Nancy's final essay

Cultural Heritage Tourism

For thousands of years, people have been attracted by different characteristics of another place and travelling to experience them. In the recent few years, cultural heritage tourism, as a branch of tourism, has become a particular travel product in the tourism industry. Cultural heritage tourism means traveling to experience the places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present (The National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2010). Cultural heritage tourism is important for many reasons. It has a positive economic and social impact, for example, it helps protect the cultural heritage while facilitate harmony and understanding among people (Richards, 1996). In contrast, others think there are several drawbacks of cultural heritage tourism, including impacts on the communities such as culture exploitation, as well as impacts on the heritage sites themselves (Ramsey, 2007). In this essay I will talk about the positive impact of cultural heritage tourism from cultural, economic and educational perspective. Then I will discuss the drawbacks, and make a comparison in order to give my conclusion. In my point of view, cultural heritage tourism benefits the local community and the heritage itself on the whole.

Cultural heritage tourism helps to maintain the culture of the local community and develop it as well. Cultural heritage includes irreplaceable historic, cultural and natural resources (Duncan, 2009). It also can be classified into tangible and intangible cultural heritage by form. The former includes buildings, rock-cut tombs, ancient ruins, natural landscapes and so on. The latter, which is also called non-material cultural heritage, includes all forms of traditional activities, such as dance, music, custom, language and folklore. A large number of communities all over the world have developed many kinds of cultural heritage tourism products which attract more tourists each year. Developing cultural heritage tourism makes the residents aware of the value of their culture. Because heritage such as natural landscapes and ancient ruins which show the unique cultural spirit of the community attracts people from different places to visit and show great interest on it, when local residents notice that they will protect these resource consciously by themselves. The effect is more significant on non-material heritage. Non-material heritage is special form of culture as it is normally intangible. For example, some minority groups inherited traditional culture from their forefathers. They have very different local conditions and customs, festival, etiquette from outside world. But those performances, activities and knowledge about the universe have petered out with the development of the modern society. Finally the unique culture will disappear and difficult to find out. But cultural heritage tourism promotes people to maintain the culture and enable livelihood of the folk artisan and handicraftsmen. Apart from retaining the culture for the next generation; it also spreads the culture to the outside world.

Cultural heritage tourism benefits the local economy largely because of considerable volumes of foreign currency inflows, which is good for preservation as well. It is a major contributor to the local government economic revenues. When Canadian travelers were asked about what type of trip they would be interested in taking in the future, over 60 percent showed “a great interest” or was “somewhat interest” in a heritage or cultural trip (Cultural Heritage Tourism). 78% of all U.S. leisure travelers participate in cultural and/or heritage activities according to Mandela Research in 2009. With an average spending of 994/trip, they contribute more than 192billion dollars to the US economy (Mandela research, 2010). That’s a big business. Besides, many other industries are driven by tourism such as realty business, financial and insurance establishments, and communications industry. Moreover, the money gained from cultural heritage tourism can be used to preserve the heritage. It also improves the infrastructure of the local area. The government spends money on building roads, airports, restaurants and public facilities to attract more tourists. More jobs are created during those kinds of economic activities, so it increases the employment as well.

Cultural heritage tourism also has an educational meaning. To introduce their own culture to the tourists, the local residents need to learn the culture themselves first. As a result of that, residents feel proud of their culture and thus increase understanding among people. And during the process of communicating with tourists from different places, they build friendship and respect towards each other. Residents are educated about the world without leaving their homes, while tourists are impressed by an entirely different culture.

However, cultural heritage tourism has several drawbacks. One of them is impact to the sites themselves, like damages to the sites. As we know, taking pictures or people’s breath and sweat can be harmful to some ancient objects. The painting on the wall of the Mogao Caves in China, the color was changed as a result of the large number of tourists. Mass tourism also leads to pollution and lack of resource.

Another negative impact is cultural. People have different opinions on understanding the culture. It’s quite often that you hear two or maybe three different editions of the explanation about the same cultural issue while travelling. This causes distortion of the culture. Besides, culture exploitation is also a problem, such as exploitation of gift shops. Sometimes people even buy the same souvenirs from different places.

In general, cultural heritage tourism supports culture, helps renew tourism and brings economic benefits as well, as long as cultural heritage is well treated. In this sense, local government should assess the cultural heritage tourism in a long-term view. Development should be carried out in a way to maintain and sustain the cultural heritage. Respect the local carrying capacity instead of just making fast profits, then can meet the higher expectation of the tourists (Craine, 2005).In planning for tourism, the government should use management techniques to design programs and manage the resource. In addition, education and training programs can be provided to local residents.


Bibliography


Craine K. (2005). Cultural & Heritage Tourism in the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. http://www.pcah.gov/pdf/05WhitePaperCultHeritTourism.pdf (Accessed on 10 MARCH, 2010)

Cultural Heritage Tourism. http://www.cedworks.com/files/pdf/free/P203FSS03.pdf

CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM 2010 FACT SHEET.(2010) National Trust for Historic Preservation. www.culturalheritagetourism.org. (Accessed on 10 March, 2010)

Duncan E. (2009). Tourism and Cultural Heritage Preservation. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1399124 (Accessed on 13 March, 2010)

Mandela Research. (2009) New Study Reveals Popularity of U.S. Cultural and Heritage Travel http://www.preservationnation.org/about-us/press-center/press-releases/2009/CHT-Study.html (Accessed on 13 March, 2010)

Ramsey D. and Everitt J. (2008) If you dig it, they will come!: Archaeology heritage sites and tourism development in Belize, Central America, Tourism Management, Volume 29, Issue 5, October 2008, Pages 909-916 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9R-4RH2SN6-1&_user=128860&_coverDate=10%2F31%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1230269594&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000010638&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=128860&md5=ab67385e15266329480502a43f015c6f (Accessed on 15 March,2010)

Richards, G (1996). Production and Consumption of European Cultural Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 23:261–283.