The role of creative tourism through arts and crafts in promoting inclusive tourism in Zimbabwe

With emerging forms of tourism, creative tourism has brought a shift in the tourism industry. Creative tourism is not fully embraced and there is paucity of studies on the new type of tourism in the developing world. The focus of this article is arts and crafts as a form of creative tourism and its role in promoting inclusive tourism from a community-based type of inclusive tourism. Using qualitative approaches in Zimbabwe cities, the study examines the role of creative tourism through visual arts and crafts in promoting inclusive tourism. The key findings of the study indicated that when managed well, visual arts and crafts have great potential in promoting inclusive tourism through the reduction of poverty and improvement of the livelihoods of the marginalised communities. However, artists encounter challenges in the production of arts and crafts that include lack of capital, lack of production space, lack of marketing, rivalry products from other countries, and lack of support from the government and local tourism organisations. Despite the challenges faced, artists appeal for strategies in financing and marketing, fair competition and relaxed government policies.