Creative and relational tourism in Barcelona Greg Richards Paper presented at the ATLAS Cultural Tourism Group Expert Meeting on Alternative and Creative Tourism, Barcelona, June 2013. Abstract Barcelona presents an ideal-typical case of the development of creative tourism. The city has become a leading player in creative tourism development for a number of reasons, including:  the current model of mass tourism development has begun to falter, stimulating a search for alternative models that articulate with everyday life and local creativity  the relatively closed nature of the cultural sector in the city has positioned creative tourism as a potential avenue for networking and knowledge exchange  Frequent repeat visits have stimulated tourists to seek out new areas of the city and new ways of experiencing the city. This has also been a source of contact between locals and tourists, which has been an important factor in introducing local creativity to visitors. This paper analyses the development of cultural and creative tourism in Barcelona, particularly emphasising the crisis caused by the success of the original cultural tourism model. The emergence of creative tourism is analysed as a movement stimulated by, and positioned in opposition to, the traditional tourism model and established tourism regime. The development of cultural and creative tourism over time has not only extended the ƌeaĐh of tourism into new areas of the city, but has also created new relationships between locals and visitors. This evolution can been seen as a shift from experience based models of tourism, which Onni (2012) characterises as being non-relational and temporally limited, to relational modes of creative tourism, which are based on informal networks, weak ties and shared interests. The paper also considers the further implications of the emergence of alternative informal circuits of tourism in the city, especially as these imply different concepts of value, and the development of relational capital in addition to or in place of economic capital. Introduction Alternative tourism by definition has to be alternative to something else. In most conceptions this is ĐoŶǀeŶtioŶal touƌisŵ oƌ ŵass touƌisŵ. Of Đouƌse, oǀeƌ tiŵe, the ďouŶdaƌies ďetǁeeŶ ǁhat ŵight ďe ƌegaƌded as ŵaiŶstƌeaŵ aŶd alteƌŶatiǀe touƌisŵ haǀe shifted. IŶ the ϭϵϵϬs, foƌ edžaŵple, Đultuƌal touƌisŵ eŵeƌged as a ŶiĐhe ǁhiĐh offeƌed alternatives to the mainstream products in European tourism, predominantly beach-based mass tourism (Richards, 1996). As cultural tourism developed, however, it in turn became a form of mass tourism, practiced by some 350 million