Creative Tourism as a Tool for Urban Development (Case Study: Tabriz City)

Introduction Nowadays, visitors have a noticeable tendency to refrain from repeated activities in order to profit from new feelings and experiences. Creative tourism activities have provided an opportunity for tourists to learn more about local skills, expertise, traditions and unique qualities of the places they are visiting. Creative tourism is considered as a new generation of tourism. One participant has voiced the idea that the first generation is “beach tourism,” in which people may come to a place for relaxation and leisure; the second refers to “cultural tourism,” oriented toward museums and cultural tours. “Creative Tourism” involves more interaction in which a visitor has an educational, emotional, social, and participative interaction with the place, its living culture, and the people who live there. They feel like a citizen. The third generation requires that managers develop and recognize the creativity within their city as a resource, and provide new opportunities to increase tourists’ interests. Nowadays, cities are looking for industries that, while boosting the city’s economy, will ensure the comprehensive development of the city. The industries with features such as early return, not major investment (in comparison with other large industries), greenness and the imposition of the lowest environmental costs to the destination, direct and indirect employment, effective role in restoring and reverting to cultural expressions and local handicrafts are one of the best options for modern cities. Given the fact that Iran has some capabilities and limitations in tourism scope and understanding that it has benefited more from the cultural fields and economic conditions, the creative tourism is named as the most desirable type of tourism.  Creative visitor are a suitable target market for this country. Despite having wide range of capabilities in the field of creative culture and industry, Iran has a small share of the incomes from contemporary tourism. The weakness of advertising and marketing activities undertaken in the field of tourism has made a major difference between the views of foreign tourists about Iran, Iranian, and their cultures before and after traveling to it. It is worthy to note that favorable geographical conditions in Iran can attract a large number of tourists, increase economic productivity, satisfy the social and recreational needs, and make peace and friendship between nations, as well.  Not only Tabriz city is benefitted from a rich cultural and historical background and it has been selected several times as the capital of the state in the past, but there is also a specific ethnicity with a special dialect and a special lifestyle in the country. Unfortunately, this city has suffered from air pollution, abundance of unused museums, mass cultural tourists, and large commercial complexes. Therefore, this city has the necessary conditions for the development of tourism. In this paper, some questions are raised: does Tabriz have the capacity to develop creative tourism? What are the most effective factors and tools needed to make creative tourism and contribute to urban development? Methodology   This is descriptive-analytic research. All creativity related variables including creative class, creative economy, creative experience, creative city, and creative tourism has been gathered from various researches. A questionnaire has been arranged and distributed among 60 tourism experts in this city. The statistical population of this study has been selected among tourism experts in the Cultural Heritage Organization, municipality and university professors, experts in the Department of Tourism Development, and experts in the Journal of Cultural Tourism. The respondents filled questionnaires for needed information. Cronbach’s alpha test has also been used to measure the reliability level of the collected data. Accordingly, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is 0.86 which is at an acceptable level. Results and discussion   According to the results of the analysis, the correlation coefficients of all variables are in the positive significant level. This indicates that creative tourism has a direct significant relationship with all the elements presented by the researchers in this area such as creative city, creative experience, and creative class. In fact, all of these components are part of a whole and meaning together. The creative talent component with an inclination of 72.4% has the highest correlation among other dimensions with creative tourism. The most influential factor in the development of this tourism in Tabriz city is social capital with 50.7%, and then dimension of creative talent with 48% is the effective second factor. This dimension had also the highest correlation among other dimensions. Other dimensions such as quality of life, physical infrastructure and creative experience are 32.1%, 23.6% and 9% respectively. There are effective for creating creative tourism in Tabriz. The results of this study were related to the results of Richards (2011) and Florida (2002) that accordingly stated that social capital such as participation is the most important creative tourism tool for promoting urban development. It can be argued that active participation among urban residents in the private sector with the public sector is essential for promoting the city in terms of social, cultural and environmental dimensions and sustainable urban development. On the other hand, there are other creative tourism tools for development of the city. One of those tools can be presences of the creative class and its strength in all economic, social and cultural affairs of the city. If this class has been powered to carry out their ideas and with their innovation and sufficient capital and by encouraging city officials to be effective in urban affairs, they could turn the city into a creative city. Conclusion Based on the findings, the city of Tabriz has been successful in attracting the creative class of the country. If this city can provide the standards of living based on the ideal of creative class, it can be better in the field of tourism development, especially creative tourism. Finally, based on the findings of the researchers, it can be clearly stated that Tabriz has potential for the growth and development of creative tourism. Today, with advancement of technology and the expansion of various social networks and the design of various websites around the world, it is necessary to introduce Tabriz using technology. It is imperative that managers of all fields involved in the tourism industry become acquainted with new types of tourism and accord their development with their needs. With the pervasive advancement of technology and the rapid transfer of information in all over the world and a change in motivations and demands, modern tourists with high general information have sought for diversity. By investing in cultural affairs and the enrichment of urban space and the quality of educational affairs, this city has made impressive strides towards attracting creative classes and developing creative tourism in order to become a creative city.