The creative tourism is a form of cultural tourism – it counts on cultural assets to attract travelers to a destination. It is also a form of creative community’s development – by stimulating the creative industries from outside, the local economy improves beyond the profits from tourism.

To my knowledge, there is not a culture related Saint in any other Christian to be celebrated by both Eastern Orthodox believers, Catholic devotees, and atheists alike for more than 10 centuries and across so many countries. Literacy and culture were so important in Eastern Europe during all these years, that portraits of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Cyrillic alphabet were painted over and over again in churches and cathedrals. Their icons received the same devotion as the ones of St. Mary and St. George, and their life stories were told and retold in numerous books.

32 out of the 50 featured trip are cultural tourism trips. From them, National Geographic Traveler classifies 22 as cultural, the rest are classified as cultural by the tour operator who organizes them. As I underlined, cultural and creative tourism, are recession resistant. In the 2009 edition of “50 Tours of a Lifetime”, National Geographic lists 22 trips. If we apply their criteria, there still be an increase of 100% over the last year.

The ultimate form of cultural tourism – experiencing the creation of cultural values in the creative tourism – continues to be a big trend in destination marketing. The focus is on local arts, crafts, gastronomy, wine culture, and everything that a place can offer. Combined with the brand war between similar places to show their uniqueness, the main element of the tourism product for creative tourism is the local focus.

Is this the right approach? Yes and no.

Tour operators and travel agencies offering classical cultural tourism destinations will suffer from the introduction of this device. While the iPhone is a locked device, without the ability to connect when you are abroad, unless you spend a fortune roaming, iPad will come in the end of this month with global GPS and an unlocked SIM card, making it the first global media distribution Wi-FI and 3G device. That means that information will reach the iPad user around the world, making dynamic packaging a breeze.