Abstract:

Creativity, personal responsibility, and critical thinking are extremely valuable skills for tourism professionals, especially in an environment increasingly punctuated by the need for differentiation and innovation. To promote the development of these skills, Higher Education Institutions (HEI), have been promoting the adoption of teaching and learning methodologies that challenge students to get out of their comfort zone, making them feel more engaged and able to personalize their own learning process, whilst developing the skills most valued by the market.

At the same time, tourist destinations and their communities are increasingly striving to attain competitive advantages that can only be achieved through their capability to preserve and value their cultural capital, especially regarding their most distinctive heritage resources. This implies the development of tourist products and services that not only meet the changing needs of tourists, but that also capitalise and uphold local traditions.

Thus, pedagogical approaches based on collaborative projects which involve local communities can enhance students’ skills as they engage with other actors and experiment novel perspectives, while also make it possible to respond to destinations and local communities’ challenges regarding the creative design of meaningful and authentic touristic experiences.

The aim of this paper is to describe the ideation, development, implementation, and evaluation of the interdisciplinary project C.R.E.A.T.E. project – Creating Responsible Events and Animation through Art and Community Engagement – which was developed in the context of Tourism Higher Education (THE), involving students attending the second year of a Tourist Activities Management program in Portugal (School of Hospitality and Tourism, Polytechnic of Porto – ESHT-IPP).

Drawing on a set of theories and pedagogical approaches, from experiential learning (EL) to education for sustainability (EfS), the project aimed at developing the students’ competences regarding the design of tourist events and animation programmes highly supported by the local heritage and whose development comprised the active involvement of the local community.

Despite its experiential and exploratory nature, the project is considered as innovative in the Tourism Higher Education field and the results, mostly positive, point to the possibility of replicating and broadening the scope of the Project’s intervention, while contributing to enriching the students’ educational path and strengthening the link between Academia and the local community.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinarity, Experiential learning, Collaborative learning, Tourism higher education, Arts-based community engagement, Events Tourism.