustainable tourism development.
In Namibia, the cultural and creative industries have been identified as key enablers to diversify the current tourism product (see Namibia Fifth Developmental Plan (NDP5). This diversification is now more important than ever, as local communities face challenges due to external forces, such as global change and droughts and more recently COVID-19.
This study used the exploratory mixed method design to address the research questions. The qualitative data was collected through thirty-four (34) semi-structured interviews conducted with women at four creative cultural sites: Penduka, Work of Our Hands, Ovahimba Living Museum and Ju/’Hoansi Living Museum and with six key stakeholders in the creative and cultural industries. These results were analysed using thematic analysis. In addition, the quantitative data was collected through self-administered questionnaires to tourists who
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visited the creative cultural sites. These results were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.
The key result from the study indicates that Namibia has the potential for a creative cultural tourism product. However, several challenges need to be addressed. The interview results indicate that these challenges range from funding and investment from local and national government to the women who cannot actively interact with tourists due to language barriers. Benefits from creative cultural tourism include elements such as preservation of intangible practices and increased economic opportunities for local women. One possible specific opportunity for these study sites is the production and selling of crafts. Women are keen to teach tourists how to make these crafts; and thus, concurring with the key motivating factor that tourists visit these creative cultural projects or activities ‘to experience something different from their usual environment’.
This study concluded that creative cultural tourism is not the panacea for all the challenges facing the Namibian communities. However, with the demand for creative cultural tourism growing globally, it can provide support and much-needed diversification for local economic development.