Sport,heritage, and tourism

The relationship between sport, heritage, and tourism is strong, and the breadth and depth of research that explores this relationship is significant. This collection adds to the heritage sport tourism literature by considering several new perspectives. In particular, authors have examined sport heritage as a vehicle for understanding and memorializing conflict, as a tool for both celebrating achievement and marginalizing people, as a field of dissonance that often does not conform to tourism promotion and marketing, as a topic that generates, commends, commodifies, and (sometimes) discards “living” heritage, and as a means for discovering, or imagining, genealogical roots. Ultimately, sport heritage illuminates many of the issues, challenges, and debates in heritage and heritage tourism more broadly, while also demonstrating that, through its constant making remaking, sport heritage rarely fossilizes.     

Sights of sites: picturing heritage,power and exclusion

This paper explores the visual representations used to illustrate, promote and communicate a particular idea of heritage in the tourism literature, which provides an instance within which to examine the material consequences of a dominant discourse. This examination takes place within the context of current New Labour policy initiatives, which have put forward a new role for heritage, both in terms of the touristic experiences it can provide and as an instrumental tool for social inclusion and civic engagement. It is argued in this paper that these consciously designed objectives have also opened up a conceptual space within which images of heritage are drawn upon to undertake a course of ideological work that affectively reaffirms and legitimizes the cultural symbols of an elite social group as a consensual representation of national heritage.     

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.     

Internet and Tourism – Part XVII: Travelmall

As the processes associated with globalisation swiftly erode distinct cultures and identities, it has been argued that heritage attractions have emerged as powerful communicators in developing collective national identities. Although many countries reveal histories and collective pasts that are universally representative of homogenous populations, Malaysia represents a distinctly contrasting scenario. Malaysian heritage attractions do not necessarily represent a singular population but three distinctive ethnic groups. Thus, selecting heritage attractions that appropriately represent Malaysia remains a complicated issue. Using photographs as “real-world” variables to supplement focus-group interviews, this article reveals that young Malaysians exhibit a limited understanding of religious heritage attractions and have developed identities that are highly specific to their ethnicity and own religious beliefs. However, the stories told by several respondents also show that Malaysia's ethnic- or religious-centred heritage attractions have the power to foster a simultaneous collective national identity if promoted effectively.     

Authenticating a heritage hotel: co-creating a new identity

This study attempts to broaden understandings of co-creation by examining stakeholders who authenticate the meaning of a heritage hotel. It proposes that a heritage hotel is not only defined in terms of the provenance of material and non-material aspects of a culture, but also by subjective criteria as applied by various stakeholders. Using the case study of the Hotel Estoril, the first Western-style casino hotel built in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, it shows that government, community organizations, and residents endeavor to co-create a new identity for adaptive reuse. Under the circumstances, a heritage hotel is characterized by a polyvocality of interpretations, reflective of the array of stakeholders involved.     

New interests of urban heritage and tourism research in Chinese cities

ABSTRACT

Towns and cities have been one of the key areas where Chinese civilization is embodied. China has a history of urban development reaching back over 5000 years. However, cities in China in the past century are also places which have experienced modernization and rapid progress. As a result, the conservation and reuse of the built heritage in China’s cities confronts great challenges. This paper stresses these challenges as well as a few other institutional, cultural, social and economic issues related to urban heritage conservation and utilization. It raises some new interests of urban heritage and tourism research in Chinese cities, and calls for more research on this topic, especially in less researched areas such as industrial heritage in medium-sized cities and cities in peripheral areas.     

Urban heritage,gentrification, and tourism in Riverwest and El Abasto

Heritage has played a pivotal role in configuring the sustainable economies of many communities. However, if the process is not duly planned, serious problems may surface. Although the adoption of a new heritage and heritage tourism has been broadly examined by tourism-related scholars, less attention has been given to the notion of gentrification as formulated in social geography. What would be interesting to debate here, beyond the Marxist logic, is to what extent heritage is not only an invented construction, but also how it regulates conflicts or subordinates other more reactionary social movements as art. Comparing two neighbourhoods, Riverwest and Abasto, shows two alternative effects of heritage construction. One refers to the fact that art does not always preserve the structure of economic forces; the other conceptualizes patrimony and heritage as justifying material asymmetries.     

Representative dissonance: India’s Self and Western Image

Western media have often been criticized for portraying Third World destinations through a colonial prism via images of primitiveness and exoticism. Contrastingly, some destinations have begun to resist those representations with media campaigns of their own. The purpose of this study was to critically construe the differences between ways that India is represented in American tourism media and how it is represented by the Indian government itself. The findings revealed that these two representations are different in ways that reflect the colonial nature of international tourism and the postcolonial stage of India’s nationalism. Moreover, the study of representative dissonance is proposed as a tool for understanding the conflicting ideological forces that shape destination images.     

Religious heritage and emerging tourism in the Republic of Georgia

This brief research note describes the current situation regarding religiously based heritage tourism and pilgrimage in Georgia. Heritage in Georgia is almost synonymous with religious heritage. Few countries in the world possess such an intensity of built religious patrimony in a small territory as the foundations of their heritage tourism sector as Georgia does. Georgia is already an increasingly popular destination, but owing to its important religious history, the multitude of ancient churches and holy relics at home there, and the inseparable mix of religious and natural heritagescapes, the country has the potential to develop further in three areas of heritage tourism: domestic pilgrimage; international pilgrimage among Orthodox Christians from Eastern Europe and countries of the former USSR; and non-religious cultural tourists from all over the world.     

Soft power analysis in alienated borderline tourism

This study uses a combined content-semiotic analysis technique to identify visual representations of an alienated frontier between India and Pakistan. Additionally, narratives of tourism marketers, articles from leading newspapers, and online visitor reviews are analyzed to gain an insight into the manner the ‘closing of border gates’ ceremony is orchestrated and experienced. It is found that most tourism marketers offer distorted images of the border to some extent as most travel reviews flag aggressive orchestrations of war heritage at the border. A soft power analysis of content suggests that the tourism organizations can help foster peace relations between the two countries by actively working with the government agencies to tone down war/conflict memories and aggressive display of hard power.     

Forests and trees as charismatic mega-flora: implications for heritage tourism and conservation

The role of charismatic mega-fauna in conservation has been well recognised. However, far less recognition has been given to the significance of charismatic mega-flora (trees and forests). This note examines the properties of charismatic and flagship species and identifies several categories of the physical properties and cultural attributes of trees and forests that contribute to their recognition as being extraordinary and therefore not only becoming markers for tourists, but also potential flagships for conservation.     

Dark tourism,thanatourism, and dissonance in heritage tourism management: new directions in contemporary tourism research

This research note focuses on tourism to heritage sites with a controversial history and sites associated with death, disaster, and the macabre. Several new concepts and research directions have emerged in the study of such sites. Particular attention is given to the dark tourism and thanatourism approaches as well as to an analysis of dissonance in the management of heritage sites. Further, changes at places with a shadowed past are examined in the context of a revived geography of memory. There is a continued interest of the traveling public in revisiting war and peace memorials. In the final part of the research note examples of a new perspective on places of pain and shame are introduced.     

The theory of planned behaviour in the context of cultural heritage tourism

An emerging body of literature addresses multiple aspects of cultural heritage tourism in multiple environments worldwide. This study seeks to contribute to current knowledge, studying visitors to a heritage building in the UK through the lens of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). A questionnaire based on the various predictors associated with the TPB was designed to gather participants' motivations to visit the heritage building, including visitation to sightsee, attend events, and experience gastronomy at the building's restaurant. The findings confirm the validity and impact of attitude towards the behaviour, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control on behavioural intention, in this case, to become involved in heritage building visitation. In addition, it was noticed that respondents' level of agreement suggests their preparedness to invest in terms of travel, time, and financially spending when visiting heritage buildings. Implications of the findings will be discussed and future research avenues suggested.     

The sustainable integration of cultural heritage and tourism: a meta-study

This paper presents a cross-disciplinary thematic investigation into the relationship between cultural heritage and tourism. It systematizes evidence on concepts, policies and strategies and provides an interpretive synthesis illuminating the factors deemed critical by researchers for the sustainable integration of heritage and tourism. It seeks to find consilience to lead to a “new age of synthesis”. After an extensive literature review, 483 studies were selected and reviewed, assisted by a qualitative data analysis software (NVivo). The research followed the meta-synthesis approach, particularly meta-ethnography, of identifying findings, grouping findings into categories and grouping categories into synthesized findings, to produce a representative set of 15 synthesis factors. These include local involvement, education and training, authenticity and interpretation, sustainability-centered tourism management, integrated planning, incorporation into a wider sustainable development framework, controlled growth, governance and stakeholder participation, market and product diversification, suitable funding provision, international governance and support systems, a heritage capital approach, effective site management, destination management and a sound theoretical/methodological base. These 15 factors are suggested as the fundamental components of a more efficient theoretical frame and evidence-based policy in the fields of cultural heritage and tourism, aimed at achieving sustainability.     

Industrial railway heritage trains: the evolution of a heritage tourism genre and its attributes

Heritage tourism forms a specific genre within the wider field of tourism; however, this genre itself encompasses a wide range of different types of heritage attractions, of which industrial attractions, military attractions, stately homes and attractions associated with historic people are all examples. This paper discusses the evolution of industrial railway heritage attractions from their original railway operations to visitor attractions; second, it examines the key attributes defining successful industrial railway heritage attractions; and third, it compares and contrasts these attributes for three industrial railway heritage attractions, spanning three separate locations and two countries (Australia and Malaysia). The findings from the study identify and support ranges of success factors and suggest a framework for examining the genre of industrial railway heritage attractions and their attributes. This framework can direct future studies that investigate the nature of industrial railway heritage trains, and contribute to enriching understanding and knowledge of this genre of attractions.     

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.     

Community engagement and heritage tourism at Geneva Estate,Dominica

Community and heritage tourism can be developed alongside the promotion of Dominica as the ‘Nature Island of the Caribbean’, in which the island's natural resources are commodified as an ecotourism destination. The development of Dominica's tourism product to include heritage tourism through the presentation of plantation sites allows tourists to experience the island's culture and history. A direction for the advance of community and heritage tourism is demonstrated with a case study of the Geneva Heritage Project, begun in 2011 at Geneva Estate near the village of Grand Bay. Through a partnership between professional researchers and a community group, the Grand Bay Tourism and Environmental Committee (GTEC), the Geneva Heritage Project demonstrates an avenue for community groups to define and to interpret the community's history. Members of GTEC collaborated with professional archaeologists and students to conduct archaeological and historical research, which included the collection of data used to create interpretive signs and to compile documentary sources to be made available to community members and tourists. Such collaborative efforts promote the value of resource preservation in a nation lacking legislation to protect its cultural and archaeological resources.     

Diaspora tourists and the Scottish Homecoming 2009

Since devolution and the establishment of the Scottish Government, the country has increasingly sought to engage with its diaspora, as part of its tourism strategy. In recent years, many countries have welcomed home their diasporas through organised events and in 2009, the Scottish Government organised a Year of Homecoming. This paper describes the experiences of some of the diaspora Scots who returned ‘home’ that year, and explores how returning ‘home’ had an impact on their knowledge of contemporary Scotland and their continuing sense of a Scottish identity.     

Heritage tourism and group identity: Polynesians in the American West

Heritage sites important to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) are scattered across the United States. The most famous is Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. A much more obscure site, Iosepa, is located in a desert valley west of Salt Lake City. Iosepa was a settlement of Hawaiian converts to the Mormon faith established in 1889 and abandoned in 1917. It was abandoned when plans for a Mormon temple in Hawaii were announced and most of the residents returned to the islands to help with its construction. Ignored until the centennial anniversary of its establishment, Iosepa is emerging as a heritage destination for Polynesians in the Utah region. The factors explaining its emergence as a heritage site are associated with a growing Polynesian population in the West and their recognition of the role early Hawaiians played in settling the region. The focal point of the site is the annual Memorial Day celebration when many people come to honour and celebrate the early Hawaiian pioneers. This paper examines the reasons Iosepa has turned into a heritage destination and its role in enhancing and maintaining the group identity of Utah Polynesians.