Pilgrimage Creative Tourism: A Gateway to Sustainable Development Goals in Bangladesh

Introduction

The advent of the Creative Era heralds a new paradigm in economic growth, dubbed the “Creative Economy” (Scranton et al., 2021). This economic development approach focuses on knowledge, education, creativity, and intellectual property associated with culture, wisdom, technology, and innovation. As a result of its breadth, this notion is being promoted as a guideline for developing countries that need to establish economic prosperity and security for their people's living conditions (Dias et al., 2021). The Creative Economy movement has also contributed to developing an alternative tourist paradigm. The primary goals of travelers in the first era are leisure and entertainment. Second-generation tourism addresses cultural and environmental implications and community sustainability in tourist hotspots. The third period is characterized by creative tourism, a subset of cultural tourism that emphasizes and encourages active learning about the local arts, culture, and history through firsthand experience (Galvagno & Giaccone, 2019). The global community has recognized the significance of this shift in the tourism paradigm. It has begun employing local knowledge to foster tourism growth within communities through innovative approaches to the industry.

Tourism professionals, business owners, and representatives of local governments and their allied groups would help people educate themselves on the nature and application of local knowledge in creative tourism (Talukder et al., 2024). Those who like the arts and culture will find that creative tourism caters to their interests and needs. Customers or sightseers want to take part in imaginative endeavours themselves. Customers in the market for creative tourism want to “go where the creativity is” and get their hands dirty in making and sharing (Kumar et al., 2024). People are becoming more co-creators, offering information and expertise as experiences develop. In addition to their monetary value, creative tourism experiences can be transformative because of the potential for new ideas, products, and services to emerge through the exchanges, discussions, and collaborations among their participants (Das et al., 2024). A 'creative atmosphere' makes areas desirable not only for the creative class but also for others. Therefore, creative development policies are naturally connected to tourism (Akdemir et al., 2023).

On the other hand, attraction-based methods are linked to gentrification, exclusion, and serial reproduction, all leading to the loss of a place's unique character, initially the goal of these initiatives. This points to the importance of improving the design of inspirational locations to ensure people remain unique and inspiring throughout time. Grass-roots, endogenous processes may be more effective at stimulating sustainable creative development, although top-down planning activities may help steer the design process in the right direction (Zhou et al., 2023; Kumar et al., 2024).