The classification of heritage tourists: a case of Hue City,Vietnam

Heritage, especially with World Heritage status, is increasingly becoming the main attraction of many tourist destinations. Heritage tourism is also the major tourism product in Hue city, Vietnam. Hitherto, there are almost no official statistics and research pertaining to heritage tourism as well as heritage tourists in Hue. This study aims at providing a preliminary profile of heritage tourists to Hue city and identifying different categories of heritage tourists, with a special focus on package tourists. The international heritage tourists' profile seems to be similar to official statistics of international arrivals, indicating almost no difference in socio-demographic profile between heritage tourists and general tourists in the context of Hue. Various significant differences were found between international and domestic tourists in terms of tourist characteristics, trip profile and the perception of Hue. Adopting McKercher's [(2002) Towards a classification of cultural tourists. International Journal of Tourism Research, 4, 29–38] cultural tourist classification, five categories of heritage tourists were identified, including purposeful heritage tourists, sightseeing heritage tourists, casual heritage tourists, incidental heritage tourists and serendipitous heritage tourists. Among these, sightseeing heritage tourists and purposeful heritage tourists were dominant.     

Knowledge transfer processes in the authenticity of the intangible cultural heritage in tourism destination competitiveness

ABSTRACT

As tourism based on intangible cultural heritage usually encompasses a knowledge transfer process, the authenticity of the heritage (or its perception) can be affected by knowledge transfer. These knowledge transfers occur to present the heritage to the tourists (courses, tour guiding, etc.), but also in the destination itself when the heritage knowledge is codified in museums, tour guides are trained, or the heritage is transferred to newer generations. These situations present potential challenges where authenticity is distorted or even lost, and it affects the competitiveness of the destination. The work attempts to analyse those knowledge transfers and their challenges regarding authenticity to sustain the competitiveness of the destination.     

Different Jerusalems for Different Tourists

Abstract

National capital cities are rich in heritage sites that mean different things to different people. Some of these sites are directly related to the heritage of the nation's citizens or, alternatively, to the heritage of other nations and cultures. In this study tourist motivations to visit the specific sites as well as the nature of the interpretation provided while touring the city were investigated in relation to tourist perceptions of Jerusalem as part of their personal heritage. The study involved a sample of 213 tourists interviewed in different locations in Jerusalem. The findings indicate that multi-heritage site cities, such as capital cities, are visited by different tourists with different preferences regarding the tourist experience sought. Implications arising from this study for marketers and heritage site operators are highlighted.     

Domestic tourists to Elmina Castle,Ghana: motivation,tourism impacts,place attachment,and satisfaction

Abstract

Current research on dark tourism lacks an in-depth investigation of the relationships between the various psychological factors that influence tourist satisfaction. Using the cognitive-affective-behavior system, this paper evaluates a theoretical model that postulates relationships between four constructs, namely: motivation, perceptions of tourism impacts, place attachment, and satisfaction. The study extends the tourism literature on cultural sustainability by showing the psychological connections of domestic tourists to a dark heritage site, and the implications for perceptions of tourism impacts on this heritage. Based on a sample of 414 domestic tourists at a dark heritage site in Elmina, Ghana, PLS-SEM confirmed several inter-relationships among the four constructs. Motivation had a positive relationship with perceptions of positive and negative tourism impacts, suggesting that the tourists who were more motivated to visit the site for cultural/learning experiences were also more inclined to perceive both positive and negative tourism impacts. Implications for dark tourism and how heritage site management can influence tourists’ perceptions of impacts are offered.     

‘Freedom footprints: the Barbados story’ – a slavery heritage trail

ABSTRACT

Freedom Footprints: The Barbados Story is a heritage trail created around six slavery landmarks. The trail is an outcome of Barbados’ Slave Route Signage Project, implemented by the Ministry of Tourism with the aim of identifying sites of memory linked to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery, researching them and installing interpretive signage. Freedom Footprints was piloted in 2011 with much fanfare and sold-out tours. However despite significant publicity prior to and during the pilot, the voices touting the trail as an outstanding heritage tourism attraction have all but fallen silent. The reasons for this silence are unknown. A case study on Freedom Footprints was developed using a combination of stakeholder interviews, observations, analysis of media reports and archival research, among others. Indications are that the trail has potential to attract both the local and tourist market. However appropriate marketing strategies must be implemented for the trail to achieve desired outcomes.     

Innovation Management in Cultural Heritage Tourism: Experience from the Amphawa Waterfront Community,Thailand

This paper examines how innovation management could bring greater opportunities for cultural heritage tourism at the community level. A two-stage investigation using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key informants and random, on-site, short, structured interviews with tourists was conducted to uncover the preconditions and categories of innovation that support cultural heritage tourism in the Amphawa Waterfront Community, a renowned tourist destination in Thailand. The results from the study suggest that the “willingness” and “capability” of those involved in a community-based cultural heritage initiative are key to fostering a multitude of innovations but may not guarantee its long-term success. A mind-set towards sustainability that considers economically, socially, and environmentally viable innovations is required for sustainable growth. A call for innovation management from this sustainable angle is proposed at the end.     

Tourist Perceptions of Heritage Exhibits: A Comparative Study from Israel

It is common in tourism and leisure literature to define and approach tourism subgroups in terms of the presence of the tourists in certain spaces. This approach is challenged in the present paper. It is argued that the understanding of heritage tourism should be based on the link between the individual and the space, namely tourist perceptions of a site relative to their own heritage. Based on a study dealing with visitation patterns to places where historic artefacts are presented, it is suggested that tourist perception is key to the understanding of visitation patterns. It is not so much the artefacts the tourists see or observe, but the meaning they ascribe to them. The theoretical implications of this argument are discussed in terms of tourism in general and heritage tourism in particular, as well as the practical applications to cultural heritage management.     

Using tracking technology to improve marketing: insights from a historic town in Tasmania,Australia

ABSTRACT

This study examines the movement patterns of different market segments in an historic town. It combines traditional visitor surveys with a bespoke tourist tracking application. Two analytical stages were undertaken. The first involved analyzing the movements of tourist segments and revealed that “heritage” tourists tended to visit for the shortest lengths of time. The second phase revealed that a visit of between one and two hours seemed to provide the best opportunity to explore the village fully, while shorter and longer stays did not. The insights challenge traditional notions that heritage-oriented tourists should form the target market for historic communities.     

Cultural heritage and Indigenous tourism

ABSTRACT

Tourism is acknowledged as a vehicle that can help sustain both tangible and intangible elements of Indigenous cultural heritage, including languages, stories, song, art, dance, hunting methods, rituals and customs. Often, cultural heritage products developed for tourism promise to provide many socio-economic opportunities for the communities involved, however, tourism can also present a challenge as the self-management of Indigenous cultural product and cultural identity can be problematic. Given the pivotal role culture plays in the sustainability of Indigenous tourism products, it is time for a twenty-first century examination of the nexus between cultural heritage and Indigenous tourism. This paper reflects upon tourism and contemporary Indigenous cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. Through a review of the current literature on Indigenous tourism and cultural heritage, the authors identify key areas for future research and aim to stimulate further discussion around the ways Indigenous tourism may be developed to sustain Indigenous cultural heritage.     

Back to the past: a sub-segment of Generation Y's perceptions of authenticity

To date, authenticity conceptualizations have taken into account the views of both suppliers and tourists. However, most studies, at the a priori stage, have not taken a market segment perspective but considered tourists to be a homogeneous population. This study challenges that by focusing on a distinct market segment based on age and life experience: Generation Y, drawing out an a priori-based sub-segment of Generation Y's perspectives of authenticity. It investigates if authenticity ideologies influence decisions to become a heritage tourist. Additionally, it determines other factors that predict differences between a heritage tourist and a non-heritage tourist. The study unveils interesting findings. With the exception of the objectivist and negotiation stance, other authenticity ideologies fail to inspire this generation to be heritage tourists. Intervention factors such as party size (and with it a social experience) and ethnicity prove to be better predictors of heritage preference. The results offer important implications for the heritage industry. For instance, “time travel” demand based on purely objective or negotiated versions can help promote conservation efforts and the sustainable development of heritage. This can lead to enhanced opportunities for partnership between the tourism industry and cultural/heritage site managers, and help revive discontinued or forgotten traditions.     

Host–guest authentication of intangible cultural heritage: a literature review and conceptual model

ABSTRACT

Cultural tourism and intangible cultural heritage (ICH) play a key role in tourism worldwide, and are especially important for communities in developing countries, due to the demand for authentic experiences. This article provides a review of existing literature on the authenticity and authentication of ICH. The review reveals scholarly inquiry has evolved from external-expert ‘cool’ authentication to direct host–guest on-site or ‘hot’ authentication whereby tourists participate in the process of determining authenticity. Further, existing models for authentication of ICH have focused only on either a guest’s or host’s perspectives with little attention to the inevitable mutual interaction of the host and guest in the authentication of ICH. Mutual authentication can enhance the tourist experience and improve community empowerment. This paper develops a conceptual model of the mutual (host–guest) authentication of ICH, incorporating both hosts’ and tourists’ perspectives. The model has application in ICH based tourism and emphasizes power relationships between the host and guest, and community empowerment across political, social, psychological and economic domains. Future research is needed to test and validate this conceptual model.     

Marin Držić: A Case for Croatian Literary Tourism

In spite of the positive experience with literary tourism worldwide, Croatian tourist destinations do not recognise the value of literary heritage as a potential key tourist attraction. This is not an indication that Croatia has nothing to offer; on the contrary, Croatia boasts of strong literary figures throughout history, in the fields of prose, poetry, and drama. Croatian tourist destination managers, it seems, perceive tourists primarily as consumers of sun, sand, and sea, and are not aware of key trends in contemporary tourism. Simply, they are far too complacent with the present ideology of Croatian tourism. This article explores the possibility of turning Croatian literary heritage into a cultural tourism product. Using the example of Marin Dr?i?, a Dubrovnik-born Renaissance playwright, it shows how a literary figure can be commodified, and how new destination image(s) can be constructed and communicated.     

Memory,slavery, and plantation museums: the River Road Project

ABSTRACT

Heritage tourism plays an increasingly important yet controversial role in interpreting the emotionally and politically charged memories and legacies of African enslavement. Antebellum plantation museums in the southeastern USA remain relatively underanalyzed by researchers, despite their tradition of ignoring and minimizing the contributions and struggles of the slave community. Yet, this neglect is being challenged somewhat by a growing number of plantations and counter-narrative sites that incorporate slavery into docent-led tours, promotional materials, exhibits, and preserved structures. Responding to a need for scholarship that can ferret out the nuances, complexities, and conflicts of producing and consuming heritage at these tourist sites, this special issue presents the results of a study of four plantations (Laura, Oak Alley, Houmas House, San Francisco) along Louisiana's River Road. The issue's editors and contributing authors address a central question: what factors, social actors, and interactions (social and spatial in nature) shape, facilitate, or even constrain the remembering of slavery at southern plantation museums, including those sites making seemingly significant progress in recovering the enslaved? River Road is a microcosm of the larger politics of reshaping southern and American heritage tourism and demonstrates the value of industry-engaged, multi-method examinations of different plantation landscapes within the same region.     

On the political utterances of plantation tourists: vocalizing the memory of slavery on River Road

ABSTRACT

Within the study of southern plantation house museums, the cultural power that tourists exercise in interpreting, reacting to, and even shaping historical narratives has received limited attention. The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of the agency of visitors at plantation museums, paying particular attention to their verbal expressions as they respond to the depiction of slavery on guided tours. Spoken words, questions, and conversations of plantation tourists are not unproblematic transmissions of information but represent “political utterances” that play a crucial role in the constitution and mediation of the process of remembering (or forgetting) the enslaved. We consider the importance of tourist voice and outline two analytical settings for studying the political utterances of plantation visitors – the vocalizing of interpretative communities in post-tour or exit interviews and docent reaction to on-tour comments and questions posed by visitors. Drawing evidence from interviews with visitors and docents at four tourist plantation along the River Road District, we demonstrate the diversity and impact of the political utterances of tourists, and how these vocalizations of memory can possibly lead to greater changes in the way in which slavery is dealt with and remembered at southern plantation museums.     

Exploring Critical Factors of Macau's Heritage Tourism: What Heritage Tourists are Looking for when Visiting the City's Iconic Heritage Sites

Although Macau is widely stigmatized as a gambling paradise, its colonial past has left the city with a wealth of heritage and cultural attractions that can be converted into priceless tourism resources. Macau's status as world heritage city further creates opportunities for the city to develop its heritage tourism business. This requires Macau to understand heritage tourists whose needs and wants may vary from ordinary travelers. A review of the literature, however, indicates that most academic discussions of Macau heritage are from a history or conservation perspective rather than from the prism of tourism; because of this, the present study aims to explore, from a tourism perspective, the critical factors that are essential to enhance tourist experience when visiting Macau's major heritage sites.     

An application of tourism carrying capacity assessment at two Italian cultural heritage sites

If not properly managed or organized, tourist flows can constitute a risk for conserving cultural heritage sites. It may therefore be important to estimate the maximum capacity a visitor site can receive without compromising its heritage integrity or visitors’ experiences. This research note formulates a comprehensive methodology to assess the carrying capacity of cultural heritage sites as a way of providing technical support for cultural development and tourism management policies. This approach proposes a combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators to assess tourist flows at a site, how tourists affect conservation and how the property itself shapes and conditions the visitor experience. This how-to study underscores the management system and suggests guidelines to improve the tourism product without generating negative impacts on the built heritage. Two museum case studies are highlighted – the National Museum of the arts of the XXI Century, in Rome and the National Gallery of Marche (Palazzo Ducale, in Urbino).     

Promoting coastal communities through cultural tourism: the case of fishing communities in Brunswick County,North Carolina

Heritage tourism, if planned based on the needs and values of communities, can benefit both tourists and residents. In coastal areas especially, urban and industrial developments may create negative impacts on historic coastal communities and their traditional way of life. This research attempts to identify and highlight the value of coastal cultural heritage, in particular commercial fishing heritage, for the promotion of cultural tourism. This study investigates whether commercial fishing heritage can provide an authentic cultural tourism to benefit local fishing communities. Fishing communities in southeastern North Carolina are in decline due to different factors including the shortage of fish, new fishing legislation and restrictions and urban development. Therefore, their traditional environment is fading away. This research attempts to highlight the important role of fishing cultural heritage in promoting cultural tourism for sociocultural benefits. The present study examines the level of tourist interest in fishing heritage and cultural places in the four fishing towns of Varnamtown, Shallotte, Holden Beach, and Southport in Brunswick County, North Carolina.     

Fairytale authenticity: historic city tourism,Harry Potter,medievalism and the magical gaze

ABSTRACT

This article makes an original contribution to debates about authenticity by asking how tourist experiences of the medieval historic environment are linked to fairytales, providing a new way for tourists to imaginatively authenticate heritage. The architecture of some historic cities is preponderantly medieval, an era which is strongly associated with fairytales. Magical-historical double affectiveness has been compounded in the collective imagination by modern fairytales such as the fantasy Harry Potter and Game of Thrones which employ historic city locations and faux-medieval settings, establishing a fluid magi-heritage simulacrum. This is concretised by the appearance in many historic cities of evidence of magical placemaking and staged magical authenticity, such as wizarding shops. The study used a visual methodology to examine 14 historic cities including Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, York, and Canterbury, demonstrating how the magical gaze employs fairytale schemata to imaginatively authenticate places. The findings illustrated how heritage tourists serendipitously encountered the medieval-fairytalesque, unfolding the agency of monumental cathedrals and castles and discovering stories and the historicisation of mythology within the extraordinary-ordinary streetscape. The research findings imply that in an era when the fantasy genre is increasingly popular, the experiential authenticity of heritage tourists may be enhanced by the ‘heritage marvellous.’     

遗产旅游地意象媒介传播机制——苏州园林与江南古镇的比较研究

旅游地意象既包括旅游者经实地体验形成的复合意象,也包括那些远离旅游地的潜在旅游者借助各类媒介信息所形成的引致意象.在新媒体时代,传媒在旅游地意象传播中所扮演的角色越来越重要,分析和研究旅游地意象媒介传播机制现已成为该领域前沿课题.为探索遗产旅游地意象媒介传播模式,文章结合苏州园林和江南古镇案例,采用焦点组访谈、内容分析、问卷调查等方法获取9365例样本的旅游目的地意象媒介传播数据,在质性分析基础上,通过在遗产旅游地意象属性因素与传播媒介因素之间建立结构方程模型,并根据系列研究假设验证结果,揭示出传统媒体与新媒体在遗产旅游地意象形成中的实际作用机制.结论认为,传统媒体与新媒体在文化遗产旅游地意象传播中存在功能互补,前者的优势在于遗产形态与形象推广,而后者的优势则在于遗产文化与意义诠释;借助传统媒体扣新媒体传播不同类型的遗产旅游地意象信息,能够在激发遗产旅游需求的同时,帮助公众更完整地理解遗产文化价值和精神内涵,从而在潜在旅游者中塑造更优良的遗产旅游地意象.在文化遗产旅游地意象传播中,传统媒体与新媒体的整合使用,代表着文化遗产旅游地意象传播的必然.