Creative industries and tourism. A framework to measure creative capital and tourism competitiveness of a destination.

The purpose of this thesis is to create a novel framework to assess how cultural and creative industries, tourism, and sustainability interact with each other in urban settings. Specifically, it aims to complement the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor by incorporating additional tourism and sustainability indicators, offering a more holistic view on urban destinations’ competitiveness. To achieve this goal, the study adopts a multi-indicator approach, drawing from established frameworks to examine creative, tourism and sustainability performance of twenty European cities. Then, it ranks the cities based on these dimensions to provide comparative insights on their strengths and weaknesses. The methodology is enriched with correlation analyses between indicators to measure the robustness and internal consistency of the new index. The findings reveal that combining cultural and creative industries with tourism enhances both urban sustainability and global competitiveness, providing cities with a strategic advantage over competing destinations. The rankings resulting from the analysis show how cities that skillfully integrate their creative assets with tourism resources and sustainable development principles tend to create more resilient, urban environments that appeal to both residents and visitors. The study also identifies several success factors, such as effective resource management, transparent governance, and the strategic use of unique cultural and creative assets to cultivate distinct destination brands. Last but not least, the index developed in this thesis can serve as a tool for cities to benchmark their performance, offering valuable insights for policymakers aiming to drive sustainable urban growth. The novelty of the thesis lies in the significant expansion of the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor aimed at capturing not only the creative capital but also the tourism sector and sustainable foundations of a destination, two areas that are currently overlooked by the Monitor. By bridging these fields, the research therefore proposes a holistic tool to measure the competitiveness of creative cities and guide sustainable urban growth.