Cultural and creative industries in Turkey

The Mediterranean region is receiving more attention in recent years. This was due because the heterogeneity of countries that compose it raises several difficulties in business collaborations, but it also unfolds several cross-national economic opportunities to develop among Mediterranean countries. Within the Mediterranean region, the Turkish case represents a prime example of a border country, a crossroad between Europe and Asia, not yet sufficiently studied. The analysis of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) can be useful to show that this area has many similarities with European Countries making intercultural exchange and cross economic development possible. In this work, clusters of CCIs in the Turkish territory are identified according to a methodology developed at European level, following most recent approach on creative industries. CCIs are geographically mapped through the instrument of GIS and analysed presenting a benchmarking with two other Mediterranean countries: Spain and Italy. The creativity specialisation found in this region is similar and allowing us to begin to discuss the idea of a Mediterranean creativity, cultural and heritage driven that is different from technology related creative industries diffused in Northern Europe. Results confirm that CCIs is an emergent sector also in this region and it ranks on the same level of other European countries, apart from Turkey where it accounts half the value, and is in high growth. Finally, CCIs confirms predominantly as an urban phenomenon concentrated in large metropolitan areas also in the Mediterranean region.