Creative Tourism is seen as a specific form of cultural tourism that calls for greater involvement and participation of tourists in activities that promote their creative potential, either through experiences of immersion and contact with new realities or through innovative learning. Committed to counteract massification, creative tourism is already recognized by the different ways of producing and consuming tourism experiences, for its ability to attract niche markets and adding value in the territories where it is developed. The specificities of these territories - almost always peripheral, with low population density and presenting some weaknesses resulting from this outlying position - not only offers centrality to sustainability issues, but makes it necessary as well to observe the potential impacts arising from the development of creative tourism experiences. Given the focus on the place, as a source of inspiration, contact and knowledge conducive to tangible and intangible forms of cultural heritage, the main distinguishing feature of creative tourism is the degree of involvement and participation of tourists with place destinations. There the creative tourism initiatives can be seen as opportunities to leverage some economic, social and cultural vitality. Investing on creative tourism as a wide process of co-creation and exchange of cultural and symbolic experiences represents a way of retaining population and revitalize their cultural and social heritage, and to enhance creative milieus and foster organic territorial dynamics, reflecting the “sense of place” and the unique characteristics of local communities. Taking the CREATOUR project as an example for reflection - a national multidisciplinary research project that is being currently developed in four NUTS II Portuguese regions, working simultaneously as an incubator of ideas and actions - this communication will focus on creative tourism as an innovative practice regarding a more sustainable and adapted alternative for low-density territories, presenting some results already achieved.

CREATOUR project, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT/MEC) through national funds and cofunded by FEDER/COMPETE 2020