CREATOUR is an incubator/demonstration and multidisciplinary research initiative, supporting collaborative research processes. The three-year project aims to connect the cultural/creative and tourism sectors through the development of an integrated research and application approach to catalyzing creative tourism in small cities and rural areas throughout Portugal.Creative tourism involves active learning experiences enabling self-expression and creative skill development, with a more extensive relationship between tourism and creative industries emerging, and with platforms making the distribution of this content possible. An essential feature in this process is the firm link of creativity to place and its embeddedness in the local milieu, promoting the visitor an immersion experience within the local culture and local institutions and generating economic and social added value to the region.