Tourism, Cultures and Heritages

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Tourism, Cultures and Heritages

• Professor Alan Clarke

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The Tourism System

• Tourism is not a simple industry
• Tourism as multi-core system
• Tangible and intangible
• Imagined, real and re-imagined

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Cultures and Heritages

• Tourism offers cultures and heritages as part of
  the offer
• Tourism is a culture in its own right with its
  own heritages
• Offers need to recognise this dynamic relationship

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Heritages and Cultures

• Cultures and biographies add meaning and depth to
  the sense of heritage
• Understanding is shaped by knowledge, experience
  and expectation

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Cultures and Tourism
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Meaning(s) in tourism

• Tourism experiences are shaped by the touristic
  expectations
• All tourists are different!
• Meaning is generated by interaction with the
  sense of heritage
• This is a complex interplay generating different
  levels of understanding

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Cultures for consumption

• Cultures and re-presentations for touristic
  consumption
• What are you willing to sell?
• What are local people willing to sell?
• What are tourists interested in buying?
• Limits of Acceptable Change

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Contested Heritage

• Robin Hood
• 1687 wood cut
• Legend and contested reality
• Touristic politics Nottingham, Derbyshire and
  Yorkshire claims

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The Major Oak
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The Tales of Robin Hood
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Little Johns Grave
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Robin Hoods Grave
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Robin Hood Airport
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Biographies of Robin ness
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Defining Robin

• Preserving
• Positioning
• Prescribing
• Puzzling

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Thank you Mr. Disney
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Heritages and Meaning

• Heritages are precious
• Heritages are public
• Heritages are private
• Heritages have value for many audiences tourism
  provides many of those

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Partnerships

• Complexity of tourism system
• Recognition of the role of cultures and heritages
  in tourism
• Recognition of the role of tourism in cultures
  and heritages
• From Competition through Interdependence
• Cooperation
• Inclusive of all stakeholders

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Celebrating Heritage in the North West

• Partnership development
• Tourist boards
• English Heritage
• North West Development Agency
• Culture North West

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Partnerships and meanings

• Culture North West as leaders with no specific
  vested interest
• Expertise portfolios
• Broadening accessibility to a range of heritages

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Key success factors

• Mission focus
• Trust
• Champion
• Achievement

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Mission focus

• Destination wide
• Not specific accomplishment
• All stakeholders commit because of the
  destination not only for their own vested interest

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Trust

• Stakeholders need to recognise and respect each
  other
• Multiple and diverse contributions
• Sources of trust

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Champion

• Someone or group who will take on the challenge
  of fronting the partnership publicly
• The voice of the partnership
• Not necessarily the organiser or the leader

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Achievement

• Something(s) to declare
• More than a talking shop
• We are better off now than we were a year ago
• Not the whole thing task versus process

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Sustainable futures

• Formal and informal organisation
• Shared sense of responsibility (ownership)
• Shared benefits from the promotion of cultures
  and heritages within the tourism offer