The Cultural Profiles project originated in the 1990s as a series of printed country Arts Directories on countries of the Asia Pacific region, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Southern Africa and North America.

In 2003 Visiting Arts entered into a developmental partnership with leading UK-based software company Librios to design and develop a unique Content Management System (CMS), aimed at producing expanded web versions of the printed Arts Directories, which could be accessed free of charge and updated and maintained more easily online.

Since that time a range of eight online Cultural Profiles has been created:

At the time of writing these eight Cultural Profiles collectively attract over 2.6 million distinct visitors a year, a figure which continues to grow steadily.

Several new Cultural Profiles projects are already in the pipeline.