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Creative Industries and Innovation Governance
Dr. Keith Nurse [email protected]
Global Opportunities and the Regional Dimension The creative industries have emerged to be a key growth sector in the recession-plagued global economy and a key dimension of the new knowledge economy as exempli?ed by the shift towards a post-industrial economy where personal, recreational, and audiovisual services have expanded as a share of the expenses of the average household and as a share of the economy1. Many countries, particularly small developing economies like the Caribbean with a narrow and declining industrial base, now view the creative industries as an engine for economic growth and a mechanism for diversifying their economies, improving competitiveness and promoting youth entrepreneurship2. In addition, new digital, mobile and Internet technologies o?er alternative business models and markets which make creative industries a critical resource for economic development in multiple spheres. However, in many countries, the main focus has been on the creative industries as a standalone sector in spite of the fact that the sector is a key driver of consumer demand for information and communication technologies, e-commerce, and Internet services. The creative sector also has strong cross-promotional linkages with tourism3 which is the largest global industry and the key driver of the Caribbean economy with the largest share of GDP, export earnings and employment. In this regard one of the key areas where countries are exploiting the value of the linkages of the creative industries is in the area of creative tourism as the basis for destination and intellectual property branding4.
Throughout the Caribbean, there are e?orts to amplify the impact of the creative industries. The Caribbean region enjoys a competitive capability in cultural production and has created for decades many globally recognizable artists and events that have generated global reach beyond what the region s size would suggest. In addition, there are emerging opportunities that relate to the growth of diasporic markets and networks as well as the increasing interest in authenticity and indigenous culture in the tourism industry. The key challenge, however, is that there tends to be an institutional and commercial bias against indigenous creative content in the home market that marginalizes and chokes o? creative entrepreneurship, investment and market development. This is further compounded by industry weaknesses such as uncompetitive packaging and branding as well as weak marketing and distribution channels. As a consequence, Caribbean economies have large and widening trade imbalances in creative goods, services and intellectual property5. As such, the problem is not lack of talent or product but the di?culties of winning market share in increasingly globalized, digitized and competitive market spaces. In many ways the task at hand is how to build viable areas of capacity that can tap into global, diasporic, regional and national markets. In this regard, a key intervention for the creative industries relates to marketing and audience development which is di?cult to build and predict, hence the need for signi?cant resources in terms of marketing and building a brand. Even with the cost reductions in new digital technologies, the growth of global media, the emergence of Internet marketing and broadcasting also present new possibilities for market penetration. In this context, existing strategies for ensuring competitiveness and sustainable development are inadequate.
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