UNESCO – EU Transcultura Creative Tourism Training Workshops

Deadline: 26 January 2025

The EU-funded UNESCO Transcultura Programme has launched a call for applications for young artists and tourism entrepreneurs from the Caribbean to participate in its Creative Tourism Capacity-building and Training Workshops.

A total of 50 participants will benefit from one-week capacity-building workshops in St George, Grenada (24 to 28 February 2025) and Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines (17 to 21 March 2025).

Objectives

These regional capacity-building and training workshops are aimed at providing knowledge, training and resources to key stakeholders involved in the creative tourism sector in the Caribbean. In this way, the initiative seeks to:
- enhance the capacities of site managers, culture and tourism sector authorities and young cultural professionals and tourism entrepreneurs in developing, managing and promoting sustainable creative tourism;
- provide a platform to exchange experiences and good practices on CCI’s contribution to sustainable tourism development and promotion;
- foster regional integration through increased networking regarding tourism product development and promotion based on CCIs.

Topics and format

The workshops will last four days each and will include keynotes in plenary sessions, thematic panel discussions and breakout group sessions.
These learning sessions will include (but are not limited to) the following subject areas:
- Understanding Creative Tourism
  - Creative tourism as a model of the circular economy.
  - How to create a value chain for the territory/destination from a public-private partnership based in CCIs? − Innovation in cultural and creative tourism destinations.
  - Trends and case studies of creative tourism managed by private and public entities.
  - Visitor management and protection of cultural heritage and cultural and creative expressions.
  - Networking/strategic partnerships.
- Design and production of sustainable tourism products based on CCIs
  - Designing, producing and managing creative tourism experiences.
  - Generating income from creative tourism.
  - Emerging trends of creative tourism experiences.
  - Storytelling.
- Destination and product branding and digital marketing
  - Creative tourism and branding: how to create a creative tourism destination?
  - How to differentiate destinations through creative tourism?
  - Communication tools and marketing strategies adapted to creative tourism.
  - Digital marketing.
Participants will be asked to complete assignments designed to put their learning into practice and gather the necessary information to develop creative tourism proposals for the Caribbean region. While a key focus of the workshops will be on designing and developing participants’ own sustainable tourism products based on CCIs, collective work will also be made to develop new strategies and narratives for tourism at both the destination level and across the entire Caribbean region.

Eligibility Criteria

The call is open to artists and tourism entrepreneurs who are actively operating within a Caribbean tourism destination and running initiatives within any of the Cultural and Creative Industries categories listed below:
- Cultural and natural heritage
  - Museums
  - Historical places
  - Archaeological sites
  - Cultural landscapes
  - Natural heritage
- Performance and celebration
  - Performing arts
  - Live music
  - Dance
  - Festivals
  - Feasts& Fairs
- Visual arts and crafts
  - Fine arts
  - Photography
  - Crafts
- Books and Press
  - Books
  - Newspapers
  - Magazines
  - Libraries
  - Book Fairs
- Audio-visual and interactive media
  - Film
  - TV and radio
  - Streaming
  - Podcasts
  - Videogames
- Design and creative services
  - Architecture
  - Fashion design
  - Graphic design
  - Interior design
  - Advertising
To be eligible for the UNESCO Transcultura Creative Tourism workshops, applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 35 and must be citizens and legal residents of one of the 17 Caribbean countries within the geographical scope of the Transcultura programme: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Women who have launched a creative tourism business are particularly encouraged to apply.