What is Cultural Heritage tourism?

It is a branch of tourism that specifically targets the cultural heritage of a place where there is an occurrence of sightseeing. It is like travelling to understand the places,  the activities and the artefacts that showcase the people of the past via stories.

Many of the world’s cities,  villages and landscapes have undergone significant changes to promote tourism activities.  There has been a rise in demand of the global tourists to visit these places and experience the flavour of these societies personally. With internet,  knowledge in present day is limitless and accessibility is easy to overcome any obstacle. Hence cultural heritage sites are those that symbolize magnanimity and a varied collection of human creations worldwide across centuries.

Tourism has been a great reason for many of these redundant buildings to regain and sustain the traditional glory and the cultural values of bygone era. Till now most of these historical sites were left on it’s own to decay which are big contributors of a community’s identity and social traditions. With hotels, restaurants and shopping arcades mushrooming in and around these places of galleries and museums have revitalised these heritage venues to its former glory as they have now become attractive destinations for tourists and locals.

With the development of these tourism sites, the number of visitors has also increased especially in peak seasons. At times poor infrastructure facilities cause difficulties for the management and hence result in a not so great experience for the visitors. When a successful co-ordination between the site managers, tour operators, local authorities, information managers and transportation companies is maintained then tourism flourishes.

The growth of tourism in a country contributes to economic prosperity, cohesion and social inclusion too. It is directly related to job creation and the spill over effect is on construction and real estate too. There is a definite link between the role of cultural heritage and sustainability of growth and development. Cultural heritage contributes greatly to the unique identity and character of a country; it is a competitive advantage that can be utilized in the form of business expansion and development of cultural tourism along with local creative industries.

To conclude, Cultural Tourism has therefore a few objectives to meet like the conservation of cultural resources, authentic visitor’s experience, and correct interpretation of the resources and to appropriately stimulate the earned revenues of these cultural resources. It needs to understand the impact of tourism on the specific communities and regions achieving social, financial and economic benefits.