Creativity, the visual arts and tourism

Abstract

Broad consideration is given to the linkages between the visual arts and tourism before specifically highlighting the development of destinations particularly through a focus on different manifestations of the visual arts, in particular painting, installation, public art and sculptural form or objects, as attractions for tourism. Mcintyre, in postulating about the phenomenon of creativity and the production of art, argues that it is important to consider the social and cultural context of the societies in which this ubiquitous human activity takes place. Writing in 1996, Long highlighted the linkages between tourism and the visual arts through the Year of Visual Arts, a creative initiative in Northern England in which partnership arrangements between arts organisations and regional tourist boards were established. Politically, socially, economically and aesthetically the visual arts have retained an important status and, as this chapter has demonstrated, they hold a powerful attraction for tourists.