Nancy's homework

Introduction
People have been travelling for thousands of years to experience the unique or simply different characteristics of another community. However, in the past few years cultural heritage tourism, as a branch of tourism, has emerged as 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. Hundreds of communities throughout Europe and Asia have developed particular cultural heritage tourism products which attract increasing tourist visitation each year. Cultural heritage tourism is important for many reasons. It has a positive economic and social impact, it helps preserve the cultural heritage, with culture as an instrument it facilitates harmony and understanding among people, it supports culture and helps renew tourism (Richards, 1996). In contrast, others think there are several drawbacks of cultural heritage tourism, including impacts on the communities such as culture stripping and exploitation, as well as impacts on the sites themselves, for example, destruction of sites, and damages to artifacts (Ramsey, 2007). In this essay I will talk about the good impact of cultural heritage tourism on spreading culture, protecting cultural heritage from economic perspective and improving quality of people. 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.

References:
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

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


Summary1 (supporting)
The author placed the benefits of cultural tourism into three categories: economic, cultural, and educational. Economic impacts included increasing revenues from cultural tourism and employment for local people, as well as improving quality of life for locals, for example, development in infrastructure. Cultural benefits included knowledge gained by tourists as well as citizens living in this region. Educational impacts included promoting interest in different cultures and history.

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


Summary2 (opposing)
According to the author’s research to developing Mayan culture-based archaeological sites for tourism, he drew a table of both benefits and drawbacks in developing archaeological sites for tourism. He summarized various benefits, such as increasing the income of government, creating jobs for natives, increasing their interests on their own nation’s culture, and helping preservation of the sites.
He also spread out a range of cultural drawbacks was identified, two main drawbacks are:
Impacts on the communities: culture stripping/exploitation, attitude changes, creation of social differences.
Impacts on the sites themselves: stolen/broken artifacts, destruction of sites by uncovering them, damages to sites.
Other drawbacks are described as negative impacts on the environment resulting from tourism development, for example, erosion/soil degradation.

Reference:
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


Comparison:
The first author and the second author mentioned the almost the same benefits of developing cultural heritage tourism, mainly in three aspects: economic, cultural and educational. They both think that cultural heritage tourism can increase the revenues from the tourism industry which can be used to preserve the heritage itself and improve the infrastructure, and also improve quality of life for natives. However, the second author described the disadvantages of developing cultural heritage tourism apart from the advantages. In addition, the second author’s opinion was more pointed because his data was based on a particular research on Mayan archaeological sites.