The region’s cultural and creative enterprises generate an exciting destination for tourists—the “Creative Cluster” is currently Massachusetts’ third largest industry sector. These activities also help to grow, attract, and retain a talented workforce. Rich cultural and ethnic diversity offers an increasing range of experiences throughout the region.

Although the region’s cultural and artistic resources would remain concentrated within the Inner Core, many suburban and regional centers would have vital resources as well. These resources would measured not only by arts organizations and cultural institutions, parades and festivals, but also by their capacity to support artists in the for-profit and nonprofit arts sectors, support for arts education, and the variety of expressions of cultural and racial/ethnic diversity.

Currently, Metropolitan Boston is the arts and culture capital of New England. 42% of the Region’s tourists are from other New England states. The region is home to world-class institutions, events, and spectacles that attract people from around the world-almost 100,000 international visitors in 2006, a 24% increase from the previous year. Cultural tourism to Greater Boston—spurred by leisure travelers—has been steadily increasing, reaching a 6-year high in 2006.

Objectives:

• Increasing economic impact of the “CreativeCluster” industries.