Local Knowledge, Cultural Tourism and Perceived Economic Value in the Creative Industries of Imbabura, Ecuador: A Global South Perspective

Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) operate on systems of local knowledge transmitted across generations, systems that dominant academic literature has progressively rendered invisible by privileging innovation models centred on technology and economic scale. This research analyses how the local knowledge and competencies of the CCIs of Imbabura Province, in northern Ecuador, contribute to innovation processes oriented towards territorial, cultural, social and economic sustainability, and how cultural tourism operates as a vector that translates that creative capital into income, employment and territorial development. Through a qualitative approach based on 21 in-depth semi-structured interviews with key cultural actors—artisans, artists, entrepreneurs, cultural managers, municipal authorities, indigenous community leaders and graphic designers—distributed across the province’s six cantons, complemented by observation records and analysed through reflexive thematic analysis, seven themes were identified concerning CCI innovation, cultural tourism and sustainability in the territory. Consistent with its interpretive design, the study captures how cultural actors perceive income, market access and stability rather than measuring economic magnitudes, so that its account of economic value is one of perceived rather than measured value. The findings show that intergenerational knowledge transmission, when it adapts and hybridises rather than merely reproduces inherited knowledge, constitutes the most robust form of adaptive innovation; that a productive tension between cultural authenticity and contemporary innovation sustains an equilibrium in the provincial creative ecosystem; that territory constitutes an irreplicable competitive advantage for CCIs; that emerging cultural actors articulate artisanal technical competencies with academic training and management practices; and that cultural tourism is perceived to function as one of the main channels through which the territory’s cultural capital acquires economic value—reaching international markets and anchoring local economies around natural and heritage assets—although its weight varies markedly across actors and coexists with internal ethnic and regional markets, its sustainability depending on institutional articulation and on the preservation of the authenticity from which it derives its distinctive value. The study contributes empirical evidence from a Global South context to the debate on sustainable cultural tourism and economic development, underscoring the need for institutional frameworks and public policies that strengthen CCIs within a setting of ethnic and territorial cultural diversity.