Two Vancouver Island University (VIU) researchers are leading a study into the role the cultural sector and creative tourism play in the sustainability of smaller, rural cities and towns in northern British Columbia and the Yukon.
Dr. Patrick Brouder and Dr. Suzanne de la Barre, VIU Recreation and Tourism Management professor have received a $65,000 grant for their project “Creative Economies: exploring the nexus of culture and tourism in rural and peripheral Canada.”
Brouder and de la Barre’s two-year project looks at how the growing creative tourism sector in northwestern Canada is embedded in new economic development and how communities respond to the growing opportunities of tourism in novel and often unexpected ways.
Using Whitehorse, YT, as one case study and Prince Rupert and Terrace B.C. as the other, the project will explore challenges related to measuring the cultural industries in outlying areas.
Photo provided by: Vancouver Island University
