Emotional Experiences Through the Eyes of Culture and Creativity, a New Paradigm for Urban Tourism?

Abstract

Emotions play an important role in today’s tourism practice. In order to understand how emotional experiences are created, we first must consider that emotions are subjective and subliminal constructs. These are conditioned by individual personality and influenced by social, cultural and spatial contexts. The aim of this research is to identify tourists’ emotional experiences in European Capitals of Culture (ECoCs), to explain disparities and to suggest ways of action in tourism practice. For this study, we combine quantitative and qualitative methods, using an extended statistical and text database, as well as official documents on each ECoC. The results of this study show how the cultural agenda of ECoCs stimulates and influences specific feelings and emotions among tourists. Emotional dimensions were also correlated with cultural vibrancy, creative economy and enabling environment, and this paper discusses these statistical results. The majority of the documents regarding the cultural programmes of ECoCs illustrated and emphasised emotional experiences, either by focusing on the emotional characteristics of the ECoC or by trying to create and produce emotional experiences. On the basis of our findings, we draw conclusions on the conceptual and methodological relevance of our main hypothesis, stating that cultural programmes of ECoCs influence tourists’ experiences.

1. Introduction

Given the growing interest in studying emotions and emotional experiences and the need to understand how different social, cultural and even economic factors contribute to the construct of emotions and feelings, we aim to discuss how different European tourist destinations offer various emotional experiences, taking into consideration cultural and creative programmes that take place during the European Capital of Culture year.

It has already been argued that tourism studies should pay more attention to the “politics of feelings” [1], as places described through intangible elements, such as emotions, have a deeper meaning for tourists. As a starting point, this study covers a new topic in the literature and addresses, through a complementary approach, the problem of tourists’ emotional experiences, as well as the issue of measuring the impact of cultural programmes in European urban areas. Moreover, it links tourists’ emotions from the year these urban destinations are considered to be the most dynamic—the year of ECoC—to the diverse approaches to culture across Europe.

The purpose of this article is, therefore, to argue and to discuss an emotion-focused approach in European Capitals of Culture, in order to answer to the following key questions: how and to what extent do the cultural agenda, cultural resources and events related to culture and creativity of an ECoC influence tourists’ emotions, contributing to the construction of emotional experiences? Subsidiarily, we also aim to answer the following question: if these ECoC destinations fuel tourists’ experiences, how can local authorities and stakeholders benefit from exploring these emotional experiences?

In geographical discourse, the emotional dimension was introduced with the development of behavioural geography [2,3] and confirmed by Tuan’s theory [4] that the place is a space with a certain significance. Therefore, there is more to a place than the tangible matter. The idea that “senses mediate individuals’ encounters with places” [5] was first conceptualised under the term of “sensescape” [6]. Emotional geography tries to “understand emotions” [7], taking into consideration experiential, conceptual and socio-spatial perspectives.

A considerable body of evidence has been accumulated regarding the importance of emotional experiences in tourism, as emotions have received extended recognition regarding tourism and marketing [8]. For example, concepts of “touristic image” and “emotional experiences” are both partially interconnected subjective concepts, which depend on personal perceptions. Touristic image is a more comprehensive concept that includes the emotional dimension. Touristic image has been defined as the “individual’s mental representation of knowledge, feelings, and global impressions about a destination” [9] or “the totality of impressions, beliefs, ideas, expectations, and feeling accumulated towards a place over time” [10], while emotional experiences arise at the intersection of psychological and cognitive interpretations [11]. Emotional experiences are rather individual and are experienced in the place visited. They may or may not coincide with the initial tourist image, they may deny it, reinforce it or modify it, depending on the unique context of the current experience. As emotions are viewed as the nuclei of tourism motivation [12,13,14,15], emotions have the ability to determine tourists’ behaviour and tourist satisfaction [16,17].

In order to not limit our research to only consacrated tourist destinations, the study focuses on European Capitals of Culture (ECoCs). Studies on ECoCs have pointed out that the aims are to highlight cultural diversity, to promote urban regeneration and social transformation, to develop the local economy and to encourage cultural life [18,19,20,21]. Other research [22] points out that ECoCs are considered strong initiatives of “culture-led urban contexts” (p. 170) and “creative cities”, despite the strong debate on the role of culture in such cities and on classifying creative cities [23,24,25,26] and the role of creativity regarding urban policies [27]. The presence of a creative class is also linked to more dynamic cities [28,29], while other studies [20] further connect such contexts to ECoCs.

However, we observe that the multiple roles of ECoCs, which are mentioned above, are common to how the concept of creative cities is described, through “the willingness of cities to engage, at different levels and with different modalities, with their cultural resources and creative endeavors with a view to sustain socioeconomic health” [22]. As a result, we consider ECoCs an engine of culture and creativity that proactively encourage cultural set-ups for both residents and tourists, contributing not only to local and regional development [21,30] but also to increasing the touristic profile of the ECoC [20].

While studies mainly focus on ECoCs from an economic [31,32,33,34], social and community-oriented [35,36,37,38] or touristic point of view [31,39], there is a gap in the literature addressing an emotion-focused perspective on ECoCs. This research explores tourists’ emotions in cultural tourist destinations, labelled with the title of ECoC. Furthermore, we discuss ECoCs’ narratives on emotional engagement of what is expected of the cultural programme. Recent research has shown how important multisensorial experiences are, including emotional, when developing tourism [27] and in terms of tourism design [5,40,41].

The four generations of ECoCs, identified by [42,43], have different characteristics and approaches. From the first generation, which included popular major destinations of Europe (such as Athens, Paris and Madrid), to the third generation (2005–2019) and the fourth generation (2020–2033), there has been a change of paradigm, from focusing on quantitative short-term impacts to qualitative and long-term effects (cultural, social and economic development of the ECoC) [21]. Starting from 2014, for example, ECoCs are part of the “Creative Europe” Programme, highlighting how important the cultural–creative sector for urban regeneration and sustainability is [25,44,45,46,47].

We aim to answer the following research questions: How do cultural agendas of ECoCs transform the experience for tourist? What types of emotional experiences are created during an ECoC? How do they affect people’s perspectives on the city? Last but not least, how do people feel when they experience culture?

2. Materials and Methods

In complementarity to previous research, we aim to analyse patterns and tendencies of emotional experiences and how they are anchored in space in relation to cultural programmes and agendas from European Capitals of Culture. In approaching our goal, we consider a principal hypothesis (H0), stating that despite the dynamic and subjective nature of emotions, cultural programmes of ECoCs influence tourists’ emotional experiences. Derived from this, two other in-detail hypotheses are discussed:

H1. 

European Capitals of Culture, within a well-designed cultural environment, create a perceived sense of cultural enrichment for tourists and, through this, influence their emotional engagement to the destination.

H2. 

The European Capitals of Culture, which perform better in terms of cultural vibrancy, creative economy and enabling environment (based on CCCM), show stronger correlations to positive emotional spectra.

If we consider that emotions are anchored in space [48] and are the products of socio-constructivist approaches [49], our research offers a complex approach to studying emotions from a triple point of view. First, we link the reviews made by tourists during the ECoC year, for all ECoCs considered, to emotional dimensions. We offer examples of tourists’ narratives to highlight the individualities and identities of the destinations, as well as feelings, emotions and their intersection with culture. Secondly, we use the latest data provided by the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM), expressed through cultural vibrancy, creative economy and enabling environment, in order to correlate these three indicators with emotional experiences. Last but not at least, we analyse the monitoring and evaluating reports, as well as the Bidbooks of the ECoCs, in order to gain a deeper significance and understanding of how the cultural programme is linked to emotions.

This study focuses on ECoCs, starting in 2014, as that year forward, the ECoC cities (

Table 1. Quantitative aspects of the database for the considered ECoCs.

ECoC Year	ECoC Destinations	Number of Tourists’ Reviews	Number of Emotional Terms	Frequency of Emotional Terms
2014	Riga	1329	965	72.61
2015	Mons	129	62	48.06
	Pilsen	264	173	65.53
2016	San Sebastian	2344	2504	106.82
	Wroclaw	2073	1707	82.34
2017	Aarhus	689	616	89.4
	Paphos	6974	6506	93.28
2018	Valletta	5847	3830	65.50
2019	Matera	406	299	73.64
	Plovdiv	431	381	88.39
2020/2021	Galway	568	591	104.04

) have been included in the “Creative Europe” Programme, highlighting cultural diversity and the development of cultural–creative activities. As a consequence, this paper aims to offer, through quantitative and qualitative approaches, a broader picture of how concepts such as cultural programmes, emotions and tourism are connected.

In total, 162.622 English reviews were extracted from the platform TripAdvisor. Out of this set of text-data, we filtered the reviews by date, using only the reviews from the ECoC year (21.054 reviews). The quantitative approach also used the data provided by CCCM for the year 2019 through three indicators: cultural vibrancy, creative economy and enabling environment. Moreover, the qualitative method used the Bidbooks, as well as monitoring and evaluation reports of the ECoCs (2014–2022).

In order to analyse our three complementary approaches to studying tourists’ emotions in ECoCs, we used both quantitative and qualitative data. The first set of data was acquired through sample text extraction and analysis, extracting a wide number of tourists’ reviews from TripAdvisor (using the software WebHarvy 6.2.0.184) for all ECoCs.

Further, we filtered the text database by date, as it was important we analyse only the tourists’ reviews for the ECoC year. Several ECoCs did not meet the criteria we introduced in order to make sure that the sampling was statistically significant and homogeneous. ECoCs Umea (2014), Leeuwarden (2018), Rijeka (2020/2021), Kaunas (2022), Novi Sad (2022) and Esch-sur-Alzette (2022) were excluded from this analysis, as for these destinations, we could not extract a total number of 100 written tourists’ reviews from at least two tourist attractions from the ECoC year. However, even though we did not take into consideration these ECoCs in our quantitative approach, we analysed them from a qualitative approach.

The text-data (Table 1) were quantified by identifying emotion terms using the Destination Emotional Scale (DES) [17] and updated by [50]. In a general manner, the scale measures emotional responses to travel destinations and includes four main emotional dimensions: joy, love, positive surprise and negative emotions. The dimensions were adapted from Plutchik’s wheel of emotions [50], incorporating primary emotions, which, combined, create more complex emotional states (

Table 2. Adapted DES and mentioned emotion terms.

Joy	Love	Positive Surprise	Negative Emotions
Joy, Happiness	Sensibilitiy	Fascination	Regret
Amusement, Fun	Love	Impression	Unhappiness
Nice	Simpathy	Inspiration	Disappointment
Pleasure	Attraction	Surprise	Unpleasantness
Satisfaction	Adoration	Wonderful
Delight	Affection	Imposing
Relax		Admiration
Blessing
Enthusiasm, Excitement

(Source: [17], with modifications).

). Joy is associated with positive outcomes and perspectives [17], an intrinsic component of peak experiences [51] and a key determinant of satisfaction for tourists’ experiences. Love includes feeling of attachment and affection towards destinations and experiences [17], as tourists develop emotional bonds or meaningful personal connections with places. The third dimension, positive surprise, has rather neutral valence emotions and is created through an unexpected occurrence [52]. The last dimension, negative emotions, incorporates feelings of disappointment, unhappiness, regret or discomfort towards the destinations [17].

For every ECoC, we built an extended database, which includes, for this study, the number of emotion terms out of all tourists’ reviews from the ECoC year, classified per destination and per tourist attraction. To filter the emotion terms from our tool (adapted DES), we first used bulk filtering (through automation) to extract all reviews with any emotion term mentioned (quantitative method). After that, we manually reviewed all data and added every mention to one category of emotions. In complementarity to this statistical approach, we added tourists’ narratives, which show how emotions were experienced during the ECoC year (qualitative method).

Our second approach links tourists’ emotions to the data from the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM), which follows three indicators: cultural vitality, creative economy and enabling environment [22]. Each of these three concepts offer a wider framework of how to measure culture and creativity in cities. For instance, the cultural vitality sub-index explores, on the one hand, cultural infrastructure and, on the other hand, the ability of a city to attract visitors and local cultural participations. The second sub-index, creative economy, assesses creative and knowledge-based jobs, as well as new jobs in the creative sector, also considering intellectual property and innovation. Lastly, enabling environment provides insights into human capital and individuals’ openness, tolerance and trust, focusing, at the same time, on connections and aspects of governance [53]. As the latest data set was acquired in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, we will first analyse the data for all ECoCs, further focusing on two study cases, Matera and Plovdiv, the ECoCs of the year 2019. Taking this into consideration, how are emotions linked, therefore, to the cultural–creative destinations? And more importantly, what kind of emotions do tourists experience when visiting historical symbols of culture in Europe, which also include modern, new, nonconservative forms of art and culture?

To gain an understanding of how cultural programming and design took into consideration visitors’ experiences in ECoCs, we used document analysis as part of the methodology. The results have been interpreted in the specific context of each ECoC by following the Bidbooks, monitoring and final reports of each ECoC. After finding, selecting and synthetising these documents, we organised the data into major categories and case examples through content analysis [54]: themes and subthemes connected to creating emotional engagement, use of symbols associated with personal and deep significances, types of events and programmes and their intersection to emotional meanings and changes in urban typologies, leading to mixed feelings, opinions and perspectives.

In total, 17 ECoCs were considered in this method (the 11 ECoCs that were also discussed from the quantitative point of view and the other 6 ECoCs that did not meet the quantitative criteria).

The touristic phenomena, as well as cultural and creative events, have been strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic [55,56]. Therefore, as the statistical data sets also take into consideration acquired tourist reviews from 2020 to 2022 and the last report of the Cultural and Creative Monitor, the results will be interpreted, taking into consideration the context. The study is also limited by the fact that some ECoCs were excluded from the analysis due to the lack of tourists’ reviews to be considered. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that we only analysed the written reviews from TripAdvisor, and we point out the fact that this does not completely reflect all tourists’ experiences. Even though many tourists may not write a review after visiting, the literature suggests that TripAdvisor is considered a reliable source of user-generated content [57].

3. Results

3.1. ECoCs and Disparties of Emotional Dimensions

All ECoCs were considered for the analysis of the emotional dimensions according to the established methodology. The spatial distribution of each emotional dimension, regarding the number of emotions experienced by the tourists (Figure 1), highlights that the most frequent emotional dimension is joy, with the notable exception of Matera (ECoC 2019). In line with other research [58], tourists mostly describe their experiences in terms of positive feelings rather than negative.

Another aspect shows that for San Sebastian (ECoC 2016), there are more mentioned emotions than the number of tourists’ reviews, meaning that San Sebastian, among the other ECoCs for the considered time period, was a more emotionally vibrant destination. The cultural programme of San Sebastian was described by the Panel of the European Commission as bold and courageous, integrating sensitive and profound themes such as human rights, personal introspection and tolerance among cultural and linguistic minorities. Therefore, according to the Bidbook of San Sebastian, the cultural and creative operators were encouraged to deliver events, which are personally addressed to the participants, through intimate and sensitive ideas. This could have led to a more emotional experience among all participants, including tourists.

On the other hand, Matera (ECoC 2019) is considered a typical cultural destination. The use of symbols and deeper significances was an important part of the cultural programme, addressing contemporary problems without neglecting the past. The third analysed emotional dimension, positive surprise, which includes various emotions such as fascination, inspiration, amazement and admiration, is more frequent in Matera compared to other ECoCs. Matera, as an ECoC, encouraged unusual, liminal and transformative experiences, such as “darkness, silence, solitude and isolation”, exploring the connection between nature, landscape and participants [59].

The ECoCs considered in this research can be clustered to better emphasise European diversity and cultural similarities or differences, based on [20]. The first cluster includes Galway, Riga and Wroclaw as “fully-fledged centre, greater metropoles of the country, which fulfill all the important functions: economic, social, administrative, educational and cultural; no city attribute is neglected”. Social and community connection, as well as the interaction with locals and active participation in cultural manifestations, led to emotional experiences: “a great experience and full of culture. There is something for everyone along it”, “we’ve learned so many things about Irish traditions, culture, history” and “Wroclaw is the European City of Culture 2016, well worth a visit with its beautiful city squares! Around every corner is another surprise, it is enchanting”.

Another cluster, including smaller cities with historical pasts located slightly off the beaten track, includes Pilsen, San Sebastian, Matera, Valletta and Paphos. Tourists’ openness to discovering the historical pasts and identities of these destinations by visiting historical attractions for tourists enhances their cultural immersion and encourages personal reflection on unfamiliar heritage-related settings: “We were pleasantly surprised how entertaining and how informative it was too, covering several hundred years of history and the kids also found all the artefacts really fascinating”, “Although we had researched the culture before coming here, this museum really gave us the reality of the history and the reasons why these people are so different from the Spanish and the French populations …”, “Visiting The Sassi of Matera on our trip to Puglia last summer was an unforgettable and fascinating experience. We had no ‘pre-conceptions’ of Matera and the Sassi and were previously unaware of it. Were we in for an eye and mind opener! The ancient cave dwellings, some still in use, more that were lived in until recent years, were mind boggling and such a treat and curiosity […] I would like to go back again and spend more time immersing myself into the ancient”, “Brilliant place to get to grips with the whole of Maltese history from pre-history to present day … There was something for everyone and the kids really engaged with it” and “I think anyone who comes to this place will take away a fantastic memory of the beautiful mosaics. That they have survived the centuries is quite something special in itself but also you think of the stories they tell and the beauty of the geometric patterns. You walk around the place and can imagine the life lived there thousands of years ago”.

The third cluster includes only Aarhus, as a second-tier regional centre, which is closer to the European periphery than its core but an important cultural and economic centre. The same pattern of engaging tourists and provoking them to feel a sense of culture is repeated in their stories: “it is a great place for families with kids which would like to have a chance to (literally) interact with a modern culture”, “A little safe haven of culture”, “This is a great place to get a sense of the outward-looking, forward-looking image Aarhus wants to project this year as European City of Culture 2017” and “The No Man is an Island exhibition presents works from the permanent collection and loaned pieces that look at how art allows people to overcome social and political divides. It is shocking and moving at the same time”.

With a similar perspective, but located in the eastern part of Europe, is the case of Plovdiv, part of another cluster that includes cities of high European cultural importance with attractive monuments that are popular with tourists and students. With a more collective approach to culture [60,61] than other western ECoCs, focusing on social problems and citizen-led initiatives, Plovdiv was perceived by tourists as an ECoC deserving this title: “If you are interested in history, tradition and culture this is a ‘must’ destination for you”, “We have enjoyed several different programs there recently”, “it was a look into the culture of Bulgaria” and “It’s EU Capital of culture and deservedly so. Lots to see. Lots to do. Immersive experience”.

Finally, Leeuwarden and Mons are both included in the same cluster of smaller cultural centres but are widely visited by tourists. As ECoCs, they have benefited from tangible investments in museums, art galleries and public spaces, creating experiences for their visitors: “… to see from Frisian culture [in Leeuwarden]. We went specifically for the Viking Exhibit which was very interesting and we learned a lot!” and “it’s really worth the visit. This brand new museum, opened during the celebration of Mons as European Capital of Culture 2015, is brilliant. Excellent permanent exhibitions in French, Dutch and English about the First and Second World Wars, including a video about the ‘Angels of Mons’. Wish we’d had more time as it was all very absorbing”.

To this point, we note that H1 is verified as tourists, when visiting attractions from ECoCs, evoke different types of experiences. They become interested in local culture, and they experience local history and authenticity, which leads to creating emotional narratives described through emotional dimensions.

3.2. Emotions and Cultural Vibrancy, Creative Economy and Enabling Environment

3.2.1. Cultural and Creative Vitality of European Capitals of Culture

ECoC programmes aim to promote European heritage, first, through the great diversity of histories and cultures across the continent, and secondly, in order to highlight the common heritage that brings together Europe [18]. ECoCs are cities that encourage people to interact and establish new connections [20], promoting interdependence and cooperation between the institutions of the city and other stakeholders [59]. Therefore, the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM) argues that three indicators, cultural vibrancy, creative economy and enabling environment, may reflect various impacts of ECoC programmes from an economic, social and cultural perspective.

First, we will consider all ECoCs from 2014 to 2022 (with the exceptions of Paphos and Novi Sad, ECoCs for which CCCM did not gather data and with exceptions of Umea and Esch-sur-Alzette, ECoCs for which there were no significant data to explore tourists’ reviews) as part of a more general approach.

As the data provided by CCCM show, there are significant differences between the selected ECoCs. This can be explained when we take into consideration the typology and identity of each urban space in correlation with the literature. For example, for “cultural vibrancy”, [22] suggests that capital cities and metropolitan areas of multi-polar countries generally score higher. Our results (Figure 2 and Figure 3) show that, indeed, urban areas such as Galway, Matera, San Sebastian or Mons are better classified when it comes to the tangible (cultural heritage) and intangible elements (experiences) of cultural vitality, all being part of multi-polar countries. However, Riga, ECoC 2014, contradicts this study, as even if it is the only capital city included in this research, it has not highlighted an above medium score for cultural vitality. We also considered the Pearson correlation between “cultural vibrancy” and all emotional dimensions from tourists’ reviews (not only for the ECoC year but for an extended time frame of 2014–2022), and we found that the stronger correlation connects cultural vibrancy and emotions of positive surprise, reflecting the fact that tourists’ cultural experiences enhance feelings such as “fascination”, “inspiration” and “surprise”.

In terms of “creative economy”, the literature [22] suggests that capital cities often show better rankings than other urban environments. This idea is strengthened by our results (Figure 4 and Figure 5) also, with the score of Riga being higher in comparison to other cities. However, we add that other cities, such as Wroclaw or Kaunas, also have great visibility. While Wroclaw fulfils economic, social, administrative, educational and cultural functions [20], being the fourth biggest city of Poland, with a historical reputation of a “liberal city”, having been the stronghold of the opposition of the communist regime after the Second World War [62], the case of Kaunas, a smaller city and one that was considered “neglected” and “inferior” [63], is somehow unique. It is also suggested [64] that smaller cities perform better if they are linked to networks of other metropolitan areas, and this may explain the case of Kaunas, whose Bidbook and monitoring evaluation reports of the ECoC programmes suggested the importance of cooperation of the city. Recently, it has also been argued that smaller cities tend to engage and mobilise their citizens more in their culture-led projects [65]. However, as expected, for this indicator, Pearson correlations showed no statistically significant results between creative economy and emotional dimensions, as both concepts have little in common.

The only indicator whose high values are not directly linked to capital cities [22] is “enabling environment”. Better scoring ECoCs are Galway and Aarhus (Figure 6 and Figure 7), both important regional and economic centres and closer to Europe’s periphery than its core. Other ECoCs, such as Matera, Plovdiv or Pilsen, are smaller attractive cultural centres, despite the rich historical heritage, and are, in general, attractive to tourists [20]. Pearson correlation showed better links between this indicator and the emotional dimensions of joy and negative emotions. Feelings of “joy” reflect experiences of “relaxation”, “happiness” and “amusement”, and in terms of cultural programmes, especially in small cities, which scored better regarding “enabling environment”, residents and volunteers are strongly involved, and great levels of trust are highlighted due to a stronger sense of community.

Our second hypothesis is partially verified. We assumed that the better cities rank in cultural vibrancy, creative economy and enabling environment, the stronger the correlation is to positive emotional dimensions. However, this could only be verified when linking cultural vibrancy to love and positive surprise and enabling environment to joy and positive surprise.

3.2.2. Focus on the ECoCs of 2019

Matera and Plovdiv were the ECoCs of 2019 and showed different approaches of cultural programmes. Situated in southern Italy, in the Basilicata region, Matera is known for its ancient part—Sassi—which includes a complex of settlements and caves from the Palaeolithic times. By showing “significants stages of history” [43], it is part of the UNESCO heritage. However, the story of Matera is an example of urban rebirth. The Bidbook thoroughly describes the same tale a tourist evokes: “[…] An amazing history and deeply affecting to learn about how the people of Sassi lived for so many hundreds of years, and how in the 1950’s Italy’s government finally responded to what was once known as the shame of Italy. And now it is a UNESCO site, European City of Culture and has the most fantastically warm, generous people. There is much to see in Matera even without the culture programme. So much history and beauty. Look forward to returning […] in this beautiful, amazing, historical, enchanting, emotion-provoking town. There definitely aren’t enough positive adjectives to describe the Sassi di Matera […]”. This transition was also captured by the slogan of ECoC Matera, “Open Future”, as an opportunity to change and to highlight accessibility for all communities, freely and unconditioned [43]. Plovdiv, the second-biggest city in Bulgaria, is a settlement in which Persians, Greeks, Celts, Romans, Bulgarians and Turks left their print on the city [66]. It is naturally divided by the Marița River and encompasses more than 200 archaeological sites, showing, at the same time, religious multiculturality. As an ECoC, the slogan of Plovdiv was “Together” and proudly displays the idea of multiple communities living and thriving together: “A great place to visit and learn about history, not only of Bulgaria but of Europe too”, “… with so much of an old time spirit” and “a unique opportunity to see and feel history spanning over many centuries and cultures”.

The last CCCM provides the latest data for the year 2019, and for a more accurate interpretation, we will further focus our analysis on the two ECoCs of 2019, namely Matera and Plovdiv, as a starting point to establish whether the three indicators influence the emotional experience during the ECoC year.

The first considered filter is cultural vibrancy. As stated in the conceptual framework of the CCCM, cultural vibrancy, or cultural vitality, gathers more tangible elements, such as cultural venues and facilities and cultural participation and attractiveness. Culture can be seen as the main engine of urban cultural tourist destinations, and therefore, it comes as no surprise that tourist experiences are deeply influenced by cultural events and activities.

While Matera ranks better than Plovdiv regarding cultural vibrancy, we observe some differences when comparing the individualities and the valences of emotional experiences. When comparing the cultural programme and the legacy of it, we point out some aspects. Firstly, Matera was a more widely known as a cultural destination than Plovdiv: according to statistical data, in the year before ECoC (2018), Matera was visited by more than 600.000 tourists, while Plovdiv attracted not more than 280.000 tourists, and the ratio between the number of residents and number of tourists (R) in the year before ECoC (in 2018) was almost ten times bigger for Matera than Plovdiv (Matera: R = 10.16; Plovdiv: R = 0.80).

Secondly, as the methodology uses text-data extracted from tourists’ reviews per tourists’ attractions, we highlight that the number of tourists’ attractions is significantly bigger in Matera (17 tourist attractions) than in Plovdiv (6 tourist attractions). While the touristic patrimony of Matera focuses on the old town (Sassi di Matera), rupestrian churches and museums (sculpture museum, archaeology museum), Plovdiv’s most visited attractions highlight the Roman legacy (Roman Amphitheatre and Forum), multiculturality (ethnographic museum, old town) and socialist influence (Alyosha Monument).

In terms of cultural programme, Plovdiv’s programme was criticised by the Evaluation Panel of the European Commission [67] and described as “hard to understand” and not accessible to the public, leading to difficulties in communication and public relations. On the other hand, Matera had a more diverse cultural programme, introducing sensitive themes with a strong European dimension, where almost half of the cultural actors were not residents of the area. As a result, it comes as no surprise that Matera is better ranked in terms of cultural vibrancy compared to Plovdiv. Out of all tourists’ reviews, the frequency of mentioning emotions was higher in Plovdiv than Matera. However, the third dimension, positive surprise, which includes stronger, more personal and intense emotions than the others, is better described in Matera, meaning that cultural vibrancy is better linked to this dimension, to more intimate feelings (inspiration, fascination) than, for example, the most frequent dimension, joy, which includes fewer personal feelings (joy, relax, amusement).

The second indicator, creative economy, takes into consideration creative and knowledge-based jobs, intellectual property and innovation and new jobs in creative sectors. However, this indicator does not have a direct connection to tourists. Therefore, we only point out that the score of Plovdiv (12.1) was greater than that of Matera (9.9), even though the cultural programme of Plovdiv was considered problematic. Even so, one of the ECoC’s most important legacies was the Creative District Kapana in Plovdiv, a neighbourhood where the cultural and creative infrastructure hosted more than 300 events and which was designed as part of the long-term legacy of the programme. It is important that we take into consideration the location of the district. The choice of location was extremely favourable, as the district is incorporated into the old town of Plovdiv, the most visited tourist attraction of the destination. Here, the tourists described the experience with emotions such as “love”, “impressed” and “amazed”. In comparison, the cultural programme of Matera did not create any other new cultural or creative facilities and infrastructure but was rather based on the existing cultural attractions.

Enabling environment, the last indicator conceptualised by CCCM, highlights the following dimensions: human capital and education, openness, tolerance and trust, local and international connections and quality of governance. Regarding tourism, this indicator puts an emphasis on tourism accessibility to the destination, as well as the perception of tourists at the destination. Plovdiv was better ranked than Matera. As a consequence, the emotional dimension of negative emotions was less frequent in Plovdiv (1.16%) than in Matera (2.47%). This may be a result of the fact that Matera was considered a very crowded destination in the ECoC year, with the biggest growth in tourist arrivals compared to all other ECoCs [67].

All these considered, it is surprising that Plovdiv, according to the data set provided by the CCCM, was considered a more dynamic destination than Matera in terms of creative economy and enabling environment. When comparing an already known destination, such as Matera, to an emergent destination, such as Plovdiv, it is important that we take into consideration that the legacy of the ECoC programme may have a more important impact for Plovdiv, as it was also based on creating new opportunities and connections for cultural and creative stakeholders as well as building new cultural and creative facilities, than for Matera, which was already considered a destination for cultural tourism before the ECoC year.

3.3. Cultural Agenda and Emotional Experiences

For the question “how can culture and cultural-creative activity enhance and influence tourists’ emotional experience?”, we identified patterns of exploring cultural–creative activities in tourism as part of the ECoCs cultural programmes or as a legacy for the following years.

On the one hand, we observe the use of symbols, specific contradicting and sensitive, intimate and personal (sub)themes, as well as direct slogans addressing directly the problem of emotions through culture. Whether we talk about tangible or intangible elements, cultural and creative programmes have been proved to create emotional experiences. Almost all ECoCs included in their cultural programme sensitive ideas and messages. When we talk about cultural conflicts, such as the cases of San Sebastian (ECoC 2016) or Paphos (ECoC 2017), there is no doubt that appealing to contrasting ideas leads to some sort of emotional experiences. For example, the cultural programme of San Sebastian addressed themes with profound significance, relating to violence and terrorism, in order to stimulate a “co-existential culture” [68], promoting feelings of tolerance among different cultures. The same idea was promoted by Paphos, ECoC, which highlighted the idea of reconnecting two communities by strengthening feelings of belonging [69]. Emotional dimensions are also reflected in the cultural programme through main themes, such as the case of Pilsen (ECoC 2015), whose purpose of the main theme “Relationships and emotions” was to discuss the “personal and emotional identity” of the participants. As for Valletta, ECoC 2018, and Galway, ECoC 2020/2021, even though both of them did not put a strong emphasis on emotional experiences, the cultural programme tried to stimulate feelings of attachment to the place by including common sensitive themes: the issue of migrants and the problem of diaspora [67,70].

Moreover, by including tourists’ attractions designed for dark tourism (Riga ECoC 2014, Mons ECoC 2015 or Wroclaw ECoC 2016) as an expression of visiting places related to death, suffering and disgrace [71,72], the cultural programmes stimulated emotional experiences and provoked reflection on the past. Not only does this personal introspection determine profound emotional experiences, but it also promotes the idea that this emotional baggage can be expressed through culture. One of Riga’s symbols, the Street of Liberty, included events highlighting “rituals of regret, truce, commemoration and forgiveness in the form of culture” [73]. Such testimonies regarding the art of evoking historical turning points are also written by tourists about Riga: “The lay-out is pleasing, and the material, even at its most horrible, is easy on the eye, lucid, simple and direct, and utterly heart-wrenching […]. There were of course three occupations: briefly by the Russians; for a few years by the Nazis, and finally the Russians again […], in the sense that there are museums all over the world that tell the story of the Holocaust, whereas the ruthless destruction of the Latvian economy, culture, agriculture, and the dispatch of large number of dissidents to the Gulags, is much less well known. This is the place where you get to know it, in all its horror, together with the local episodes of imprisonment, torture, and collectivization that added up to the ‘Sovietization’ of the country and its inhabitants […]. This Museum, and others like it, fully deserve our patronage and our attention. Already, we are seeing the rebirth of European antisemitism and of Russian hegemony springing up from a past that we have regarded all too lightly. Our ignorance of history can only lead to its repetition.” and “I didn’t know Latvia had such a terrible history […] very sad and very touching”; about Mons: “a modern and thoughtful approach to explaining the history of the Mons area at war over the centuries. Both thought-provoking and engaging” and “Superb exhibition depicting the battles fought in and around Mons in the last three centuries and the enduring courage of the people of Mons”; and about Wroclaw: “I’m very glad I did as it wasn’t so much of a shock to me… but the hair and the prison cells…: there are no words. But please visit, what happened here must never be forgotten and those that perished can be remembered and given the respect they deserve, not just the Jewish people but all the polish and others that lay victim”. These narratives add, through their dramatic display of historical events, to tourists’ knowledge and their awareness of what has happened in places they have chosen to visit.

We identify another pattern—regenerating or reconverting spaces into new cultural–creative facilities, which enhances emotional experiences. This was the case of ECoC Riga 2014 and ECoC Mons 2015, in order to generate “the feeling of being citizen of Europe, not of a nation” [74,75], ECoC Pilsen 2016, which linked the historical background of the city with new and innovative facilities and ECoC Aarhus 2017, where tourists’ experiences visiting new cultural facilities (such as the library Dokk1) were described as “joyful”, “impressive” or “amusing”, as the extracted tourists’ reviews suggest: “Impressive architecture, lots of peace, bookstores and libraries …”, “If all libraries were like this one then kids would be engaged in their learning” and “DOKK1 was a wonderful experience! Rarely am I so moved by a library”.

Change of perception is another common attribute for some ECoCs. A personal approach to the cultural programme is suggested for ECoC 2022 Kaunas to directly address emotional attachment in order to change the perception of the space. This comes as a solution to the fact that, as stated in the Bidbook, there are more negative than positive events to be remembered for the city of Kaunas. The Bidbook of Leeuwarden, ECoC 2018, also states that the general perception of the city is rather negative. In contrast to this pessimistic approach is the cultural programme of Novi Sad, also ECoC 2022, where the city is described as “an explosion of positive emotions, new connections, shared experiences, explosion of colour, sound and dance”. Novi Sad also tried to share through its cultural events positive emotions such as “love, admiration and respect” or “pride, love, happiness, enthusiasm and joy” [76].

Out of the considered ECoCs, Riga and Rijeka were the only destinations whose cultural programmes included straightforward creative tourism. Riga successfully embraced this form of tourism, as the literature suggests [77]. In comparison, Rijeka is yet to be discovered by tourists as a “port of diversity” that creates and innovates without “commercializing culture” [78].

4. Discussion

As expected, each ECoC has a different identity, which validates one of the purposes of ECoCs by showing the different colours of European identity. The similarities and differences between the ECoCs from this study do not allow us to simply classify them. Therefore, we considered many filters of analysis: emotional experiences, cultural vibrancy, creative economy, enabling environment and cultural agendas of ECoCs.

The presented study suggests that culture is indeed a stimulator of emotional experiences and, moreover, the cultural programme of the ECoC year stimulates feelings for tourists and includes, through the events, an emotional approach. If this is a known fact, future research should focus on the extent and dimension of how important the emotional experiences become when attending cultural events (for tourists) or when building the cultural agenda of the ECoC (for authorities and stakeholders).

Emotional experiences and cultural programmes of ECoCs influence the touristic activity of the destination [78,79]. This has not only scientific importance but also managerial implications, as it draws attention to stakeholders and tourism planners while new and innovative approaches are needed. The theoretical background already links tourists’ positive emotional experiences to better results regarding tourists’ satisfaction and their behavioural intentions (to recommend or to revisit), as the structural model suggests [80].

As our study focuses on ECoCs as cultural tourist destinations, each with different particularities, this research also supports “the need for a differentiation type strategy, where tourist destinations can be promoted using emotional associations” [80]. In our research, however, it is not only about illustrating a positive connection between tourists’ emotions and cultural programmes of the ECoCs but rather about highlighting that promoting and developing the cultural agenda through emotional experiences and feelings has a positive impact on the overall experience.

In the ECoC year, the ECoC gains more visibility as a tourist destination. The growth of the tourists’ arrivals in the ECoC suggests that the ECoC year is the most dynamic year, from a touristic perspective, according to statistical data. Therefore, it is an opportunity for authorities and stakeholders to create new connections between the destination and tourists, who may revisit, or to improve and develop the destination image. However, the literature has found that this boost in tourists’ arrivals is not sustainable, and, after the end of the ECoC year, there is a decrease in tourists’ arrivals [81,82]. This raises another research question to be addressed in future studies: by introducing and offering more personal and emotional experiences, could the connection between tourists and destinations be strengthened?

5. Conclusions

This extensive research has enhanced the knowledge on how emotional experiences and cultural programmes of ECoCs are connected. It also opens a new way of perceiving tourist experiences, from a more personal and subjective point of view, when taking into consideration emotional experiences.

For all considered ECoCs (with the exception of Matera), the more frequent emotional dimension was joy, which includes more general emotional terms (such as enjoyment, relax, pleasure, delight) as, in general, the touristic activity is considered a pleasant experience and does not particularly imply personal or very subjective emotional experiences. However, the study has some limitations to be considered: Taking into consideration only TripAdvisor reviews means that, on the one hand, the demographic sample may not be representative for all tourists visiting the destination. Limited demographics, as well as the language barrier, hinder a more accurate representation of tourists’ emotions. On the other hand, even if the reviews are extracted for the ECoC year, there is a possibility that not all tourists saw or participated in a cultural manifestation during the ECoC year. There is also a time limitation as perhaps visitors may not recall their experience and feelings when writing the review. Even so, in complementarity to these research limits, we add other research approaches to better answer the research problems.

Culture and creativity stimulate emotional experiences. On the one hand, cultural vibrancy is directly linked to historical and cultural attractions. On the other hand, we have observed that in terms of creative economy and enabling environment, an emergent destination is more dynamic than an already known destination, even though the cultural programme may not be as complex or the cultural and creative infrastructure as numerous. This comes as a surprise, but we should not only consider tangible elements of culture and creativity but also put an emphasis on intangible components, such as the experience itself.

The cultural programme of all considered ECoCs emphasise, on a more significant or less important note, emotional experiences. Through quantitative and qualitative research, we observed that the cultural programme of ECoCs influence emotional experiences, which are rather stimulated by internal, personal factors, with deep significance for tourists, than by external factors, leading to the development of feelings of attachment to the place.

The presented results of this study open the door to other relevant questions, which could be addressed in future studies. For example, do the most positive emotional destinations share common features in terms of touristic infrastructure and resources or in terms of policy governance regarding the cultural agenda of ECoCs? The focus should not be only on known destinations but also on smaller cities, which also benefit from these opportunities in tourism, culture and education [83]. Further directions of research can also include the use of emotional maps as a tool to emphasise specific emotions that are experienced on site. In conclusion, exploring tourists’ emotional experiences is a very dynamic topic to be addressed in future research studies, and it may explain recent trends in tourism, as well as changes of paradigm.