Review of European Studies; Vol. 13, No.4; 2021 ISSN 1918-7173 E-ISSN 1918-7181 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 7 Visitors and Residents in El Raval Neighborhood of Barcelona. New Opportunities for Creative Tourism? Francesc Romagosa 1 , Maria Abril-Sellarés 1 , Kathleen Scherf 2 1 School of Tourism and Hotel Management, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain 2 Thompson Rivers University, Canada Correspondence: Francesc Romagosa, School of Tourism and Hotel Management, Autonomous University of Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain. E-mail: francesc.Romagosa@uab.cat Received: September 20, 2021 Accepted: November 8, 2021 Online Published: November 15, 2021 doi:10.5539/res.v13n4p7 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/res.v13n4p7 Abstract This article analyzes the relationship between creative tourism and intercultural interaction. The research took place in Barcelona, a city that has become, during the last three decades (1990-2020), a renowned international urban destination. El Raval, a central and multicultural neighbourhood, is the most serious example of a neighbourhood in the city that has experienced rapid tourism growth and pressure. Given the city’s wholesale adoption of the co-creation of place, some of the criteria of creative tourism experiences have been used to determine a baseline of engagement attitudes and behaviours of residents and visitors in El Raval neighbourhood. A special emphasis has been given to the role of social media, and how it might affect the relationship between residents and visitors from a creative tourism point of view. The authors created a specific survey which was distributed online to residents and visitors. The results of this study show different perceptions between residents and visitors. On one hand, residents are less willing to engage in the creative tourism enterprise than are visitors. On the other hand, residents underestimate the interest of visitors in connecting with them, while visitors overestimate the interest of residents in connecting with them, suggesting that communication is something that can be improved. Those results make evident the need to use and develop social media tools to connect residents and visitors, and promote cross-cultural interactions and creative tourism. Keywords: creative tourism, social media, engagement of visitors and residents, El Raval neighbourhood, Barcelona 1. Introduction El Raval is a neighborhood located in the historical center (Ciutat Vella or Old Town district) of the city of Barcelona (see Figure 1), at the west side of La Rambla, one of the most famous and visited avenues of the city. According to the official statistics, its small footprint of 1.1 km² housed 48,297 inhabitants in 2019 (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2020). El Raval shows the highest population density of the city, the average of which is three times lower (15,000 inhabitants per km²). In fact, El Raval is considered one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world (GeographyFieldwork, 2020). 48.1% of its current population was born in Barcelona or in the rest of Spain, with 51.9% born in the rest of the world (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2020). Ethnicities with over 1,000 inhabitants are: Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Morocco, Italy, and India. The other nationalities are mainly Latin American and European. From a geographical perspective, people who come from Europe represent 61.8% of the inhabitants in El Raval; 28.6% originate from Asia, 5.7% from America, and 3.7% from Africa.