Professional Design of an Arts and Culture Heritage Trail for Calabar, Cross River State

Heritage trails linking culturally significant sites in urban environments provide both tourism infrastructure and community cultural identity resources, and the design of an arts and culture heritage trail for Calabar, one of Nigeria's oldest colonial-era cities and a hub of South South cultural production, represents a high-priority creative economy project. This study designed a professional arts and culture heritage trail for Calabar, Cross River State, South South Nigeria. A heritage trail design methodology incorporating site inventory, thematic organisation, visitor experience design, and interpretation planning was employed, drawing on surveys of 28 heritage sites in Calabar Municipal and Calabar South LGAs, structured consultations with 16 cultural heritage officers, arts practitioners, tourism managers, and traditional rulers, and review of heritage trail design frameworks from the Singapore Arts Belt, the Philadelphia Mural Arts Tour, and Ile-Ife's heritage tourism development. The site inventory identified 28 heritage assets of arts and cultural significance including the National Museum, Efik traditional compounds, carnival installation sites, mural locations, and contemporary gallery spaces. The trail was designed as a self-guided walking and cycling route across six thematic clusters: colonial cultural heritage, Efik traditional arts, contemporary visual arts, Calabar Carnival production, living craft traditions, and culinary cultural heritage. An interpretation framework using bilingual signage (English and Efik), QR-code linked digital guides, and community guide training is specified. Expert review by six heritage tourism and urban design specialists confirmed the trail's design quality.

Keywords: heritage trail, cultural tourism, Calabar, Cross River State, arts tourism design