trends in heritage tourism

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Why Heritage Tourism Is More Popular Than Ever

In the years before every waking moment of our lives was documented online, knowledge of our ancestors was far more limited, with stories of one's heritage more often reserved to the confines of family lore. But now, today's access to technology is actually increasing our curiosity about the past—and making it easier than ever to physically retrace our heritage in destinations around the world.

For some travelers, turning to their family tree for inspiration has become the latest—and most interesting—way to plan a trip. And while the idea of traveling to investigate your legacy and culture isn’t exactly something new, there are more tools now to make it a reality. “Once pegged as the stereotypical Irish Americans pursing their lips to kiss the Blarney Stone, Americans are spreading far and wide to experience their cultural and spiritual roots and catalyzing the rise of operators, agencies, and guides dedicated to this segment,” Christina Tunnah, Regional Manager for the Americas at World Nomads , told Condé Nast Traveler .

She added, “Not just for the bucket list boomer crowd, this theme serves as a significant thread of self-discovery amongst millennials who choose to study abroad and become digital nomads in places where they have a tendril of familial connection in search of generational sense of self.”

The rise in popularity of family genealogy as a TV genre (TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are , PBS’ Finding Your Roots and Genealogy Roadshow , and CNN’s Roots ) has helped spark this interest in family history, with people taking advantage of genealogy research via sites like Ancestry.com and even DNA testing companies like 23andme and National Geographic’s Genographic project. In fact, according to a multi-country study done by Ancestry.com in November 2014, online family history research in the U.S. has grown fourteen-fold in the past decade.

Kesha Robertson, 30, an Amsterdam-based blogger, told Traveler her reasons for visiting Slovakia. “I was always enchanted by my grandfather. There was no one else I knew quite like him. I grew up in New Zealand, a world away from Europe,” she said. “I was the only person I knew with Slovakian heritage. It seemed like such an exotic faraway place, I couldn't even fathom what it would be like. The lure to go there was always strong, it was like the piece of a puzzle I needed to put in place.”

In particular, destinations with large diaspora populations in the U.S., such as Ireland, Italy, and China, have seen an uptick in visitors looking to connect with their ancestral homes directly, according to World Nomad. Whole countries like Scotland have fully embraced this concept calling 2017 the Year of History, Heritage, and Archaeology, encouraging visitors to uncover their Scottish roots all the way back to the Neolithic era.

Touring companies are seeing a boom as well. Audley Travel revealed to Traveler that they've been getting increased requests for custom itineraries exploring family ties to different destinations. In particular, they've worked with a lot of second generation Japanese Americans heading back to Japan, especially to Okinawa . And World Nomads just partnered with Ancestry.com to offer one winner (and a guest) the opportunity to trace their family history and take a trip to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors with their Relative Distance campaign .

Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection is launching a Jewish Heritage cruise down the Danube later this year with stops in Wertheim, Germany (pictured).

So, how can you take advantage of this growing trend and embark on a journey of your own? Here are some tips.

1. Do some research beforehand

Don’t get overwhelmed at the daunting prospect of having to tackle a tidal wave of family information, archives, photos, or talks with your immediate and extended family members (though it helps to have that all as a starting point). At a most basic level, a little bit of search engine snooping can identify the basics: country, province/state and towns where you know for a fact you have a connection.

Assemble maiden names of parents and grandparents and search on maps for any street names that may have the family name, you’d be surprised at what you find. For more robust family tracing, you can pay for more access to records on sites like Ancestry.com, or join the National Geographic’s Genographic project where you have the option to be connected with people who share your DNA and family name.

2. Rent a car and make your own itinerary

It’s best for adventures like this to build out spots where you want to stop and rent a car to visit on your own time. It allows you to detour and take as much time as you need in any particular destination. Historical societies of that town are a great source as well, so set up an appointment or set aside a few hours to rummage through the artifacts. Also, try to book through Airbnb or local lodges as much as possible. This gives another opportunity to meet locals who may offer some insight into your family background.

3. Or use a tour company for a more general background

If you’re not so focused on the details of your family history, but would rather have a deeper understanding of your heritage, then consider a themed tour. Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection is launching its  Jewish Heritage themed cruises in May, where guests will travel from Munich to Cologne, passing through Dachau, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, and Wertheim, towns and cities renowned for their centuries-old Jewish legacy. Andy Fraser, the Tartan Butler at The Balmoral , helps guests with ancestral ties to Scotland trace their heritage during their stay by chatting with the city’s foremost experts before your arrival. And those who have traced their roots to South Africa can explore them in-depth on South African Airways Vacations’ 12-Day Cultural Roots of South Africa tour , which visits Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal Province, where Durban (home to the largest Indian population outside of India) is situated.

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Heritage Tourism Market

Heritage Tourism Market by Direct Suppliers, Indirect Suppliers, Number of Bookings & Region | Forecast 2023 to 2033

Market Insights on Heritage Tourism covering sales outlook, demand forecast and up-to-date key trends

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Heritage Tourism Market outlook (2023 to 2033)

As per the latest findings of Future Market Insights, global heritage tourism market revenue is expected to be US$ 657.2 Billion by the end of 2023. In the long-term, the heritage tourism market is estimated to reach at around US$ 1,316.4 Billion in 2033.

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2018 to 2022 Heritage Tourism Market Outlook Compared to 2023 to 2033 Forecast

As per newly released data by Future Market Insights, the heritage tourism market is estimated at US$ 617.0 Billion in 2022 and is projected to reach US$ 1,316.4 Billion by 2033, at a positive CAGR of 7.2% from 2023 to 2033.

The fabric of the tourism industry is changing fast with time. Many new streams of tourism are included in the global tourism ecosystem. The popularity of heritage tourism has surged in the last few years. According to data published by the USA government, heritage rich places such as New Jersey attract more than 10 million tourists every year. Countries like India and China are also attracting quite a number of tourists every year and have a prominent place in the heritage tourism segment. The revenue generated by heritage travel is likely to have a rippling effect on the global tourism economy.

A heritage tourism boom has contributed significantly to the GDP of several developing economies of the world. Over the years the development of heritage tourism has impacted the total revenue earning of several countries spread across the globe. Visitor spending on heritage sites has increased considerably. The culturally rich and heritage rich countries are rolling out special promotional measures to showcase heritage sites and to woo visitors.

Millions of enthusiastic visitors queue up in several historical and heritage sites every year. Heritage tourists are beneficial for the tourism industry as these tourists love to spend some extra hours at heritage sites to obtain in-depth knowledge of that place. The boost in heritage tourism can generate a feeling of pride amongst the denizens and it can also elevate the standards of living of the commoners. Heritage tourism is not only a boon to the global economy; it also has a positive effect on the lives of heritage properties.

Religion based travels also play an important role in the promotion of heritage tours and travels. Every year millions of religious travellers travel from one part of the world to other. Heritage tourism is a perfect mixture of education, economy and entertainment.

The global travel and tourism industry was harmed by the COVID-19 outbreak. Due to the strict rules and regulations, the pandemic had a significant impact on the heritage travel market. There was a substantial loss of visitors which led to the key players in this market to experience a financial slump. However, the tourism industry has started to witness a positive growth since then as more people are planning vacations and tours to escape the stressful life that resulted from the pandemic and this positive growth is likely to continue during the forecasted period.

What are the Key Drivers of the Heritage Tourism Market?

Government Initiatives are Likely to Contribute to the Growth of the Heritage Tourism Market

Several governments across the globe are promoting and preserving heritage sites. The Ministry of tourism of India, for instance, launched the Swadesh Darshan initiative to develop theme-based tourist circuits to cater to both mass and specialist tourism. Since its inception in January 2015, it has continuously launched projects which aim to construct world-class infrastructure to promote the country's cultural and heritage value and increase tourist attraction.

The Ministry has also announced the National Mission for Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) initiative for the development and beautification of pilgrimage sites in order to tap the growing number of domestic tourists drawn by spiritual/religious sentiments. Another initiative, Adarsh Samark, has selected 100 monuments to become Model Monuments which will be outfitted with basic tourist amenities such as Wi-Fi, security, signage, encroachment-free areas, interpretation centers presenting short films about the importance of monuments.

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and Stanford Libraries announced the launch of the Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME), which intends to become one of the world's largest online repositories of Middle Eastern and North African antiquities. This would further lead to a boost of cultural tourism in this region.

Cultural and Natural Heritage are Becoming Increasingly Important at Various Levels of the Economy which has Become a Key Driver of this Market

Heritage, culture, and nature have become synonymous and are now being embraced as tools for social and economic development. Countries can tap into their rich history to gain competitive advantage as tourism industry is more closely associated with the culture and heritage of a country than any other industry.

Heritage has been a direct contributor to the economy and society by generating income and creating employment opportunities which has consequently led to social well-being and the formation of social capital. The relationship between culture and economy has changed from basic preservation of heritage sites to ensuring economic progress. Therefore, countries are trying to preserve their heritage sites and use it as an opportunity to grow their tourism sectors further giving a boost to global heritage tourism.

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Restraints of the Heritage Tourism Market

The Tourism Business is Mostly Driven by Private Entities with the Primary Goal of Profit Maximization

There are various difficulties that must be addressed in order to build a successful heritage tourism sector, including considering the different views of tourism operators, cultural heritage managers, and communities themselves.

Tourism operators manage a tourism business and serve customers, but they have challenges in accessing the heritage sites and products they want to visit. Tourism operators rely on a market that can experience significant seasonal change, such as vacation seasons and yearly events. To provide dependable and efficient service to local and international clients, tourism operators try to focus on making money by getting access to all possible sites and facilities in order to attract tourists.

The primary responsibility of heritage managers is to safeguard and conserve the sites under their management. Because of the fragile nature of the cultural monument, public access is frequently prohibited. Aside from tourism operators and heritage managers, there is also the local community where the heritage site is located, which may also be protective of their privacy and concerned about the effects that tourism may have.

Lack of Maintenance of Heritage Sites Has Become a Challenge

Another obstacle is the management of heritage assets. In India, issues such as lack of conservation officers, economic downturns, terrorist activities, lack of strategic collaboration and awareness about the value of cultural heritage assets, and others are common. The involvement of stakeholders, particularly locals, is critical, and it is better to leave conservation approaches to them because they are historically associated with the location and the cultural heritage asset itself.

Category-wise Insights

Which age group prefers heritage tourism the most.

The Heritage Tourism Sector is Dominated by Millennials and Older Generations

Millennial travellers are eager to experiment with new travel opportunities and don't mind stretching their budget. The heritage tourism sector is dominated by an adult population and it plays a very important role in generating revenue. This age group values heritage trips more than normal vacations.

Which Tour Type will have the Maximum Number of Travelers During Forecasted Period?

There Will Be a Surge in the Number of Packaged Travellers

With numerous companies offering distinct services and all-inclusive programs, the 'Packaged Traveler' has become the majority class within this segmentation. The businesses provide heritage tourism programs with various activities, locations, and price ranges, thereby meeting the needs of the majority of the clientele without requiring them to go through several channels for various services, saving them time and money.

Which Booking Channel Do Tourists in the Market Place Prefer?

Online Booking Channels Lead the Booking Channel Segmentation

Planning a trip usually takes a lot of time and effort in terms of research and making the best possible choices. However, the existence of online travel agencies has unquestionably both sped up the procedure and offered clients access to more choices. People who book online prefer to compare travel on booking portals and hotel websites

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Competitive Landscape

With the help of Heritage tourism, companies are likely to expand their customer base with attractive packages and services. Few collaborations between companies to boost heritage tourism are

• In partnership with the Beyond the Year of Return campaign, EF Go Ahead Tours, one of the major tour operators, presented a new historical trip package to Ghana in May 2022. This 12-day guided excursion across Ghana's history provides travelers with the opportunity for knowledge and reconnection.
• MyHeritage Ltd. collaborated with Expedia Group to establish the Heritage Travel Hub in November 2021, which will assist tourists in planning the best heritage tour and exploring the regions. Through this collaboration, the companies hope to support the meaningful experience of travelling with the planning of an unforgettable, heritage-focused holiday.

Scope of Report

Heritage tourism market by category, by direct suppliers:.

• Hotel Companies
• Tour Operators
• Government Bodies

By Indirect Suppliers:

• OTA (Online Travel Agency)
• Traditional Travel Agencies
• TMC’s (Travel Management Companies)

By Booking Channel:

• Phone Booking
• Online Booking
• In Person Booking

By Visit Purpose:

• Business Travel
• Leisure Travel
• Education-Employment-Pilgrimage
• Visiting Friends & Relatives

By Tour Type:

• Independent traveler
• Package traveler

By Tourism Type:

• International

By Consumer Orientation:

By age group:, frequently asked questions, which countries dominate the global heritage tourism market.

The United States, China, and France dominate the global market.

What is the Growth Forecast for the Heritage Tourism Market?

The heritage tourism market is forecast to register a CAGR of 7.2% through 2033.

How is the Historical Performance of the Heritage Tourism Market?

During 2018 to 2022, the heritage tourism market recorded a CAGR of 5.2%.

Which is the Top Trend in the Heritage Tourism Market?

The growing interest in sustainable tourism is disrupting the current market trends.

What is the Projected Size of the Market by 2033?

The global market size is projected to reach US$ 1,316.4 million by 2033.

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• Consumer Goods and Services /
• Travel and Tourism /
• Heritage Tourism

Heritage Tourism Market - Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast, 2019-2029F

• Region: Global
• TechSci Research
• ID: 5970559
• Description

Table of Contents

• Companies Mentioned

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Key Market Drivers

Cultural interest and education, economic impact and job creation, nostalgia and authentic experiences, destination marketing and branding, preservation and sustainable tourism practices, key market challenges, overcrowding and overtourism, cultural heritage conservation and management, authenticity and commercialization, community engagement and socioeconomic impact, infrastructure and accessibility, key market trends, experiential travel and immersive experiences, digital technology and augmented reality, sustainable and responsible tourism practices, customization and personalization, cultural heritage events and festivals, segmental insights, type insights, regional insights, report scope:, heritage tourism market, by type:.

• Cultural Heritage
• Natural Heritage
• Intangible Heritage

Heritage Tourism Market, By Age Group:

• 30 and Under
• 71 and Above

Heritage Tourism Market, By Booking Mode:

Heritage tourism market, by region:.

• North America
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Asia-Pacific
• South Korea
• South America
• Middle East & Africa
• South Africa
• Saudi Arabia

Competitive Landscape

Available customizations:, companies mentioned (partial list).

A selection of companies mentioned in this report includes, but is not limited to:

• ACE Cultural Tours Ltd.
• Exodus Travels Ltd.
• Expedia, Inc.
• BCD Travel Services B.V.
• ATG Tours and Travels Private Limited
• Kesari Tours Pvt. Ltd.
• CWT Global B.V.
• Martin Randall Travel Ltd.
• Travel Leaders Group Holdings, LLC

Table Information

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About the heritage tourism market.

Heritage Tourism is a form of travel and tourism that focuses on the cultural heritage of a destination. It is a way for travelers to explore and learn about the history, culture, and traditions of a place. Heritage Tourism often includes visits to historical sites, monuments, and museums, as well as cultural activities such as traditional music, dance, and cuisine. It is a growing sector of the travel and tourism industry, as travelers seek to explore and experience the unique culture of a destination. Heritage Tourism is an important part of sustainable tourism, as it helps to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of a destination. It also provides economic benefits to local communities, as it encourages travelers to explore and support local businesses. Some companies in the Heritage Tourism market include Intrepid Travel, G Adventures, and Trafalgar. These companies offer a variety of tours and activities that focus on cultural heritage, such as guided tours of historical sites, cultural activities, and traditional cuisine. Show Less Read more

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Heritage Tourism

The late Alan Gordon was professor of history at the University of Guelph. He authored three books: Making Public Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal’s Public Memories, 1891–1930, The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the Uses of Jacques Cartier and Time Travel: Tourism and the Rise of the Living History Museum in Mid-Twentieth Century Canada.

• Published: 18 August 2022
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Heritage tourism is a form of cultural tourism in which people travel to experience places, artifacts, or activities that are believed to be authentic representations of people and stories from the past. It couples heritage, a way of imagining the past in terms that suit the values of the present, with travel to locations associated with enshrined heritage values. Heritage tourism sites are normally divided into two often overlapping categories: natural sites and sites related to human culture and history. By exploring the construction of heritage tourism destinations in historical context, we can better understand how and through what attributes places become designated as sites of heritage and what it means to have an authentic heritage experience. These questions are explored through heritage landscapes, national parks, battlefield tourism, architectural tourism, and the concept of world heritage.

Heritage is one of the most difficult, complex, and expansive words in the English language because there is no simple or unanimously accepted understanding of what heritage encompasses. 1 We can pair heritage with a vast range of adjectives, such as cultural, historical, physical, architectural, or natural. What unites these different uses of the term is their reference to the past, in some way or another, while linking it to present-day needs. Heritage, then, is a reimagining of the past in terms that suit the values of the present. It cannot exist independently of human attempts to make the past usable because it is the product of human interpretation of not only the past, but of who belongs to particular historical narratives. At its base, heritage is about identity, and the inclusion and exclusion of peoples, stories, places, and activities in those identities. The use of the word “heritage” in this context is a postwar phenomenon. Heritage and heritage tourism, although not described in these terms, has a history as long as the history of modern tourism. Indeed, a present-minded use of the past is as old as civilization itself, and naturally embedded itself in the development of modern tourism. 2 The exploration of that history, examining the origins and development of heritage tourism, helps unpack some of the controversies and dissonance it produces.

Heritage in Tourism

Heritage tourism sites are normally divided into two categories: natural sites and sites of human, historical, or cultural heritage. the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) separates its list of world heritage sites in this manner. Sites of natural heritage are understood to be places where natural phenomena such as wildlife, flora, geological features, or ecosystems, are generally deemed to be of exceptional beauty or significance. Cultural heritage sites, which represent over three quarters of UNESCO-recognized sites, are places where human activity has left a lasting and substantial physical impact that reveals important features of a culture or cultures. Despite the apparent simplicity of this division, it is not always easy to categorize individual sites. UNESCO thus allows for a category of “mixed” heritage sites. But official recognition is not necessary to mark a place as a heritage destination and, moreover, some authors point to versions of heritage tourism that are not tightly place-specific, such as festivals of traditional performances or foodways. 3

The central questions at the heart of heritage tourism ask what it is that designates something as “heritage” and whether tourists have an “authentic” heritage experience there. At its simplest, heritage tourism is a form of cultural tourism in which people travel to experience places, artifacts, or activities that are authentic representations of people and stories from the past. Yet this definition encompasses two, often competing, motivations. Heritage tourism is both a cultural phenomenon through which people attempt to connect with the past, their ancestors, and their identity, and it is an industry designed to profit from it. Another question surrounds the source of the “heritage” in heritage tourism. Many scholars have argued that heritage does not live in the destinations or attractions people seek. Heritage is not innate to the destination, but is rather based on the tourist’s motivations and expectations. Thus, heritage tourism is a form of tourism in which the main motivation for visiting a site is based on the traveler’s perceptions of its heritage characteristics. Following the logic of this view, the authenticity of the heritage experience depends on the traveler rather than the destination or the activity. Heritage features, as well as the sense of authenticity they impart, are democratized in what might be called a consumer-based model of authenticity. 4 This is a model that allows for virtually anything or any place to be a heritage destination. Although such an approach to understanding heritage tourism may well serve present-day studies, measuring motivations is more complicated for historical subjects. Long-departed travelers are not readily surveyed about their expectations; motivations have to be teased out of historical records. In a contrasting view, John Tunbridge and Gregory Ashworth argue that heritage attractions are created through marketing: they are invented to be heritage attractions and sold to a traveling public as such. Yet, heritage attractions, in this understanding, are still deemed authentic when they satisfy consumer expectations about heritage. 5 This insight also implies that heritage tourism destinations might be deceptions, and certainly there are examples of the fabrication of heritage sites. However, if motivations and expectations are arbiters of heritage, then even invented heritage can become authentic through its acceptance by a public. While not ignoring the motivations and expectations of travelers, for historians, any understanding of heritage tourism must include the process by which sites become designated as a places of heritage. It must encompass the economic aspects of tourism development, tourism’s role in constructing narratives of national or group identity, and the cultural phenomenon of seeking authentic representations of those identities, regardless of their origins. Such a practice might include traveling to sites connected to diasporas, places of historical significance, sites of religious pilgrimages, and landscapes of scenic beauty or cultural importance.

Scholarly interest in heritage, at least in the English-speaking world, dates from the 1980s reaction to the emergence of new right-wing political movements that used the past as a tool to legitimize political positions. Authors such as David Lowenthal, Robert Hewison, and Patrick Wright bemoaned the recourse to “heritage” as evidence of a failing society that was backward-looking, fearful, and resentful of modern diversity. 6 Heritage, they proclaimed, was elitist and innately conservative, imposed on the people from above in ways that distanced them from an authentic historical consciousness. Although Raphael Samuel fired back that the critique of heritage was itself elitist and almost snobbish, this line continued in the 1990s. Works by John Gillis, Tony Bennett, and Eric Hobsbawm, among others, concurred that heritage was little more than simplified history used as a weapon of social and political control.

At about the same time, historians also began to take tourism seriously as a subject of inquiry, and they quickly connected leisure travel to perceived evils in the heritage industry. Historians such as John K. Walton in the United Kingdom and John Jakle in the United States began investigating patterns of tourism’s history in their respective countries. Although not explicitly concerned with heritage tourism, works such as Jakle’s The Tourist explored the infrastructure and experience of leisure travel in America, including the different types of attractions people sought. 7 In Sacred Places , John Sears argued that tourism helped define America in the nineteenth century through its landscape and natural wonders. Natural tourist attractions, such as Yosemite and Yellowstone parks became sacred places for a young nation without unifying religious and national shrines. 8 Among North America’s first heritage destinations was Niagara Falls, which drew Americans, Europeans, Britons, and Canadians to marvel at its beauty and power. Tourist services quickly developed there to accommodate travelers and, as Patricia Jasen and others note, Niagara became a North American heritage destination at the birth of the continent’s tourism trade. 9

As the European and North American travel business set about establishing scenic landscapes as sites worthy of the expense and difficulty of travel to them, they rarely used a rhetoric of heritage. Sites were depicted as places to embrace “the sublime,” a feeling arising when the emotional experience overwhelms the power of reason to articulate it. Yet as modern tourism developed, promoters required more varied attractions to induce travelers to visit specific destinations. North America’s first tourist circuits, well established by the 1820s, took travelers up the Hudson River valley from New York to the spas of Saratoga Springs, then utilizing the Erie Canal even before its completion, west to Niagara Falls. Tourist guidebooks were replete with vivid depictions of the natural wonders to be witnessed, and very quickly Niagara became heavily commercialized. As America expanded beyond the Midwest in the second half of the nineteenth century, text and image combined to produce a sense that these beautiful landscapes were a common inheritance of the (white and middle-class) American people. Commissioned expeditions, such as the Powell Expedition of 1869–1872, produced best-selling travel narratives revealing the American landscape to enthralled readers in the eastern cities (see Butler , this volume). John Wesley Powell’s description of his voyage along the Colorado River combined over 450 pages of written description with 80 prints, mostly portraying spectacular natural features. American westward exploration, then, construed the continent’s natural wonders as its heritage.

In America, heritage landscapes often obscured human activity and imagined the continent as nature untouched. But natural heritage also played a role in early heritage tourism in Britain and Europe. Many scholars have investigated the connection between national character and the depiction of topographical features, arguing that people often implant their communities with ideas of landscape and associate geographical features with their identities. In this way, landscape helps embed a connection between places and particular local and ethnic identities. 10 Idealized landscapes become markers of national identity (see Noack , this volume). For instance, in the Romantic era, the English Lake District and the mountains of the Scottish Highlands became iconic national representations of English, Scottish, or British nationalities. David Lowenthal has commented on the nostalgia inherent in “landscape-as-heritage.” The archetypical English landscape, a patchwork of fields divided by hedgerows and sprinkled with villages, was a relatively recent construction when the pre-Raphaelite painters reconfigured it as the romantic allure of a medieval England. It spoke to the stability and order inherent in English character. 11

Travel literature combined with landscape art to develop heritage landscapes and promote them as tourist attractions. Following the 1707 Act of Union, English tourists became fascinated with Scotland, and in particular the Scottish Highlands. Tourist guidebooks portrayed the Highlands as a harsh, bleak environment spectacular for its beauty as well as the quaintness of its people and their customs (see Schaff , this volume). Over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, tourist texts cemented the image of Highland culture and heritage. Scholars have criticized this process as a “Tartanization” or “Balmoralization” of the country by which its landscape and culture was reduced to a few stereotypes appealing to foreign visitors. Nevertheless, guidebook texts described the bens, lochs, and glens with detail, helping create and reinforce a mental picture of a quintessential Highland landscape. 12 The massacre of members of the Clan MacDonald at Glencoe, killed on a winter night in 1692 for insufficient loyalty to the monarchy, added romance. Forgotten for over a century, the event was recalled in the mid-nineteenth century by the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, and quickly became a tragic tale associated with the scenic valley. At the same time the Highlands were being re-coded from a dangerous to a sublime landscape, its inhabitants became romanticized as an untainted, simple, premodern culture. The natural beauty of the landscape at Glencoe and its relative ease of access, being close to Loch Lomond and Glasgow, made it an attraction with a ready-made tragic tale. Highlands travel guides began to include Glencoe in their itineraries, combining a site of natural beauty with a haunting human past. Both natural and cultural heritage, then, are not inherent, but represent choices made by people about what and how to value the land and the past. On France’s Celtic fringe, a similar process unfolded. When modern tourism developed in Brittany in the mid-nineteenth century, guidebooks such as Joanne’s defined the terms of an authentic Breton experience. Joanne’s 1867 guide coupled the region’s characteristic rugged coastlines with the supposedly backward people, their costumes, habitudes, beliefs, and superstitions, who inhabited it. 13 Travel guides were thus the first contributors in the construction of heritage destinations. They began to highlight the history, real and imagined, of destinations to promote their distinctions. And, with increasing interest in the sites of national heritage, people organized to catalog, preserve, and promote heritage destinations.

Organizing Heritage Tourism

Among the world’s first bodies dedicated to preserving heritage was the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), organized in England in 1877. Emerging as a result of particular debates about architectural practices, this society opposed a then-popular trend of altering buildings to produce imaginary historical forms. This approach, which was most famously connected to Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc’s French restorations, involved removing or replacing existing architectural features, something renounced by the SPAB. The society’s manifesto declared that old structures should be repaired so that their entire history would be protected as part of cultural heritage. The first heritage preservation legislation, England’s Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882, provided for the protection initially of 68 prehistoric sites and appointed an inspector of ancient monuments. 14 By 1895, movements to conserve historic structures and landscapes had combined with the founding of the National Trust, officially known as the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, as a charitable agency. Much of the Trust’s early effort protected landscapes: of twenty-nine properties listed in 1907, seventeen were acreages of land and other open spaces. 15 Over the twentieth century, however, the Trust grew more and more concerned with protecting country houses and gardens, which now constitute the majority of its listed properties.

British efforts were duplicated in Europe. The Dutch Society for the Preservation of Natural Landmarks was established in 1904; France passed legislation to protect natural monuments in 1906. And in Sweden, the Society for the Protection of Nature was established in 1909, to name only a few examples. Nature was often connected to the spirit of “the folk,” an idea that encompassed a notion of an original ethnic core to the nation. Various European nationalisms of the period embraced the idea of an “authentic” national folk, with each folk considered unique due to its connection with a specific geography. Folklore and the celebration of folk culture offered Europeans links to imagined national heritages in a rapidly modernizing world, as modern, middle-class Europeans turned their attention to the romanticized primitive life of so-called simple peasants and linked notions of natural and human heritage. Through the concept of the folk, natural and human heritage combined to buttress emerging expressions of nationalism. 16

Sweden provides an instructive example. As early as the seventeenth century, Swedish antiquarians were intrigued by medieval rune stones, burial mounds, and cairns strewn across the country, but also saw these connected to natural features. Investigations of these relics of past Nordic culture involved a sense of the landscape in which they were found. This interest accelerated as folk studies grew in popularity, in part connected to nationalist political ambitions of Swedes during the growing tensions within the Kingdom of Sweden and Norway, which divided in 1905. Sweden’s preservation law required research into the country’s natural resources to create an inventory of places. Of particular interest were features considered to be “nature in its original state.” The intent was to preserve for future generations at least one example of Sweden’s primordial landscape features: primeval forests, swamps, peat bogs, and boulders. But interest was also drawn to natural landmarks associated with historical or mythical events from Sweden’s past. Stones or trees related to tales from the Nordic sagas, for example, combined natural with cultural heritage. 17

Although early efforts to protect heritage sites were not intended to support tourism, the industry quickly benefited. Alongside expanding tours to the Scottish Highlands and English Lake District, European landscapes became associated with leisure travel. As Tait Kellar argues for one example, the context of the landscape is crucial in understanding the role of tourism in the German Alps. 18 Guidebooks of the nineteenth and early twentieth century did not use the term “heritage,” but they described its tenets to audiences employing a different vocabulary. Baedeker’s travel guides, such as The Eastern Alps , guided bourgeois travelers through the hiking trails and vistas of the mountains and foothills, offering enticing descriptions of the pleasures to be found in the German landscape. Beyond the land, The Eastern Alps directed visitors to excursions that revealed features of natural history, human history, and local German cultures. 19

Across the Atlantic people also cherished escapes to the countryside for leisure and recreation and, as economic and population growth increasingly seemed to threaten the idyllic tranquility of scenic places, many banded together to advocate for their conservation. Yet, ironically, by putting in place systems to mark and preserve America’s natural heritage, conservationists popularized protected sites as tourist destinations. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the conservation movement encouraged the US government to set aside massive areas of American land as parks. For example, Europeans first encountered the scenic beauty of California’s Yosemite Valley at midcentury. With increasing settler populations following the California Gold Rush, tourists began arriving in ever larger numbers and promoters began building accommodations and roads to encourage them. Even during the Civil War, the US government recognized the potential for commercial overdevelopment and the desire of many to preserve America’s most scenic places. 20 In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, designating acres of the valley protected wilderness. This set a precedent for the later creation of America’s first national park. In 1871, the Hayden Geological Survey recommended the preservation of nearly 3,500 square miles of land in the Rocky Mountains, in the territories of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Ferdinand V. Hayden was concerned that the pristine mountain region might soon be as overrun with tourists as Niagara Falls had by then become. 21 The following year, Congress established Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first designated “heritage” site. Yet, from the beginning, Yellowstone and subsequent parks were assumed to be tourist attractions. By 1879, tourists to Yellowstone had established over 200 miles of trails that led them to the park’s most famous attractions. Although thought of as nature preserves, parks were often furnished with railway access, and amenities and accommodations appeared, often prior to official designation. National parks were immediately popular tourist attractions. Even before it had established a centralized bureaucracy to care for them, the United States government had established nine national parks and nearly two dozen national monuments. Canada lagged, but established Rocky Mountain National Park (now Banff) in 1885 to balance interests of resource extraction and conservation. (The world’s second national park was Australia’s Royal National Park, established by the colony of New South Wales in 1879.) By the outbreak of the Great War, Canada and the United States had established fifteen national parks, all but one west of the Mississippi River.

Establishing parks was one component of building a heritage tourism infrastructure. Another was the creation of a national bureaucracy to organize it. The Canadian example reveals how heritage and tourism drove the creation of a national parks service. Much of the mythology surrounding Canada’s national parks emphasized the role of nature preservationists, yet the founder of the parks system, J. B. Harkin, was deeply interested in building a parks network for tourists. 22 Indeed, from early in the twentieth century, Canada’s parks system operated on the principle that parks should be “playgrounds, vacation destinations, and roadside attractions that might simultaneously preserve the fading scenic beauty and wildlife populations” of a modernizing nation. 23 Although Canada had established four national parks in the Rocky Mountains in the 1880s, the administration of those parks was haphazard and decentralized. It was not until the approaching third centennial of the founding of Quebec City (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site) that the Canadian government began thinking actively about administering its national heritage. In 1908, Canada hosted an international tourist festival on the Plains of Abraham, the celebrated open land where French and British armies had fought the decisive battle for supremacy in North America in 1759. The event so popularized the fabled battlefield that the government was compelled to create a National Battlefield Commission to safeguard it. This inspired the creation of the Dominion Parks Branch three years later to manage Canada’s natural heritage parks, the world’s first national parks service. By 1919 the system expanded to include human history—or at least European settler history—through the creation of national historic parks. These parks were even more explicitly designed to attract tourists, automobile tourists in particular. In 1916, five years after Canada, the United States established the National Parks Service with similar objectives.

As in Europe, nationalism played a significant role in developing heritage tourism destinations in America. The first national parks were inspired by the series of American surveying expeditions intended to secure knowledge of the landscape for political control. Stephen Pyne connects the American “discovery” of the Grand Canyon, for example, to notions of manifest destiny following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) that ended the Mexican-American War and ceded over 500,000 square miles of what is today the western United States. Popularized by the report of John Wesley Powell (1875) , the canyon began attracting tourists in the 1880s, although Congress failed to establish it as a national park. 24 Tourism was central to developing the Grand Canyon as a national heritage destination. Originally seen by Spanish explorers as an obstacle, and as a sacred place by the Navajo, Hopi, Hualapai, and Havasupai peoples, the canyon came to mark American exceptionalism. Piece by piece, sections of the canyon were set aside as reserves and finally declared a national park in 1919. By then, the park had been serviced by a railway (since 1901) and offered tourists a luxury hotel on the canyon’s south rim.

Archaeology also entered into the construction of American heritage. Almost as soon as it was annexed to the United States, the American southwest revealed to American surveyors a host of archaeological remains. For residents of the southwest, the discovery of these ancient ruins of unknown age pointed to the nobility of a lost predecessor civilization. By deliberately construing the ruins as being of an unknown age, Anglo-American settlers were able to draw distinctions between the ancients and contemporary Native Americans in ways that validated their own occupation of the territory. The ruins also had commercial potential. In Colorado, President Theodore Roosevelt established Mesa Verde National Park in 1906 to protect and capitalize on the abandoned cliff dwellings located there. These ruins had been rediscovered in the 1880s when ranchers learned of them from the local Ute people. By the turn of the century, the ruins had attracted so many treasure seekers that they needed protection. This was the first national park in America designated to protect a site of archaeological significance and linked natural and human heritage in the national parks system. 25

If, as many argue, heritage is not innate, how is it made? Part of the answer to this question can be found in the business of tourism. Commercial exploitation of heritage tourism emerged alongside heritage tourism, but was particularly active in the postwar years. Given their association with tourism, it is not surprising that railways and associated businesses played a prominent role in promoting heritage destinations. Before World War II, the most active heritage tourism promoter was likely the Fred Harvey Company, which successfully marketed, and to a great degree created, much of the heritage of the American southwest. The Fred Harvey Company originated with the opening of a pair of cafés along the Kansas Pacific Railway in 1876. After a stuttering beginning, Harvey’s chain of railway eateries grew in size. Before dining cars became regular features of passenger trains, meals on long-distance trips were provided by outside business such as Harvey’s at regular stops. With the backing of the Santa Fe Railroad, the company also developed attractions based on the Southwest region’s unique architectural and cultural features. The image capitalized on the artistic traditions of Native Americans and early Spanish traditions to create, in particular, the Adobe architectural style now associated with Santa Fe and New Mexico. 26 These designs were also incorporated into tourist facilities on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, including the El Tovar hotel and the Hopi House souvenir and concession complex, designed to resemble a Hopi pueblo.

Relying on existing and manufactured heritage sites, North American railways popularized attractions as heritage sites. The Northern Pacific Railroad financed a number of hotels in Yellowstone Park, including the Old Faithful Inn in 1904. In 1910, the Great Northern Railroad launched its “See America First” campaign to attract visitors (and new investments) to its routes to the west’s national parks. In Canada, the Dominion Atlantic Railway rebuilt Grand Pré, a Nova Scotia Acadian settlement to evoke the home of the likely fictional character Evangeline from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1848 poem by the same name. In the poem, Evangeline was deported from Acadia in 1755 and separated from her betrothed. By the 1920s, the railway was transporting tourists to Grand Pré, christened “Land of Evangeline,” where reproductions stood in for sites mentioned in the poem. 27 However, following World War I, heritage tourism in North America became increasingly dependent on automobile travel and the Dominion Atlantic eventually sold its interest to the Canadian government.

Conflict as Cultural Heritage

Tourism to sites of military history initially involved side trips from more popular, usually natural, attractions. Thomas Chambers notes that the sites of battles of the Seven Years’ War, Revolutionary War, and War of 1812 became tourist attractions as side trips from more established itineraries, such as the northern or fashionable tours. War of 1812 battlefields, many of them in the Niagara theater of the war, were conveniently close to the natural wonders people already came to see. By visiting the places where so many had sacrificed for their country, tourists began attaching new meaning to the sites. Ease of access was essential. Chambers contrasts sites in southern states with those in the north. In the south, the fields of important American Revolution victories at Cowpens and King’s Mountain were too remote to permit easy tourist access and long remained undeveloped. 28 In a contrary example, the Plains of Abraham, the scene of General Wolfe’s dramatic victory over France that led to the Conquest of Canada, was at first a curiosity. The visit to Quebec, a main destination on the northern tour, was originally based on its role as a major port and the attraction of the scenic beauty of the city on the cliffs, compared favorably to Cintra in Portugal. 29 Ease of access helped promoters convert an empty field near the city into the “hallowed Plains.”

Access to battlefields increased at almost the exact moment that one of the nineteenth century’s most devastating wars, the American Civil War, broke out. Railway travel was essential to both the success of the Union Army in reconquering the rebelling Confederacy, and in developing tourism to the sites of the slaughter. Railway travel made sites accessible for urban travelers and new technologies, such as photography and the telegraph, sped news of victories and defeats quickly around the nation. Gettysburg, the scene of a crucial Union victory in July 1863, became a tourist attraction only a few days later. Few would call the farmland of southeastern Pennsylvania sublime, but dramatic human history had unfolded there. The battle inspired the building of a national memorial on the site only four months later, the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. At the inauguration of the cemetery Abraham Lincoln delivered his “Gettysburg Address,” calling on the nation to long remember and cherish the “hallowed ground” where history had been made.

Gettysburg sparked a frenzy of marking sites of Civil War battles and events. Battle sites became important backdrops for political efforts at reunion and reconciliation after the war and attracted hundreds and later thousands of tourists for commemorative events and celebrations. Ten thousand saw President Rutherford Hayes speak at Gettysburg in 1878 and, for the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg, some 55,000 veterans returned to Pennsylvania in July 1913. What had once been a site of bloody, brutal combat had been transformed into a destination where tourists gathered to embrace their shared heritage, north and south. As the years progressed, more attractions were added as tourists began to see their heritage on the battlefield. 30

The conflict that most clearly created tourist attractions out of places of suffering was the World War I. Soon after the war ended, its sites of slaughter also became tourist attractions. As with the Civil War in America, World War I tourists were local people and relatives of the soldiers who had perished on the field of battle. By one estimate 60,000 tourists visited the battlefields of the Western Front by the summer of 1919, the same year that Michelin began publishing guidebooks to them. Numbers grew in the decades following the war. Over 140,000 tourists took in the sites of the war in 1931, which grew to 160,000 for 1939. Organizations such as the Workers’ Travel Association hoped that tourism to battle sites would promote peace, but the travel business also benefited. Travel agencies jumped at the chance to offer tours and publishers produced travel guides to the battlefields. At least thirty English guidebooks were published by 1921. 31

This interest in a conflict that killed, often in brutal fashion, so many might seem a ghoulish form of heritage tourism. Yet Peter Slade argues that people do not visit battlefields for the love for death and gore. They attend these sites out of a sense of pilgrimage to sites sacred to their national heritage. Organized pilgrimages reveal this sense of belonging most clearly. The American Legion organized a pilgrimage of 15,000 veterans in 1927 to commemorate the decade anniversary of America’s entry to the war. The following year 11,000 Britons, including 3,000 women, made a pilgrimage of their own. Canada’s first official pilgrimage involved 8,000 pilgrims (veterans and their families) to attend the inauguration of the Vimy Ridge Memorial, marking a site held by many as a place sacred to Canadian identity. Australians and New Zealanders marched to Gallipoli in Turkey for similar reasons. 32 As with the sites of the Western Front, Gallipoli and pilgrimages to it generated travel accounts and publishers assembled guidebooks to help travelers navigate its attractions and accommodations. In these episodes, tourism was used to construct national heritage. In the interwar years, tourist activity popularized the notion that sites of national heritage existed on the battlefields of foreign lands, where “our” nation’s history was forged. National heritage tourism, then, became transnational.

Since the end of World War II, battlefield tourism has become an important projection of heritage tourism. Commercial tour operators organize thousands of tours of European World War I and World War II battlefields for Americans and Canadians, as for other nationalities. The phenomenon seems particularly pronounced among North Americans. The motivation behind modern battlefield tourism reveals its connection to heritage tourism. If heritage is an appeal to the past that helps establish a sense of identity and belonging, the feelings of national pride and remorse for sacrifice of the fallen at these sites helps define them as sacred to a particular vision of a national past. The sanctity of the battle site makes the act of consuming it as a tourist attraction an act of communion with heritage.

Built Heritage and Tourism

During the upheaval of the Civil War, some Americans began to recognize historic houses as elements of their heritage worthy of preservation. These houses were initially not seen as tourist attractions, but as markers of national values. Their heritage value preceded their value as tourist attractions. The first major preservation initiative launched in 1853 to save George Washington’s tomb and home from spoliation. Behind overt sectional divisions of north and south was an implied vesting of republican purity among the patrician families that could trace their ancestors to the revolutionary age and who could restore American culture to its proper deferential state. The success of preserving Mount Vernon led to a proliferation of similar house museums. By the 1930s, the American museum association even produced a guide for how to establish new examples and promote them as sites of heritage for tourist interest. Historic houses provided tangible, physical evidence of heritage. Like scenic landscapes attached to the stories of history, buildings connected locations to significant events and people of the past. Architectural heritage came to be closely associated with tourism. Architectural monuments are easily identified, easy to promote, and, as physical structures, easily reproduced in souvenir ephemera. Although the recognition of architectural monuments as tourist draws could be said to have originated with the Grand Tour, or at least with the publication of John Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” (1849), which singled out the monuments of Venice for veneration, twentieth century mobility facilitated a greater desire to travel to see historic structures. Indeed, mobility, especially automobility, prompted the desire to preserve or even reinvent the structural heritage of the past.

A driving factor behind the growth of tourism to sites associated with these structural relics was a feeling that the past—and especially the social values of the past—was being lost. For example, Colonial Williamsburg developed in reaction to the pace of urban and social change brought about by automobile travel in the 1920s. Williamsburg was once a community of colonial era architecture, but had become just another highway town before John D. Rockefeller lent his considerable wealth to its preservation and reconstruction. 33 Rockefeller had already donated a million dollars for the restoration of French chateaux at Versailles, Fontainebleu, and Rheims. 34 At Williamsburg, his approach was to remove structures from the post-Colonial period to create a townscape from the late eighteenth century. By selecting a cut-off year of 1790, Rockefeller and his experts attempted to freeze Williamsburg in a particular vision of the past. The heritage envisioned was not that of ordinary Americans, but that of colonial elites. Conceived to be a tourist attraction, Colonial Williamsburg offered a tourist-friendly lesson in American heritage. Rockefeller, and a host of consultants convinced the (white) people of Williamsburg to reimagine their heritage and their past. America’s heritage values were translated to the concepts of self-government and individual liberty elaborated by the great patriots, Washington, Madison, Henry, and Jefferson. The town commemorated the planter elites that had dominated American society until the Jacksonian era, and presented them as progenitors of timeless ideals and values. They represented the “very cradle of that Americanism of which Rockefeller and the corporate elite were the inheritors and custodians.” 35

Rockefeller’s Williamsburg was not the only American heritage tourist reconstruction. Canada also underwent reconstruction projects for specifically heritage tourism purposes, such as the construction of “Champlain’s Habitation” at Port Royal, Nova Scotia or the attempt to draw tourists to Invermere, British Columbia with a replica fur trade fort. 36 Following World War I and accelerating after World War II, the number and nature of places deemed heritage attractions grew. Across North America, all levels of governments and private corporations built replica heritage sites with varying degrees of “authenticity.” Although these sites often made use of existing buildings and landscapes, they also manufactured an imaginary environment of the past. The motivation behind these sites was almost always diversification of the local economy through increased tourism. Canada’s Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site is perhaps the most obvious example. It is a reconstructed section of the French colonial town, conquered and destroyed in 1758, built on the archaeological remains of the original. Constructed by the government of Canada as a means to diversify the failing resource economy of its Atlantic provinces, the tourist attraction was also designated a component of Canada’s national heritage. The US government also increased its interest in the protection of heritage destinations, greatly expanding the list of national historic landmarks, sites, parks, and monuments. As postwar governments became more concerned with managing their economies, tourism quickly came to be seen as a key economic sector. The language of national heritage helped build public support for state intervention in natural and historic artifacts and sites that could be presented as sacred national places.

In Europe, many historic sites were devastated by bombardment during World War II. Aside from pressing humanitarian issues, heritage concerns also had to be addressed. In France, the war had destroyed nearly half a million buildings, principally in the northern cities, many of which were of clear heritage value. The French government established a commission to undertake the reconstruction of historic buildings and monuments and, in some cases, entire towns. Saint-Malo, in Brittany, had been completely destroyed, but the old walled town was rebuilt to its seventeenth century appearance. Already a seaside resort, the town added a heritage site destination. In the 1920s and 1930s, European fascist states had also employed heritage tourism. In Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany, workers’ leisure time was to be organized to prevent ordinary Italians and Germans from falling into unproductive leisure activities. Given the attachment to racialized views of purity and identity, organized tourism was encouraged to allow people to bond with their national heritage. Hiking in the Black Forest or the alpine Allgau might help connect Germans to the landscape and reconnect them to the traditional costumes and folkways of rural Germany. As Kristin Semmens argues, most studies of the Nazi misappropriation of the past ignore the displays of history aimed toward tourists at Germany’s heritage sites. Many museums and historic sites twisted their interpretations to fit the Nazi present. 37 In ways that foreshadowed the 1980s British left’s critique of heritage, fascist regimes made use of heritage tourism to control society. After the war, a vigorous program of denazification was undertaken to remove public relics of the Nazi regime and in formerly occupied territories, as was a program of reconstruction. In the communist east, blaming the Nazis for the destruction of German heritage was an ideological gift. It allowed the communist regime to establish itself as the true custodian of German identity and heritage. 38 In the capitalist west, tourism revived quickly. By early 1947, thirteen new tourist associations were active in the Allied occupation zone. Tourism rhetoric in the postwar years attempted to distance German heritage from the Nazi regime to reintroduce foreign travelers to the “real Germany.” Despite this objective, Alon Confino notes that traces of the Nazi past can be located in postwar tourist promotions that highlighted Nazi-era infrastructure. 39

Postwar Heritage Tourism

As tourism became a more global industry, thanks in no small part to the advent of affordable air travel in the postwar era, heritage tourism became transnational. Ethnic heritage tourism became more important, and diaspora or roots tourism, which brought second- and third-generation migrants back to the original home of their ancestors, accelerated. Commodifying ethnic heritage has been one of the most distinctive developments in twenty-first century tourism. Ethnic heritage tourism can involve migrants, their children, or grandchildren returning to their “home” countries as visitors. In this form of tourism, the “heritage” component is thus expressed in the motivations and self-identifications of the traveler. It involves a sense of belonging that is rooted in the symbolic meanings of collective memories, shared stories, and the sense of place embodied in the physical locations of the original homeland. Paul Basu has extensively studied the phenomenon of “roots tourism” among the descendants of Scottish Highlanders. He suggests that in their trips to Scotland to conduct genealogical research, explore sites connected to their ancestors, or sites connected to Scottish identity, they construct a sense of their heritage as expatriate Scots. 40 Similar “return” movements can be found in the migrant-descended communities of many settler colonial nations. For second-generation Chinese Americans visiting China, their search for authentic experiences mirrored those of other tourists. Yet, travel to their parents’ homeland strengthened their sense of family history and attachment to Chinese cultures. 41 On the other hand, Shaul Kellner examines the growing trend of cultivating roots tourism through state-sponsored homeland tours. In Tours that Bind , Kellner explores the State of Israel and American Jewish organizations’ efforts to forge a sense of Israeli heritage among young American Jews. However, Kellner cautions, individual experiences and human agency limit the hosts’ abilities to control the experience and thus control the sense of heritage. 42

Leisure tourism also played a role in developing heritage sites, as travelers to sunshine destinations began looking for more interesting side trips. Repeating the battlefield tourism of a century before, by the 1970s access to historic and prehistoric sites made it possible to add side trips to beach vacations. Perhaps the best example of this was the development of tourism to sites of Mayan heritage by the Mexican government in the 1970s. The most famous heritage sites, at least for Westerners, were the Mayan sites of Yucatan. First promoted as destinations by the American travel writer John Lloyd Stephens in the 1840s, their relative inaccessibility (as well as local political instabilities) made them unlikely tourist attractions before the twentieth century. By 1923, the Yucatan government had opened a highway to the site of the Chichén Itzá ruins, and local promoters began promotions in the 1940s. It was not until after the Mexican government nationalized all archaeological ruins in the 1970s that organized tours from Mexican beach resorts began to feature trips to the ruins themselves. 43

Mexico’s interest in the preservation and promotion of its archaeological relics coincided with one of the most important developments in heritage tourism in the postwar years: the emergence of the idea of world heritage. The idea was formalized in 1972 with the creation of UNESCO’s designation of World Heritage Sites. The number of sites has grown from the twelve first designated in 1978 to well over 1,000 in 167 different countries. In truth, the movement toward recognizing world heritage began with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which did not limit its activities to preserving only England’s architectural heritage. Out of its advocacy, European architects and preservationists drafted a series of accords, such as the Athens Charter of 1931, and the later Venice Charter of 1964, both of which emerged from a growing sense of cultural internationalism. These agreements set guidelines for the preservation and restoration of buildings and monuments. What UNESCO added was the criterion of Outstanding Universal Value for the designation of a place as world heritage. It took until 1980 to work out the first iteration of Outstanding Universal Value and the notion has never been universally accepted, although UNESCO member countries adhere to it officially. Once a site has been named to the list, member countries are expected to protect it from deterioration, although this does not always happen. As of 2018, 54 World Heritage Sites are considered endangered. This growth mirrored the massive expansion of tourism as a business and cultural phenomenon in the late twentieth century. As tourism became an increasingly important economic sector in de-colonizing states of Asia and Latin America, governments became more concerned with its promotion by seeking out World Heritage designation.

Ironically, World Heritage designation itself has been criticized as an endangerment of heritage sites. Designation increases the tourist appeal of delicate natural environments and historic places, which can lead to problems with maintenance. Designation also affects the lives of people living within the heritage destination. Luang Prabang, in Laos, is an interesting example. Designated in 1995 as one of the best-preserved traditional towns in Southeast Asia, it represents an architectural fusion of Lao temples and French colonial villas. UNESCO guidelines halted further development of the town, except as it served the tourist market. Within the designated heritage zone, buildings cannot be demolished or constructed, but those along the main street have been converted to guest houses, souvenir shops, and restaurants to accommodate the growing tourist economy. Critics claim this reorients the community in non-traditional ways, as locals move out of center in order to rent to foreign tourists. 44 While heritage tourism provided jobs and more stable incomes, it also encouraged urban sprawl and vehicle traffic as local inhabitants yielded their town to the influx of foreign, mostly Western, visitors.

Heritage tourism may hasten the pace of change by making destinations into attractions worth visiting. To accommodate the anticipated influx of global tourists, Luang Prabang airport was renovated and its runway extended to handle larger jets in between 2008 and 2013. The influx of tourists at Machu Picchu in Peru has repeatedly led the Peruvian government to attempt to control access to the site, yet dependent on tourism’s economic contribution, such restrictions are difficult. The temple at Borobudur in Indonesia undergoes near continuous maintenance work to repair the wear and tear caused by thousands of tourists walking its steps every day. Indeed, the preserved ruins are said to be under greater threat than when they were discovered in the early nineteenth century, overgrown by the jungle.

Another colonial aspect of world heritage designation stems from the narratives of the sites themselves. Many critics accuse UNESCO of a Eurocentric conception of Outstanding Universal Value and world heritage. 45 Cultural heritage destinations in non-Western countries are often associated with sites made famous by the projects of European imperialism. The fables of discovering ancient ruins, for instance, prioritize the romance of discovery. Many of the most famous non-Western sites were “discovered” by imperial agents in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Angkor Wat in Cambodia was introduced to the world by the French explorer Henri Muhot in 1860. Machu Picchu, the Mayan sites of Yucatan, and the ancestral Anasazi sites of the American southwest were excavated, in some cases purchased, and their narratives constructed by American and European adventurers. The cultural relics of these ancient places were looted and assembled in Western museums, the stories of adventure and discovery published for Western audiences, and eventually a travel infrastructure was established to bring mostly Western tourists to the destinations. Western tourism thus forms another kind of imperialism, as the heritage of a destination is determined to suit the expectations and motivations of the visitors. This tends to obscure other features of local history, leaving those features of heritage not suitable to the tourist trade less valuable.

Made or Experienced?

Heritage is both made and experienced. Critics of heritage tourism rightly point to the ways in which heritage promotions can manipulate the past to defend specific ideological or commercial values. Yet, at the same time, heritage experiences are honestly felt and fundamental in the shaping of modern national or cultural identities. Thus, the questions of what constitutes “heritage” in a tourist attraction and whether or not the experience is “authentic” are fundamentally connected and contradictory. Neither heritage nor authenticity can be separated from both the process of their construction and the motivations and expectations of visitors. This makes heritage tourism a slippery subject for study. It involves numerous contradictions and complications. Indeed, contradiction and dissonance are at the heart of any notion of heritage tourism; what might be heritage for some is merely leisure and consumption for others. The dissonance comes from this dichotomy: the consumer exploitation of a destination that is held by many to have sacred properties. Yet, as this chapter suggests, the construction of those sacred properties is at times dependent on the consumer culture of the tourism industry.

Further Reading

Ashworth, Gregory J. , and John E. Tunbridge . The Tourist-Historic City: Retrospect and Prospect of Managing the Heritage City . London: Routledge, 2001 .

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Miles, Stephen.   The Western Front: Landscape, Tourism and Heritage . Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2017 .

Macdonald, Sharon.   Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today . London: Routledge, 2013 .

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Sears, John F.   Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century . Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998 .

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1   Peter J. Larkham , “Heritage As Planned and conserved,” in Heritage, Tourism and Society , ed. David T. Herbert (London: Mansell, 1995), 85 ; Peter Johnson and Barry Thomas , “Heritage As Business,” in Heritage, Tourism and Society , ed. David T. Herbert (London: Mansell, 1995), 170 ; David Lowenthal , The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 94.

2   David C. Harvey , “The History of Heritage,” in Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity , eds. Brian Graham and Peter Howard (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 22.

3   Deepak Chhabra , Robert Healy , and Erin Sills , “Staged Authenticity and Heritage Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 30, no. 3 (2003): 702–719.

4   Tomaz Kolar and Vesna Zabkar , “A Consumer-Based Model of Authenticity: An Oxymoron or the Foundation of Cultural Heritage Marketing?” Tourism Management 31, no. 5 (2010): 652–664.

5   John Tunbridge and Gregory Ashworth , Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict (Chichester: J. Wiley, 1996), 10–13.

6 See Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History ; Robert Hewison , The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline (London: Methuen London, 1987) ; Patrick Wright , On Living in an Old Country: The National Past in Contemporary Britain (London: Verso, 1985).

7   John A. Jakle , The Tourist: Travel in Twentieth-Century North America (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1985).

8   John F. Sears , Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).

9   Patricia Jasen , Wild Things: Nature, Culture, and Tourism in Ontario, 1790–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995).

10   Simon Schama , Landscape and Memory (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1995), 6–19 ; Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathan (eds.), Landscape, Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives (London and Sterling: Pluto, 2003), 2–3.

11   David Lowenthal , “European and English Landscapes as National Symbols,” in Geography and National Identity , ed. David Hoosen (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 21–24 ; and David Lowenthal , “Landscape as Heritage,” in Heritage: Conservation, Interpretation and Enterprise , eds. J. D. Fladmark (London: Routledge, 1993), 10–11.

12   Katherine Grenier , Tourism and Identity in Scotland, 1770–1914: Creating Caledonia (London: Routledge, 2005), 5–11.

13   Patrick Young , Enacting Brittany: Tourism and Culture in Provincial France, 1871–1939 (Farnham; Burlington: Ashgate, 2012).

14   Christopher Chippindale , “The Making of the First Ancient Monuments Act, 1882, and Its Administration Under General Pitt-Rivers,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 86 (1983): 1–55 ; Tim Murray , “The History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Archaeology: The Case of the Ancient Monuments Protection Act (1882),” in Histories of Archaeology: A Reader in the History of Archaeology , eds. Tim Murray and Christopher Evans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 145–176.

  National Trust Act, 1907 . 7 Edward 7, Ch cxxxvi, first schedule.

Other countries developed similar programs, especially after World War II: Australia, 1947; United States, 1949; Japan, 1964; and Italy, 1975.

17   Bosse Sundin , “Nature as Heritage: The Swedish Case,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 11, no. 1 (2005): 9–20.

18   Tait Keller , Apostles of the Alps: Mountaineering and Nation Building in Germany and Austria, 1860–1939 (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press Books, 2015).

19 See Karl Baedeker , The Eastern Alps, Including the Bavarian Highlands, The Tyrol, Salzkammergut, Styria, and Carinthia (Leipsic: K. Baedeker, 1879).

20   Eric Zuelow , A History of Modern Tourism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 108–109.

21   M. D. Merrill (ed.), Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters, and Images from the 1871 Hayden Expedition (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 210–211.

22   Alan Gordon , Making Public Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal’s Public Memories (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001).

23   John Sandlos , “Nature’s Playgrounds: The Parks Branch and Tourism Promotion in the National Parks, 1911–1929,” in A Century of Parks Canada, 1911–2011 , ed. Claire Elizabeth Campbell (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011).

24   Stephen Pyne , How the Canyon Became Grand (New York: Viking, 1998), 25–26, 55–60 ; J. W. Powell , The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons (New York: Dover Press, 1875).

25   Linda Rancourt , “Cultural Celebration,” National Parks 80, no. 1 (2006): 4.

26   Charles Wilson , The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1997).

27   Ian McKay and Robin Bates , In the Province of History: The Making of the Public Past in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), 71–129.

28   Thomas A. Chambers , Memories of War Visiting Battlegrounds and Bonefields in the Early American Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2012).

29 See Alan Gordon, “Where Famous Heroes Fell: Tourism, History, and Liberalism in old Quebec,” 58–81 and J. I. Little , “In Search of the Plains of Abraham: British, American, and Canadian Views of a Symbolic Landscape, 1793–1913,” in Remembering 1759: The Conquest of Canada in Historical Memory , eds. Phillip Buckner and John G. Reid (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 82–109.

30   John S. Patterson , “A Patriotic Landscape: Gettysburg, 1863–1913,” Prospects 7 (1982): 315–333.

31   David Lloyd , Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain, Australia and Canada, 1919–1939 (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1998), 100–111.

  Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism , 98–100.

33   George Humphrey Yetter , Williamsburg Before and After: The Rebirth of Virginia’s Colonial Capital (Colonial Williamsburg, 1988), 49–52 ; Stephen Conn , Museums and American intellectual life, 1876–1926 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 155.

34   Raymond B. Fosdick , John D. Rockefeller Jr.: A Portrait (New York: Harper, 1956), 356–357.

35   Michael Wallace , “Visiting the Past: History Museums in the United States,” in A Living History Reader , ed. Jay Anderson (Nashville: American Association of State and Local History, 1991), 190.

36   Alan Gordon , Time Travel: Tourism and the Rise of the Living History Museum in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016), 65–70 ; Ben Bradley , “The David Thompson Memorial Fort: An Early Outpost of Historically Themed Tourism in Western Canada,” Histoire sociale/Social History 49, no. 99 (2016): 409–429.

37   Kristen Semmens , Seeing Hitler’s Germany: Tourism in the Third Reich (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

38   Gregory Ashworth and Peter Larkham , “A Heritage for Europe: The Need, the Task, the Contribution,” in Building a New Heritage , ed. Gregory Ashworth and Peter Larkham (London: Routledge, 1994), 127–129.

39   Alon Confino , “Traveling as a Culture of Remembrance: Traces of National Socialism in West Germany, 1945–1960,” History & Memory 12, no. 2 (2000): 92–121.

40 See, for example, Paul Basu , Highland Homecomings: Genealogy and Heritage Tourism in the Scottish Diaspora (London: Routledge, 2007).

41   Huang, Wei-Jue , Gregory Ramshaw , and William C. Norman . “Homecoming or Tourism? Diaspora Tourism Experience of Second-Generation Immigrants,” Tourism Geographies 18, no. 1 (2016): 59–79.

42   Shaul Kelner , Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism (New York: New York University Press, 2010).

43   Dina Berger , The Development of Mexico’s Tourism Industry: Pyramids by Day, Martinis by Night (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

44 See, for example, Dawn Starin , “Letter From Luang Prabang: World Heritage Designation, Blessing or Curse?” Critical Asian Studies 40, no. 4 (December 2008): 639–652.

45   Tim Winter , “Heritage Studies and the Privileging of Theory,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 20, no. 5 (2014): 556–572.

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Heritage and Tourism

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• Duncan Light  

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If we consider heritage as the contemporary process through which human societies engage with, and make use of, their pasts (Harvey, 2001; Smith, 2006), then tourism is a well-established part of this process. People have long been intrigued and fascinated by the past and have been drawn to make their own visits to places of historic resonance. History-based tourism was well established by the nineteenth century, but increased dramatically in the second half of the twentieth century, so that it is now one of the most popular and globally widespread forms of special interest tourism. Moreover, tourism now represents the most conspicuous way in which history and the past are appropriated and commodified for economic gain in contemporary societies (see Chapter 29 on Heritage in Consumer Marketing, this volume) and heritage tourism is a major economic activity in almost all countries of the world. For this reason it is not inappropriate to talk of a heritage tourism industry (cf. Hewison, 1987), which comprises a diverse range of actors from the public, private and voluntary sectors along with authorizing institutions operating at a range of levels from the local to the supra-national. The management of heritage tourism is an increasingly professionalized activity, supported by numerous specialist training courses, and this has given rise to a new generation of professional heritage managers. As a discrete form of tourist demand and practice, heritage tourism has also been the focus of academic scrutiny for more than four decades, and there is now an academic journal ( The Journal of Heritage Tourism ) dedicated to this activity.

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Light, D. (2015). Heritage and Tourism. In: Waterton, E., Watson, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293565_9

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Research on global cultural heritage tourism based on bibliometric analysis

• Sunbowen Zhang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3859-8592 1 ,
• Jingxuan Liang 2 ,
• Xinwei Su   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0218-5910 3 , 4 ,
• Youcheng Chen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9323-7386 1 &

Heritage Science volume  11 , Article number:  139 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Cultural heritage is the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth left by a nation in the past. Because of its precious and fragile characteristics, cultural heritage protection and tourism development have received extensive global academic attention. However, application visualization software is still underused, and studies are needed that provide a comprehensive overview of cultural heritage tourism and prospects for future research. Therefore, this research employs the bibliometric method with CiteSpace 5.8. R2 software to visualize and analyze 805 literature items retrieved from the SSCI database between 2002 and 2022. Results show, first, scholars from China, Spain, Italy have published the most articles, and Italian scholars have had the most influence. Second, Hong Kong Polytech University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinan University have had significant influence on cultural heritage tourism research. Third, Annals of Tourism Research is the most cited journal in the field. Influenced by politics, culture, and technology, sustainable development and consumer behavior have become key topics in this field over the past 21 years. Fourth, tourist satisfaction, rural development, cultural heritage management are the key research frontiers. Fifth, in future, cultural heritage tourism should pay more attention to micro-level research, using quantitative methods to integrate museums, technology, and cultural heritage into consumer research. The results offer a deeper understanding of the development and evolution of the global cultural heritage tourism field from 2002 to 2022. At the same time, our findings have provided a new perspective and direction for future research on global cultural heritage tourism among scholars.

Introduction

Cultural heritage is shared wealth with outstanding universal value, the precious wealth left by human ancestors to future generations, and a non-renewable precious resource [ 1 ]. The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, which UNESCO adopted in 1972 to protect, utilize, and inherit cultural heritage under the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, and to make positive contributions to the protection and restoration of the common heritage of all mankind. Cultural heritage is of two types: tangible and intangible. As of February 2022, there are 897 cultural heritage sites in 167 countries on five continents. As countries around the world pay more and more attention to cultural heritage, cultural heritage protection in connection with tourism development has become a new area of concern for scholars all over the world. The year 2002 saw the publication of the first study in the field of cultural heritage tourism [ 2 ]. At this point, a review of the research on cultural heritage tourism published over the past 21 years will help us to understand and grasp the overall trends in global cultural heritage tourism development.

Cultural heritage embodies the wisdom and crystallization of human development, carrying the genes and bloodline of human civilization, which need to be protected, displayed, and disseminated for their cultural value. From a fundamental perspective, cultural heritage tourism is a form of tourism that transforms historic and cultural assets into commodities in order to attract tourists [ 3 ]. Since 1970, European and American countries have continuously innovated cultural heritage tourism activity models, promoting it as a popular mode of tourism, while also driving research into cultural heritage tourism [ 4 , 5 ]. As one of the most vital topics in cultural heritage research, cultural heritage tourism has gradually diversified from the perspective of studying visitors and local residents of heritage sites [ 6 , 7 ]. Moreover, from a research methods standpoint, qualitative and quantitative methodologies coexist [ 8 , 9 ] and have progressed towards incorporating mixed research methods as a new trend [ 10 ]. In addition, cultural heritage tourism practice mainly includes two aspects: dynamic protection of cultural heritage [ 11 ] and tourism development [ 12 ]. Although current research provides useful guidance for informing cultural heritage tourism development and preservation, there is still a lack of an overall review of current cultural heritage tourism related research. Nevertheless, scholars have suggested that analyzing and reviewing existing literature can provide insights into the hotspots and trends within a research field. This not only serves as a reference for related studies [ 13 ], but also provides guidance for practical applications [ 14 ]. It can be seen that conducting a comprehensive review of cultural heritage tourism is of great importance.

With the growing number of studies and expanding research areas in cultural heritage tourism, existing literature reviews on this topic face difficulties in objectively and comprehensively reflecting the trends and shifts in research focus. Therefore, this study used the CiteSpace 5.8.R2 visual analysis software. It can be used to visualize knowledge structure, research hotspots, and the evolution of research topics, thereby helping researchers to obtain an overview of a field, find its classic literature, explore its research frontiers, and explain the evolution of its trends [ 15 ]. Through comparing with similar studies by other scholars, we found that most of the research on this topic focuses on the following questions [ 13 , 16 , 17 ].: (1) which literature has been groundbreaking and landmark, (2) which literature has played a key role in the advancement of the field, (3) which themes are dominant in the entire research area, and (4) what is the knowledge base of the field and how has the forefront of research evolved. Therefore, to better address these four key areas of literature review, this study obtained data on the literature related to cultural heritage tourism from 2002 to 2022 from the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) database. The data was then subjected to visual analysis using CiteSpace 5.8.R2 software, which enabled the objective review of a field's knowledge structure, research status, and trends by drawing knowledge maps. This study is committed to achieving the following four research objectives in order to address the aforementioned issues: (1) to establish the number of representative publications on cultural heritage tourism; (2) to explain the distribution and co-citation of authors and research institutions; (3) to identify current research hotspots in the field of cultural heritage tourism and trace their evolution from 2002 to 2022; and (4) to determine the frontiers and trends of cultural heritage tourism research. The results reveal future research prospects for cultural heritage tourism and will provide a reference for the construction of a theoretical system in the field of cultural heritage tourism [ 18 ].

Current state of research

Cultural heritage tourism relies on the unique historical architecture, religious beliefs, traditional cuisine and other cultural characteristics of the destination to attract tourists for sightseeing and experience. It has become one of the fastest-growing and most ideal forms of modern tourism. Meanwhile, cultural heritage tourism has gradually become an interdisciplinary field of psychology, economics, management, etc. [ 19 , 20 , 21 ], demonstrating a good academic ecology of mutual integration and development. Current research in cultural heritage tourism mainly revolves around research perspectives, methods, and cultural heritage preservation and tourism development.

Cultural heritage tourism research perspectives

From the perspective of researching cultural heritage tourism, it can generally be divided into two views: that of tourists and that of residents of the heritage sites. On one hand, tourists are the participants of tourism activities and have always been a focus of research in academia. As DallenJ explained the four forms of heritage experience and proposed personalized heritage tourism for tourists with great potential in future [ 22 ]. Meanwhile, Yaniv et al. challenged the notion that heritage tourism is only represented by visitors to heritage sites, pointing out the necessity to pay attention to the perception of tourists and conduct studies on their behavior [ 6 ]. On the other hand, the positive actions of residents living in heritage areas contribute to the sustainable development of cultural heritage tourism [ 7 ]. The perception of tourists impact on residents plays an important mediating role in shaping community attachment, environmental attitudes, and supporting economic benefits from tourism development [ 23 ].

Research methods of cultural heritage tourism

From the perspective of research methods in cultural heritage tourism, the measurement methods and models used vary depending on the researcher's perspective. Existing literature on cultural heritage tourism-related research methods can generally be divided into quantitative research methods, qualitative research methods, and mixed research methods. Firstly, quantitative research methods play an important role in current cultural heritage tourism-related research. Existing studies have used research methods such as SEM [ 24 , 25 ], cluster analysis [ 26 ], experimental method [ 27 ], meta-analysis, etc. to conduct a large amount of research on cultural heritage tourism. Secondly, with the interdisciplinary integration, qualitative research methods have also been introduced into the field of cultural heritage tourism research. Qualitative research methods such as textual analysis [ 9 ], case study [ 28 , 29 ], grounded theory analysis [ 8 ], QCA research method [ 30 ], etc. have conducted in-depth analysis of the field of cultural heritage tourism. In addition, to promote further in-depth research on cultural heritage tourism, mixed research methods have gradually become a hot topic of concern for scholars. For example, Rasoolimanesh et al. adopted a mixed research method combining PLS-SEM and fsQCA to conduct in-depth analysis of cultural heritage tourism driving behavior intention [ 10 ].

Research on cultural heritage protection and tourism development

With the attention paid to cultural heritage, its economic value, cultural value and social value have been widely paid attention to, which also makes cultural heritage protection and tourism development research become the current research focus. On the one hand, live protection of cultural heritage. Antonio et al. took Venice, a water city in Italy, as the research object and, relying on the vicious cycle model of tourism development, pointed out that with the development of tourist destinations, emerging groups keen on hiking have a great impact on the weakening of the city's attraction [ 31 ]. However, van et al. took World heritage cities as research objects and pointed out that when costs exceed benefits, tourism development is no longer sustainable, so it is necessary to intervene [ 32 ]. In addition, Christina et al. proposed five levels of heritage protection and development through the analysis of stakeholders [ 11 ]. On the other hand, cultural heritage tourism development. By studying tourism development cases of cultural heritage, Esteban et al. pointed out the influence of community role on tourism development and concluded the mutual influence between community identity and tourism [ 12 ]. At the same time, Arwel and Joan et al. discussed the tourism potential of the mining area, proposed that it should be included in the category of heritage tourism, and actively participated in the development of industrial heritage tourism sites [ 33 ]. Antonio et al. pointed out through empirical analysis that the basis for effective development of tourist destinations is whether tourism products can hit the softest places in tourists' hearts and whether they have internal accessibility [ 34 ].

Materials and methods

This section explains the selection of the research tools, analysis of the data sources, and main research methods used in this study.

Selection of research tools

This study used the CiteSpace 5.8.R2 visual analysis software developed by the team of Professor Chen Chaomei of Drexel University. The software, which was developed by drawing on scientometrics and knowledge visualization, is capable of processing large amounts of scientific literature data objectively [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. To date, CiteSpace has been used by users in more than 100 countries and regions around the world, and has published more than 28,000 related academic papers. Researchers can use the CiteSpace software to perform co-citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, cluster analysis, and keywords burst analysis for scientific research purposes [ 37 ]. In addition, it can be used to visualize knowledge structure, research hotspots, and the evolution of research topics, thereby helping researchers to obtain an overview of a field, find its classic literature, explore its research frontiers, and explain the evolution of its trends [ 37 ].

Analysis of data sources

Table 1 summarizes the data collection procedure for this study. The data were retrieved from the Web of Science SSCI on January 26, 2022. They cover all the relevant literature on cultural heritage tourism from January 1, 2002, to January 26, 2022. There were two main reasons for selecting the literature in SSCI as the data source: (1) SSCI’s authority as the most authoritative database in the field of global social sciences, and (2) SSCI’s extensiveness, with more than 3,200 papers from authoritative academic journals of in 56 disciplines in the field of social sciences. The year 2002 was chosen as the starting point for this study because the first academic paper in the field of global cultural heritage tourism was published in SSCI in that year.

The retrieval criteria for this study were based on subject-word retrieval, with topic = “Cultural Heritage” + “Tourism”, and a total of 825 related items of literature were obtained. A total of 20 book reviews, conference proceedings, and editorial materials were excluded from the data, yielding a set of 805 papers as the research object (Additional file 1 and 2 ). To ensure the accuracy of the data, the titles and abstracts of all the articles were reviewed individually to confirm that the data met the requirements of the study. The article data were stored in plain text format (full records and cited references) for subsequent data analysis.

Main research methods

The bibliometric method was used to conduct scientific research cooperation analysis on the literature. This took the form of analysis of cooperation between publishing authors, publishing institutions, and countries (regions); co-citation analysis, including citation analysis of documents, authors, and journals; and cluster analysis of the literature and keywords.

Collaborative analysis focuses on how researchers work together to produce new scientific knowledge [ 38 ]. A bibliometric approach analyzes joint research in a research field in terms of collaborative networks among authors, institutions, and countries.

Co-citation analysis [ 39 ] involves comparing lists of citations in the SSCI and counting the entries to determine the co-citation frequency of two scientific papers. This generates a network of co-cited papers for specific scientific disciplines. Clusters of co-cited papers provide new ideas for the professional structure of research science and new methods for index and SDI configuration file creation.

Co-occurrence analysis quantifies information in various information carriers, and is generally used to reveal the hidden meaning of the co-occurrence of keywords and topics. Keyword co-occurrence analysis can clarify the structure of scientific knowledge and is an effective way to identify research hotspots and discover researchtrends [ 17 ].

Cluster analysis depends on clustering, the process of dividing a set of objects into groups. Each element in a cluster has a high degree of similarity, whereas the degree of difference between different clusters is high [ 35 ]. Professor Chen has pointed out that in CiteSpace, the cluster labels are all from the document where the citation is located, and the extraction is performed by extracting the title or abstract or keyword in the cited document [ 40 ].

This section considers three topics: (1) publishing volume analysis, to better understand the number of published articles; (2) collaboration analysis, to identify relationships among authors, academic institutions, and countries; and (3) co-citation analysis, to determine which scholars and academic journals are most influential.

Publishing volume analysis

To gain a preliminary understanding of the overall development trend in cultural heritage tourism from 2002 to 2022, we searched SSCI for cultural heritage tourism publications in the past 21 years. The search results are shown in Fig.  1 . The literature on global cultural heritage tourism shows that over the period the number of publications followed an upward trend with slight fluctuations. In 2002, only one article on cultural heritage tourism was published; it took the form of an empirical study of the willingness to protect and develop cultural heritage sites in western Kenya, with an exploration of how to develop and plan cultural heritage tourism [ 41 ]. Subsequent international cultural heritage tourism research can be divided into three phases. The first phase, from 2002 to 2007, is one of slow growth. Although the number of published papers was relatively low, with four papers or fewer each year, the overall trend was on the rise. Reflecting the fact that global cultural heritage tourism research was still in its infancy at this stage, only scholars in a small number of countries with substantial cultural heritage carried out research. The second stage, from 2008 to 2016, was one of stable growth. The number of articles published continued to increase, indicating that researchers around the world were beginning to realize the importance of developing cultural heritage tourism for economic growth and cultural protection, and beginning to get involved in cultural heritage tourism research. The third stage, from 2014 to 2022, was one of rapid growth, with 173 research papers published in 2021 alone. This indicates that cultural heritage tourism is receiving the attention of global researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds and different perspectives.

Annual distribution of cultural heritage tourism research publications from 2002 to 2022

Cooperation analysis

Authors and author collaboration.

The number of papers published by an author in a research field reflects that author’s core position in the field. The co-occurrence of the co-authors of a paper reflects the strength of their cooperation in the research field. By selecting the node type column of the CiteSpace 5.8.R2 software, the time period 2002–2022, and the “go” cluster, we obtained a map of collaborations between authors. Taking into account the overall publication volume of cultural heritage tourism, according to Price’s law, the core authors in the field of cultural heritage tourism should have at least the number of publications. The calculation formula is as follows:

where N1 is the minimum number of papers that the core author should publish, and Nmax is the number of papers published by the author with the most papers in this research field [ 42 ]. According to the search, the author with the largest number of papers in the field of cultural heritage tourism is Zhang Mu, with a total of seven papers (N1 = 0.749*(7)1/2 = 1.982), and the number of publications by the core authors in cultural heritage tourism is two or more. A total of 51 authors published two or more papers, yielding 122 papers and accounting for 16.05% of the papers published in the field of cultural heritage tourism. Comparison with the core author group, which should account for 50% of the total published papers in the research field, indicates that there is still a big gap. Thus, the results show that global cultural heritage tourism research has begun to take shape but that a stable core author group has not yet formed.

The most authors have conducted academic research independently and have weak cooperative relationships. Nevertheless, small cooperative groups can be identified. For example, Zhang Mu has cooperated with Rob Law on a number of articles (including “Using Content Analysis to Probe the Cognitive Image of Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism: An Exploration of Chinese Social Media”; “From Religious Belief to Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism: A Case Study of Mazu Belief”; “Resident-Tourist Value Co-Creation in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Context: The Role of Residents’ Perception of Tourism Development and Emotional Solidarity”; and “Sustainability of Heritage Tourism: A Structural Perspective from Cultural Identity and Consumption Intention”), which indicates a relatively close partnership [ 42 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. The relationship between authors in such cases is usually a teacher–student relationship, but may also be a relationship of belonging to the same institution.

The greater the betweenness centrality of a node in the network, the greater the role it plays in communication among other nodes [ 47 ]. In Table 2 , the centrality of each author in the field of cultural heritage tourism is 0. This confirms that the cooperation between authors in the field of cultural heritage tourism is low and needs to be strengthened [ 48 ].

Issuing organizations

A comprehensive grasp of which institutions are involved in cultural heritage tourism research helps to clarify the general situation of cultural heritage tourism research and international cooperation between institutions. Therefore, this study carried out an institution-based search in CiteSpace 5.8.R2. Taking the institution as the network node, 369 nodes were generated, representing 369 core research institutions in the field of cultural heritage tourism research. These core research institutions feature in many core collaborative networks (Table 3 ).

From 2002 to 2022, the research field of cultural heritage tourism involved 369 major researchinstitutions. Of these institutions, 11 published five or more papers, accounting for 10.68%of the total number of papers published. Hong Kong Polytech University published the largestnumber of papers (1.86% of the total), followed by University of Cordoba, the Chinese Acadmy of Sciences, Kyung Hee University, and University of Extremadura. Three institutions, Hon Kong Polytech University, Jinan University, and Australian National University, had the strongest centrality (0.01), indicating that they have a strong influence in the field of cultural heritage tourism research. Sun Yat Sen University and Griffith University have also published many papers.

Countries and regions

To understand the cooperation between countries and the influence of countries in the field of cultural heritage tourism, this study used the country option through the node type of CiteSpace 5.8.R2 software to obtain the national cooperation map from 2002 to 2022. Using the social network analysis function of CiteSpace software, we explored the social network relationships of different countries and regions, which directly reflects the cooperation between them, and on that basis we identified differences in their degree of influence [ 49 ].

The cluster map reflects structural features, highlighting key nodes and important connections. Each node in the network diagram represents a country (or region), and the connecting line represents the cooperation between two countries; the thicker the line, the closer the cooperation. The size of the annual ring indicates the number of publications; the larger the annual ring, the more publications. The graph generated 84 nodes and 264 connecting lines, indicating that from 2002 to 2022 the authors who published literature related to cultural heritage tourism came from 84 countries. The network density cooperation of different countries on cultural heritage tourism is 0.0757. China is the country that has published the most research papers in the field of cultural heritage (125), accounting for 16.45% of the total number of documents, more than any other country. Spain, Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia follow, accounting for 12.50%, 11.84%, 10.00%, 8.68%, and 7.11%, respectively. Centrality refers to the importance of a node in a network (Table 4 ); the higher the correlation between each node, the higher its centrality and the more important the node is in the field. The centrality values for Italy and the United States are 0.34 and 0.26, respectively, indicating that Italy and the United States have had more cooperation with other countries in the field of cultural heritage tourism. Although China had a higher number of papers, its centrality was lower (0.07), which suggests that its cooperation with other countries in cultural heritage tourism research has been relatively weak.

Co-citation analysis

To understand author and journal status systematically, we selected the “cited author” and “cited journal” options in the node type column of CiteSpace 5.8.R2 software and set the time to 2002–2022. We thus obtained the network graphs of cited authors and academic journals summarized in Tables 5 and 6 . Through analysis of journal co-citations, a knowledge base of a research field can be obtained.

The three most cited authors are UNESCO (cited 129 times), E. Cohen (cited 90 times),andRICHARDS G(cited 87 times). The most cited journal is Annals of Tourism Research, with 441 citations and impact factors for 2018, 2019, and 2020 of 5.493, 5.908, and 9.011, respectively. Tourism Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Sustainability, and Journal of Travel Research follow, with 433, 202, 191, and 169 citations, respectively. The specific rankings of different influential authors and journals are given in Tables 5 and 6 .

Keyword co-occurrence analysis

As Professor Chen has pointed out, analyzing keywords is the most suitable means to identify the evolution of this research field and related research hotspots and fronts [ 35 ]. In the following analysis, keywords are analyzed using CiteSpace 5.8.R2 to generate keyword co-occurrence maps, time zone maps, and cluster maps.

Co-occurrence analysis of high-frequency keywords can reveal research hotspots in the field of cultural heritage tourism [ 50 ]. Figure  2 gives the keyword co-occurrence map of cultural heritage tourism research keywords from 2002 to 2022, obtained by merging overlapping keywords while removing search terms. The five most frequent keywords with high centrality are authenticity (frequency = 90, centrality = 0.15), attitude (frequency = 28, centrality = 0.13), conservation (frequency = 57, centrality = 0.08), identity (frequency = 36, centrality = 0.08), and China (frequency = 46, centrality = 0.05). By applying criteria based on frequency and betweenness centrality [ 51 ], five research hotspots were extracted: authenticity, attitude, identity, conservation, and China. The following subsections consider these five hotspots in relation to articles by key scholars around the world.

Co-occurrence map of keywords in cultural heritage tourism research

Authenticity

Authenticity is recognized by a wide range of research scholars as a universal value that drives people to leave familiar regions and travel to far-flung places [ 52 ]. Authenticity research is essential for tourism in general and for heritage tourism in particular [ 53 , 54 ]. The premise of protection is the maintenance of the authenticity of cultural heritage, which means avoiding overemphasis on economic value [ 55 ]. At present, the research hotspots of authenticity in the field of cultural heritage tourism focus on the following two aspects: what authenticity is [ 56 , 57 , 58 ], that is, the basic concept of authenticity, and what effect the authenticity of cultural heritage has on cultural heritage tourism [ 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ] that is, whether authenticity can promote cultural heritage tourism. Authenticity is a concept that does not appear in UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage (ICH) discourse, but is emphasized in the official Chinese ICH discourse [ 63 ]. Since authenticity is a complex concept, it has different manifestations [ 64 ], and the inability of heritage managers to adopt a holistic approach to shaping the meaning of authenticity has resulted in inadequate definitions of the concept [ 56 ]. In recent years, some scholars have tried to establish an inclusive and comprehensive concept of authenticity, focusing on the perspective of tourists and on the materiality and immateriality of cultural heritage [ 65 , 66 ]. Other scholars have considered authenticity in terms of subjectivity and objectivity. For example, Junjie Su proposed through empirical research that heritage practitioners describe the ability to create substantial object-related value through subjective authenticity. This approach illustrates how subjective authenticity can overcome the inappropriateness of materialism or objective authenticity [ 57 ]. In terms of the impact of authenticity on heritage tourism, most scholars focus on the psychological perception or behavior of consumers, such as satisfaction, engagement [ 59 ], and perceived value [ 62 ]. In exploring the relationship between authenticity and consumer psychology or behavioral intention, the empirical results show that authenticity has a significant impact on consumers’ psychological perceptions.

Attitude is the psychological perceptions of consumers under the combined action of various internal and external factors such as tourism product quality or the tourism environment, and is an important predictor of behavior. In the field of cultural heritage attitude, the focus of research has been on the effect of individual characteristics on cultural heritage tourism and how to enhance consumer tourism attitudes. Kastenholz et al. identified three categories of outcomes with multiple behavioral attitudes that affect sustainability: in their study, one group showed a greater focus on the environment and cultural heritage, a second group showed the most sustainable behaviors overall, while a third group reported less sustainable behaviors globally [ 67 ]. Some scholars have carried out research from the perspective of residents of cultural heritage tourism destinations, for example by adopting a normative framework of values and beliefs to measure the intentions of Carthaginians to support sustainable cultural heritage tourism [ 68 , 69 ]. In addition, scholars conducting empirical research on the internal and external factors that affect consumers’ tourism attitudes have concluded that perception control, tourism experience, and cultural tourism participation can strengthen tourists’ attitudes to cultural heritage tourism [ 25 ]. Attitude is an important issue for both tourists and residents of heritage sites. The question of how to enhance the attitude of tourists in cultural heritage sites while also strengthening the attachment of the residents to the cultural heritage of their hometown is fundamental to the ongoing protection of cultural heritage [ 70 ].

Conservation

Since the formulation and adoption of the World Heritage Convention in 1972, the protection of cultural heritage has attracted worldwide attention. Cultural heritage conservation can determine the cultural connotation of tourism to a certain extent, and it constitutes the internal demand for the development of in-depth tourism. Given the special role of fragile and non-renewable cultural heritage in modern tourism, there are particular issues facing the protection of cultural heritage [ 71 ]. Since cultural heritage is the vehicle for a deep integration of culture and tourism [ 70 ], it should be afforded special protection.

Current research hotspots can be divided into two categories, the first of which focuses on macro-level cultural heritage protection planning and measures. Snowball and Courtney have argued that protecting cultural heritage is a challenge for developing countries, more and more of which are linking small sites of mainly local significance into a heritage route and selling them as a package. However, this may actually have non-market value in protecting cultural capital, which will not only fail to generate economic value in the short term but may also endanger the sustainability of cultural heritage protection [ 72 ]. In this connection, scholars have taken the Saida Cultural Heritage and Urban Development (CHUD) project in Lebanon as a case study for analyzing the role of the tourism pathway approach in achieving sustainable urban development in historic areas [ 73 ]. The focus of the second category is the construction of cultural heritage evaluation indicators. Against the background of sustainable development, some scholars have drawn on culture-led regeneration projects to propose an evaluation index system capable of assessing the multidimensional benefits of cultural landscape conservation or appreciation, with a focus on the relationship between the tourism sector and climate change [ 74 ]. Other scholars have assessed cultural heritage risks. For example, in view of the risks to cultural and natural heritage, a landscape risk assessment (LRA) model and landscape decision support system (LDSS) have been developed through the MedScapes-ENPI project [ 75 ].

Identity is a research hotspot in the field of cultural heritage because identity can enhance the cultural confidence of heritage residents in cultural heritage, maintain cultural heritage, and promote local social and economic development while enhancing people’s national pride [ 51 ]. This hotspot emphasizes that in the development of cultural heritage tourism, tourists and local residents reach a common cognitive basis for cultural heritage through cultural identity, which guides tourists to consume and promotes national brand building [ 76 ]. For example, to encourage the continuous development of cultural heritage tourism [ 46 ] and to facilitate the formation of identity, Carnegie suggests reenacting cultural historical events [ 77 ]. In recounting the past and present of cultural heritage, it is helpful for the cultural heritage industry and tourists to understand the issues of authenticity and identity in the production and consumption of postmodern cultural heritage attractions [ 77 ]. In addition, Tian found that shaping the identity of tourists to Celadon Town, a classic scenic spot of ICH in Zhejiang Province, China, improved tourist satisfaction and loyalty to the destination [ 78 ].

Since China signed the World Heritage Convention in 1985, its contribution to world heritage has developed rapidly. As of July 25, 2021, the total number of world heritage sites in China had increased to 56, and the number of natural heritage sites had increased to 14. In terms of natural heritage sites, China ranks first in the world, making it a veritable center of heritage. As a result, the types of cultural heritage tourism found in China are diverse [ 79 ], providing research objects for cultural heritage research in different fields. The focus of studies on China has been to seek innovative means of developing high-quality cultural heritage tourism and of leading the development of global cultural heritage tourism [ 80 ]. Wang noted that tourism heritage has been destroyed during urban reconstruction in China [ 81 ], creating an urgent need to identify key stakeholders capable of meeting the responsibility to protect [ 81 ]. However, Yan and Bramwell argued that each country is in a unique position to determine how its cultural heritage should be used for tourism. It follows that, in response to the increasingly tense and unstable relationship between the traditional cultural activities of tourist sites and Chinese society, the Chinese government should streamline administration and delegate power in order to protect the cultural heritage [ 82 ].

Keyword time zone analysis

The time zone map generated by CiteSpace 5.8.R2 software shows the evolution of research hotspots over time. As shown in Fig.  3 , this study divides the evolutionary process of cultural heritage tourism research into three stages, each of which is discussed in conjunction with representative articles and key events of the time.

Time zone perspective of cultural heritage tourism research, 2002 to 2022

First stage (2002–2007)

Cultural Heritage Protection. As Fig.  3 shows, the high-frequency keywords related to the first stage include cultural heritage tourism, sustainable, conflict, authenticity, and China. This indicates that the most obvious features of cultural heritage tourism in this period are cultural heritage protection and sustainable development, an outcome that is jointly determined by a number of factors. First, in 1992, the World Heritage Headquarters was established in Paris to be responsible for the coordination of world heritage-related activities, ensuring the implementation of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and taking urgent action on threatened heritage. Then, on October 17, 2003, the 32nd General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In the wake of these developments, more and more researchers began to pay attention to the field of cultural heritage [ 51 ], and this marked a new stage in the protection of human cultural heritage. In 2002, the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (16th NCCPC), adopted continuous enhancement of the capacity for sustainable development as part of the overall goal of building a moderately prosperous society in China. Since 2006, the Chinese government has designated the second Saturday of every June as Cultural Heritage Day. In this context, Chinese academia has finally reached a consensus on cultural heritage and sustainable development. Cultural heritage and the natural environment on which it depends are the concentrated carriers of the cultural essence of all ethnic groups in the world, the precious wealth left to people by human ancestors, and a non-renewable precious resource. The development and utilization of cultural heritage by human beings should proceed under the premise of maintaining the authenticity and integrity of that heritage. In order not to damage the ecological balance and sustainable development capacity of the natural system, we must adhere to the path of sustainable development of cultural heritage [ 83 ].

Second stage (2008–2013)

Comprehensive Development of Cultural Heritage. As Fig.  3 shows, the related high-frequency keywords in the second stage include management, ecosystem, policy, landscape, community archaeology, agriculture, climate change, and tourism development. This indicates that the comprehensive development of cultural heritage and tourism industry emerged during the second stage. The present study offers two possible explanations for this emergence. On the one hand, with the development of social economy, environmental problems are becoming more serious, the tide of global warming is surging, and environmental problems are prominent on a global scale. In order to address environmental problems and promote the harmonious coexistence of man and nature, researchers began to explore green development models and paid more and more attention to cultural heritage, especially the economic, social, and ecological value and unity of cultural heritage in agriculture [ 84 ]. At the same time, there were attempts to link ecological structure and function with cultural values and interests through cultural ecosystem services, thereby facilitating communication between scientists and stakeholders [ 85 ]. On the other hand, steps were being taken to use archaeological knowledge to improve people’s attitudes to cultural heritage, to mobilize relevant individuals and groups to protect and preserve the cultural heritage of all mankind, and to understand the value of the past in order to avoid the tragic loss caused by the destruction of cultural heritage resources. As a result, more and more researchers became involved in community archaeology research [ 85 , 86 ] As a new practice of archaeology and a new way of managing cultural heritage, the concept remained original, unbalanced, and pluralistic [ 87 ].

Third stage (2014–Present)

Consumer Behavior in Cultural Heritage Tourism. Figure  3 shows that the high-frequency keywords related to the third stage include behavior, perception value, customer satisfaction, motivation, consumption, place attachment, involvement, and consumer-based model. This reflects the fact that consumer behavior has become the most popular research in the field of cultural heritage tourism, followed by customer satisfaction [ 88 ], perception value [ 89 , 90 ], place attachment [ 91 ], consumer perceived trust [ 92 ], and other psychological perspectives. It is precisely because of the interdisciplinary integration of psychology and management that widespread use has been made of consumer behavior as a perspective on business and tourism research, and that it has also become an important factor in the field of cultural heritage tourism research.

Keyword cluster analysis

Using CiteSpace 5.8.R2 software, the keywords were clustered and divided into topics. Through the CiteSpace clustering function, using keywords to extract information and using the logarithm likelihood ratio statistic (LLR) as the calculation method, 13 valid clustering labels were obtained (Silhouette > 0.5). After removing clusters with the same words as subject headings and a small number of articles, the first five clusters were selected for analysis. The results, which are shown in Fig.  4 and Table 7 , include #0 Tourist satisfaction, #2 Rural development, #3 Cultural heritage management, #5 Stakeholders, and #8 China. The size of each cluster is determined by the number of articles it contains. To better interpret the clustering results, data have been selected at random as examples for each cluster.

Keyword clustering map in cultural heritage tourism research. Note: Q = 0.4552 (> 0.3) indicates that the cluster map is significant. The value of Silhouette = 0.722 (> 0.7) reflects that the results are credible

#0 Tourist satisfaction. As shown in Fig.  4 and Table 7 , tourism satisfaction has attracted the attention of scholars since 2016. Research on tourism satisfaction has focused on the application of empirical analysis methods. For example, in order to explore whether tourism commercialization can have a positive impact on tourists’ perceptions of authenticity and satisfaction in the context of cultural heritage tourism, Zhang et al. used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to conduct empirical analysis on 618 valid questionnaires collected to explore the relationship between variables [ 93 ]. To clarify the links between local community participation (LCP), authenticity, access to local products, destination image, tourist satisfaction and tourist loyalty, Jebbouri et al. conducted a survey of 406 respondents who visited Kaiping City, Guangdong Province, China, and tested their hypotheses empirically tested using moment structural analysis [ 94 ].

#2 Rural development. Research on rural development has focused on protection practices in relation to agricultural cultural heritage [ 95 ]. Some scholars have conducted case studies on the impact of cultural heritage on rural development. For example, Egusquiza et al. summarized the results of an analysis of data collected in 20 case studies to develop a multilevel database of best practices for extension in rural areas with common characteristics [ 96 ]. Meanwhile, Sardaro et al. conducted a case study on a collaborative approach to conservation of the most representative historic rural building types in Apulia, southern Italy, to identify successful conservation and management strategies [ 97 ]. Rautio investigated ethnic minority villages in Southwest China that have recently experienced a dramatic increase in cultural heritage. He argued that with the development of China’s new rural development policy and tourism, villages are being transformed into heritage sites that can protect the beauty of the countryside and the nation [ 98 ].

#3 Cultural heritage management. As Fig.  4 and Table 7 show, the theme of cultural heritage management has attracted the attention of scholars since 2016, and has become an important focus of academic research. Some scholars have concluded that a hybrid approach that unifies the fields of heritage management and sustainable tourism can realize the social value of heritage and sustainable tourism [ 99 ]. However, issues of low quality and vaguely defined management of cultural heritage sites persist. In this connection, Carbone et al. explored cultural heritage managers’ perceptions of quality and used a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to identify four types of cultural heritage managers: reactive, silent, pragmatic, and enthusiastic [ 100 ].

#5 Stakeholders. As Fig.  4 and Table 7 show, the topic of stakeholders has attracted the attention of scholars since 2015. Research on stakeholders has focused on the relationship between people and cultural heritage. For example,Manyane drew on stakeholder theory and sustainability thinking to argue that rethinking the increasingly complex nature of borders and cultural heritage can enrich the supply of eco-culture based on a better understanding of cross-border rural tourism opportunities [ 101 ]. Ji et al. focused on the Grand Canal, which was designated as a World Heritage Site in 2014, applying stakeholder theory to explore how residents and non-residents may have different perceptions of the value and meaning of cultural heritage [ 102 ].

#8 China. As Fig.  4 and Table 7 show, China has become an important research object of cultural heritage tourism research. This is in line with the results of the keyword co-occurrence analysis, and reflects China’s vast and rich historical and cultural heritage [ 103 ]. In recent years, with the improvement of China’s comprehensive strength, the Chinese government has paid more attention to the ongoing protection, development, and utilization of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage protection sites have been established, providing a wide range of research objects for researchers in the field. At the same time, with the rapid development of China’s economy, now the second-largest in the world, the per capita income of Chinese residents has increased significantly, providing more potential customer groups for cultural heritage tourism [ 104 ]. With this rapid development of tourism resources and the tourism economy, the contradiction between economic growth and cultural heritage has become increasingly prominent [ 81 ]. Accordingly, exploring how to maintain China’s economic growth while protecting its cultural heritage is the mainstream of current research.

Trends in cultural heritage tourism research

In CiteSpace, emerging words are keywords that increase rapidly in a given period of time. Research fronts are concepts and research directions that are constantly emerging and that represent frontier issues in the research field. Therefore, in the present study, mutation analysis of cultural heritage tourism keywords is an important indicator of the research frontier of a topic. In general, emerging keywords represent dynamic new directions in cultural heritage tourism research. In order to capture objectively the latest research frontier characteristics of cultural heritage tourism, we used the CiteSpace 5.8.R2 software settings for “keyword” to “node types”. The resulting knowledge map of keyword mutation rates identifies mutated words that began to appear from 2002 to 2022, generating a total of six knowledge maps of cultural heritage tourism keyword sequences. As Fig.  5 shows, these are cultural tourism, tourism development, heritage, museum, technology, and satisfaction.

Top 6 emerging keywords in cultural heritage tourism research, 2002 to 2020

In the field of cultural heritage tourism research, cultural tourism, heritage tourism, and tourism development have long been a focus. Understanding how to promote the experience of local culture in cultural heritage tourism is an important prerequisite for ensuring the long-term healthy development of cultural heritage tourism. In this connection, Chang et al. considered the natural tourist attractions, unique cultural performances, and diverse heritage goods that diverse indigenous communities offer. They applied a model of creative destruction to explore the impact of these developments on the Ainu community in Hokkaido, Japan [ 105 ].

The keywords of cultural heritage tourism changed abruptly in 2016. Museum, technology, and satisfaction became the latest keywords in cultural heritage tourism research. These keywords characterize the cutting-edge research of cultural heritage tourism, which indicates that scholars have been focusing on the impact of museum tourism, technology tourism, and consumer satisfaction on cultural heritage tourism. It also shows that with advances in science and technology, virtual reality technology has received more attention in the field of cultural heritage tourism [ 106 , 107 , 108 ]. Meanwhile, Dominguez-Quintero confirmed the direct and indirect effects of variable authenticity on satisfaction in its dual perspectives (objective and existential authenticity) in the context of cultural heritage tourism [ 61 ]. The present findings also shed light on the mediating role of quality of experience on authenticity and satisfaction.

Discussion and conclusion

In this study, the visual analysis software CiteSpace 5.8.R2 was used to carry out bibliometric analysis. Analysis of 805 papers on cultural heritage tourism research in the Web of Science SSCI from 2002 to 2022 yielded a visual network analysis graph that includes the distribution of published articles, the co-analysis of published authors, publishing institutions and countries, the co-citation analysis of published authors and published journals, keyword co-occurrence analysis, keyword time zone map analysis, keyword clustering graph analysis, and keyword emergence analysis. The conclusions can be grouped into four main themes.

First, in terms of the number of published papers, and according to the changes over time and in the number of publications, international cultural heritage tourism research from 2002 to 2022 falls into three stages: a slow growth stage (2002–2007), a stable growth stage (2008–2016), and a rapid growth stage (2017–2022). The overall trend is upward. This trend also indirectly proves the reliability of Zhang and Xu et al. 's views that cultural heritage tourism, as a typical practice of cultural and tourism integration, has attracted wide attention in recent years [ 109 , 110 ].

Second, in terms of cooperation analysis, there are several main researchers in cultural heritage tourism research; Zhang Mu [ 43 ], Timothy J Lee [ 111 ], LI XI [ 112 ], Jose Alvarez-Garcia [ 113 ], and Rob Law [ 7 ] have played an important role in research on international cultural heritage tourism, although no core network has yet formed. At the level of issuing institutions, a network of research institutions on cultural heritage tourism can be identified. These include Hong Kong Polytech University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinan University, Sun Yat Sen University, and City University Macau, although no core research network has yet been formed. At the national level, research on cultural heritage tourism has attracted the attention of scholars from all over the world. China, Spain, Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom have played an important role in the development of cultural heritage tourism research. Although Chinese scholars have published the largest number of papers in the world, their centrality is low. The centrality of Italian scholars, who have published the third-largest number of papers, ranks first in the world. This finding shows indirectly that Chinese scholars in the field of cultural heritage tourism should strengthen their international cooperation and improve their international influence [ 30 ].

Third, in terms of co-citation analysis, since 2002, papers of UNESCO have been cited 129 times, and papers by E Cohen have been cited 90 times. Annals of Tourism Research is the most cited journal, with 441 citations and impact factors of 5.493, 5.908, and 9.011 for the years 2018–2020, respectively. Tourism Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Sustainability, and Journal of Travel Research follow, with 433, 202, 191, and 169 citations respectively. The Research results indirectly indicate that the authors such as UNESCO and journals such as Annals of Tourism Research have made important contributions to the study of rich cultural heritage tourism.

Fourth, in terms of research hotspots, as with most research hotspots, the evolution of cultural heritage tourism research is mainly influenced by politics, culture, ecology and technology. However, this study argues that the question of how to achieve sustainable development has been the central concern of cultural heritage tourism in the past, which can be attributed to the non-renewable nature of cultural heritage. Furthermore, this research result further supports the notion that achieving sustainable development goals is an essential task in tourism studies [ 114 ]. It requires striking a balance between the economic, environmental, and social needs of all stakeholders involved [ 115 ]. In addition, the consumer behavior of cultural heritage tourism is an issue that needs to be further explored in the context of interdisciplinary integration [ 116 ]. Whether it is possible for heritage residents [ 24 ] or tourists [ 117 ] to accept the development and utilization of cultural heritage, and whether they can preserve local culture through cultural heritage tourism experience is an area that needs further in-depth research. A finding that is perhaps surprising is that tourist satisfaction is at the forefront of cultural heritage tourism research [ 92 ]. One explanation is that with improvements in living standards, demand for cultural heritage tourism has gradually increased, which requires corresponding improvements in the provision of quality services within cultural heritage tourism. This echoes the conclusions of Atsbha et al. that heritage tourism should provide a reasonable level of visitor satisfaction and must ensure that it provides them with an important experience [ 53 ]. At the same time, this study finds that rural development [ 95 ], cultural heritage management [ 100 ], and stakeholders [ 102 ] are receiving more and more attention from scholars in the field of cultural heritage tourism. In particular, the countryside has a large amount of cultural heritage [ 118 ]. One focus of current research is how to realize the rational distribution of stakeholders’ resources through effective management methods that take into account the economic, social, cultural, and ecological value of cultural heritage to rural development [ 97 ]. China has more than 5,000 years of history and world-renowned cultural heritage [ 119 ]. How to combine China's economic development with cultural heritage protection is also the mainstream issue of current research [ 87 ]. Another research trend concerns museum tourism and science and technology tourism as new forms of cultural heritage tourism, which indicates that cultural heritage tourism has transformed from traditional tourism to in-depth tourism. At present, with the rapid progress of science and technology, the rise of virtual tourism will open new ideas for cultural heritage tourism [ 120 ]. How to improve tourist satisfaction in cultural heritage tourism is an important new trend in global cultural heritage tourism research; this study suggests that promoting museum tourism and technology tourism can give tourists a better tourism experience, thereby improving consumer satisfaction.

This study provides cultural heritage tourism researchers with a quantitative, bibliometric review of the cultural heritage tourism literature. The results offer a deeper understanding of the development and evolution of the global cultural heritage tourism field from 2002 to 2022. The conclusions are basically consistent with those of other scholars in this field. However, the novelty of this study is threefold: the finding that China is a research object with great research potential and research value; the identification of the deep integration of cultural heritage tourism and technology, as well as cultural heritage tourism and museums, as the main trend in the development of cultural heritage tourism development; and the clarification that consumer behavior will remain the focus of research in the field of cultural heritage tourism for a long time to come. This raises the question of how to enhance the identity and perceived value of heritage residents and tourists by improving the authenticity and sustainability of cultural heritage tourism. The answers lie in providing consumers with satisfying travel experiences, thereby guiding heritage tourism toward a balance of consumption and the protection of the heritage and heritage residents.

This is the first English-language study to analyze cultural heritage tourism systematically and comprehensively using the SSCI database and bibliometric analysis methods. The results provide insights into cultural heritage tourism, giving researchers valuable information and new perspectives on potential collaborators, hotspots, and future research directions. In addition, by emphasizing the importance of cultural heritage tourism as an issue of concern around the world, it provides a more comprehensive perspective from which scholars from all over the world can conduct research into cultural heritage tourism. Its findings can be used as a reference on an international scale, especially in developing countries with rich cultural heritage resources and large populations.

However, this study has some limitations that should be noted. Because the data are taken from the SSCI database, the results apply only to humanities and social sciences research and cannot be generalized to other disciplines, especially science, engineering, and ecology. Different disciplines have their own databases, and it is therefore recommended that further research be conducted to compare and analyze results across disciplines.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Ministry of agriculture and rural affairs of the people’s republic of China and Department of Finance of Fujian Province for their financial support. We gratefully thank the Heritage Science journal and the journal Academic Editor, for their helpful input and feedback on the content of this manuscript.

This research was funded by the project of “construction of modern agricultural and industrial park for Anxi County in Fujian Province, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China (KMD18003A)”, Fujian Provincial Department of Finance entrusted project (KLE21002A): Research on the development path of strong towns with agricultural characteristic industries under the background of rural revitalization.

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Conceptualization, SBWZ and JXL; methodology, SBWZ; software, SBWZ; validation, SBWZ, JXL and YCC; formal analysis, SBWZ, XWS and YCC; investigation, SBWZ; resources, JXL; data curation, JXL; writing—original draft preparation, JXL; writing—review and editing, SBWZ and XWS; visualization, QW; supervision, SBWZ; project administration, JXL; funding acquisition, XWS and YCC. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Zhang, S., Liang, J., Su, X. et al. Research on global cultural heritage tourism based on bibliometric analysis. Herit Sci 11 , 139 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00981-w

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Sustainable Tourism

UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme

The UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme represents a new approach based on dialogue and stakeholder cooperation where planning for tourism and heritage management is integrated at a destination level, the natural and cultural assets are valued and protected, and appropriate tourism developed.

World Heritage and tourism stakeholders share responsibility for conservation of our common cultural and natural heritage of Outstanding Universal Value and for sustainable development through appropriate tourism management.

Facilitate the management and development of sustainable tourism at World Heritage properties through fostering increased awareness, capacity and balanced participation of all stakeholders in order to protect the properties and their Outstanding Universal Value.

Focus Areas

Policy & Strategy

Sustainable tourism policy and strategy development.

Tools & Guidance

Sustainable tourism tools

Capacity Building

Capacity building activities.

Heritage Journeys

Creation of thematic routes to foster heritage based sustainable tourism development

A key goal of the UNESCO WH+ST Programme is to strengthen the enabling environment by advocating policies and frameworks that support sustainable tourism as an important vehicle for managing cultural and natural heritage. Developing strategies through broad stakeholder engagement for the planning, development and management of sustainable tourism that follows a destination approach and focuses on empowering local communities is central to UNESCO’s approach.

Supporting Sustainable Tourism Recovery

Enhancing capacity and resilience in 10 World Heritage communities

Supported by BMZ, and implemented by UNESCO in collaboration with GIZ, this 2 million euro tourism recovery project worked to enhance capacity building in local communities, improve resilience and safeguard heritage.

Policy orientations

Defining the relationship between world heritage and sustainable tourism

Based on the report of the international workshop on Advancing Sustainable Tourism at Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites (Mogao, China, September 2009), the World Heritage Committee at its 34th session adopted the policy orientations which define the relationship between World Heritage and sustainable tourism ( Decision 34 COM 5F.2 ).

World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate

Providing an overview of the increasing vulnerability of World Heritage sites to climate change impacts and the potential implications for and of global tourism.

Sustainable Tourism Tools

Manage tourism efficiently, responsibly and sustainably based on the local context and needs

People Protecting Places is the public exchange platform for the World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme, providing education and information, encouraging support, engaging in social and community dialogue

The ' How-To ' guides offer direction and guidance to managers of World Heritage tourism destinations and other stakeholders to help identify the most suitable solutions for circumstances in their local environments and aid in developing general know-how.

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Helping site managers and other tourism stakeholders to manage tourism more sustainably

Capacity Building in 4 Africa Nature Sites

A series of practical training and workshops were organized in four priority natural World Heritage sites in Africa (Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) with the aim of providing capacity building tools and strategies for site managers to help them manage tourism at their sites more sustainably.

Learn more →

15 Pilot Sites in Nordic-Baltic Region

The project Towards a Nordic-Baltic pilot region for World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism (2012-2014) was initiated by the Nordic World Heritage Foundation (NWHF). With a practical approach, the project has contributed to tools for assessing and developing sustainable World Heritage tourism strategies with stakeholder involvement and cooperation.

Supporting Community-Based Management and Sustainable Tourism at World Heritage sites in South-East Asia

Entitled “The Power of Culture: Supporting Community-Based Management and Sustainable Tourism at World Heritage sites in South-East Asia", the UNESCO Office in Jakarta with the technical assistance of the UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme and the support from the Government of Malaysia is spearheading the first regional effort in Southeast Asia to introduce a new approach to sustainable tourism management at World Heritage sites in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Cultural tourism is one of the largest and fastest-growing global tourism markets. Culture and creative industries are increasingly being used to promote destinations and enhance their competitiveness and attractiveness.

Many locations are now actively developing their cultural assets as a means of developing comparative advantages in an increasingly competitive tourism marketplace, and to create local distinctiveness in the face of globalization.

UNESCO will endeavour to create networks of key stakeholders to coordinate the destination management and marketing associated with the different heritage routes to promote and coordinate high-quality, unique experiences based on UNESCO recognized heritage. The goal is to promote sustainable development based on heritage values and create added tourist value for the sites.

UNESCO World Heritage Journeys of the EU

Creating heritage-based tourism that spurs investment in culture and the creative industries that are community-centered and offer sustainable and high-quality products that play on Europe's comparative advantages and diversity of its cultural assets.

World Heritage Journeys of Buddhist Heritage Sites

UNESCO is currently implementing a project to develop a unique Buddhist Heritage Route for Sustainable Tourism Development in South Asia with the support from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). South Asia is host to rich Buddhist heritage that is exemplified in the World Heritage properties across the region.

Programme Background

In 2011 UNESCO embarked on developing a new World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme.

The aim was to create an international framework for the cooperative and coordinated achievement of shared and sustainable outcomes related to tourism at World Heritage properties.

The preparatory work undertaken in developing the Programme responded to the decision 34 COM 5F.2 of the World Heritage Committee at its 34th session in Brasilia in 2010, which requested

“the World Heritage Centre to convene a new and inclusive programme on World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism, with a steering group comprising interested States Parties and other relevant stakeholders, and also requests the World Heritage Centre to outline the objectives and approach to the implementation of this programme".

The Steering Group was comprised of States Parties representatives from the six UNESCO Electoral Groups (Germany (I), Slovenia (II), Argentina (III), China (IV), Tanzania (Va), and Lebanon (Vb)), the Director of the World Heritage Centre, the Advisory Bodies (IUCN, ICOMOS and ICCROM), the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the Swiss Government as the donor agency.

The Government of Switzerland has provided financial support for specific actions to be undertaken by the Steering Group. To coordinate and support the process, the World Heritage Centre has formed a small Working Group with the support of the Nordic World Heritage Foundation, the Government of Switzerland and the mandated external consulting firm MartinJenkins.

The World Heritage Committee directed that the Programme take into account:

• the recommendations of the evaluation of the concluded tourism programme ( WHC-10/34.COM/INF.5F.3 )
• the policy orientation which defines the relationship between World Heritage and sustainable tourism that emerged from the workshop Advancing Sustainable Tourism at Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites (Mogao, China, September 2009) ( WHC-10/34.COM/INF.5F.1 )

Overarching and strategic processes that the new World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme will be aligned with include the Strategic Objectives of the World Heritage Convention (the five C's) ( Budapest Declaration 2002 ), the ongoing Reflections on the Future of the World Heritage Convention ( WHC-11/35.COM/12A ) and the Strategic Action Plan for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention 2012-2022 ( WHC-11/18.GA/11 ), the Relationship between the World Heritage Convention and Sustainable Development (WHC-10/34.COM/5D), the World Heritage Capacity Building Strategy ( WHC-10/34.COM/5D ), the Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List (1994), and the Evaluation of the Global Strategy and PACT initiative ( WHC-11/18.GA/8 - 2011 ).

In addition, the programme development process has been enriched by an outreach to representatives from the main stakeholder groups including the tourism sector, national and local governments, site practitioners and local communities. The programme design was further developed at an Expert Meeting in Sils/Engadine, Switzerland October 2011. In this meeting over 40 experts from 23 countries, representing the relevant stakeholder groups, worked together to identify the overall strategic approach and a prioritised set of key objectives and activities. The proposed Programme was adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 2012 at its 36th session in St Petersburg, Russian Federation .

International Instruments

International Instruments Relating to Sustainable Development and Tourism.

Resolutions adopted by the United Nations, charters adopted by ICOMOS, decisions adopted by the World Heritage Committee, legal instruments adopted by UNESCO on heritage preservation.

Resolutions adopted by the United Nations

• Report by the Department of Economics and Social Affairs: Tourism and Sustainable Development: The Global Importance of Tourism at the United Nations’ Commission on Sustainable Development 7th Session (1999)
• Resolution A/RES/56/212 and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism adopted by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (1999)

Charters adopted by ICOMOS

• The ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Charter (1999)
• The ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites (2008)

Decisions adopted by the World Heritage Committee

• Decision (XVII.4-XVII.12) adopted by the World Heritage Committee at its 25th Session in Helsinki (2001)
• Decision 33 COM 5A adopted by the World Heritage Committee at its 30th Session in Seville (2009)
• Decision 34 COM 5F.2 adopted by the World Heritage Committee at its 34th Session in Brasilia (2010)
• Decision 36 COM 5E adopted by the World Heritage Committee at its 36th Session in Saint Petersburg (2012)

Legal instruments adopted by UNESCO on heritage preservation in chronological order

• Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970)
• The Recommendation for the Protection of Movable Cultural Property (1978)
• The Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore (1989)
• The Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural heritage (2001)
• The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005)

Other instruments

• Other instruments OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2012 (French forthcoming)
• Programme on Sustainable Consumption and Production (In English)
• Siem Reap Declaration on Tourism and Culture 2015 – Building a New Partnership Model

Decisions / Resolutions (5)

The World Heritage Committee,

• Having examined Document WHC/18/42.COM/5A,
• Recalling Decision 41 COM 5A adopted at its 41st session (Krakow, 2017) and Decision 40 COM 5D adopted at its 40th session (Istanbul/UNESCO, 2016), General:
• Takes note with appreciation of the activities undertaken by the World Heritage Centre over the past year in pursuit of the Expected Result to ensure that “tangible heritage is identified, protected, monitored and sustainably managed by Member States, in particular through the effective implementation of the 1972 Convention ”, and the five strategic objectives as presented in Document WHC/18/42.COM/5A; 
• Welcomes the proactive role of the Secretariat for enhancing synergies between the World Heritage Convention and the other Culture and Biodiversity-related Conventions, particularly the integration of relevant synergies aspects in the revised Periodic Reporting Format and the launch of a synergy-related web page on the Centre’s website;
• Also welcomes the increased collaboration among the Biodiversity-related Conventions through the Biodiversity Liaison Group and focused activities, including workshops, joint statements and awareness-raising;
• Takes note of the Thematic studies on the recognition of associative values using World Heritage criterion (vi) and on interpretation of sites of memory, funded respectively by Germany and the Republic of Korea and encourages all States Parties to take on board their findings and recommendations, in the framework of the identification of sites, as well as management and interpretation of World Heritage properties;
• Noting the discussion paper by ICOMOS on Evaluations of World Heritage Nominations related to Sites Associated with Memories of Recent Conflicts, decides to convene an Expert Meeting on sites associated with memories of recent conflicts to allow for both philosophical and practical reflections on the nature of memorialization, the value of evolving memories, the inter-relationship between material and immaterial attributes in relation to memory, and the issue of stakeholder consultation; and to develop guidance on whether and how these sites might relate to the purpose and scope of the World Heritage Convention , provided that extra-budgetary funding is available and invites the States Parties to contribute financially to this end;
• Also invites the States Parties to support the activities carried out by the World Heritage Centre for the implementation of the Convention ;
• Requests the World Heritage Centre to present, at its 43rd session, a report on its activities. Thematic Programmes:
• Welcomes  the progress report on the implementation of the World Heritage Thematic Programmes and Initiatives,  notes  their important contribution towards implementation of the Global Strategy for representative World Heritage List, and  thanks  all States Parties, donors and other organizations for having contributed to achieving their objectives;
• Acknowledges  the results achieved by the World Heritage Cities Programme and calls States Parties and other stakeholders to provide human and financial resources ensuring the continuation of this Programme in view of its crucial importance for the conservation of the urban heritage inscribed on the World Heritage List, for the implementation of the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape and its contribution to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals related to cities as well as for its contribution to the preparation of the New Urban Agenda, and further thanks to China and Croatia for their support for the implementation of the Programme;
• Also acknowledges the results achieved of the World Heritage Marine Programme, also thanks Flanders, France and the Annenberg Foundation for their support, notes the increased focus of the Programme on a global managers network, climate change adaptation strategies and sustainable fisheries, and  invites  States Parties, the World Heritage Centre and other stakeholders to continue to provide human and financial resources to support for the implementation of the Programme;
• Further acknowledges the results achieved in the implementation of the World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Programme, in particular the development of the Sustainable Tourism and Visitor Management Assessment tool and encourages States Parties to participate in the pilot testing of the tool, expresses  appreciation for the funding provided by the European Commission and  further thanks the Republic of Korea, Norway, and Seabourn Cruise Line for their support in the implementation of the Programme’’s activities;
• Further notes the progress in the implementation of the Small Island Developing States Programme, its importance for a representative, credible and balanced World Heritage List and building capacity of site managers and stakeholders to implement the World Heritage Convention , thanks furthermore Japan and the Netherlands for their support as well as the International Centre on Space Technology for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST) and  the World Heritage Institute of Training & Research for the Asia & the Pacific Region (WHITRAP) as Category 2 Centres for their technical and financial supports and also requests the States Parties and other stakeholders to continue to provide human, financial and technical resources for the implementation of the Programme;
• Takes note of the activities implemented jointly by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and ICOMOS under the institutional guidance of the World Heritage Centre, in line with its Decision 40 COM 5D, further requests the World Heritage Centre to disseminate among the States Parties the second volume of the IAU/ICOMOS Thematic Study on Astronomical Heritage and renames this initiative as Initiative on Heritage of Astronomy, Science and Technology;
• Also takes note of the progress report on the Initiative on Heritage of Religious Interest, endorses the recommendations of the Thematic Expert Consultation meetings focused on Mediterranean and South-Eastern Europe (UNESCO, 2016), Asia-Pacific (Thailand, 2017) and Eastern Europe (Armenia, 2018), thanks the States Parties for their generous contribution and reiterates its invitation to States Parties and other stakeholders to continue to support this Initiative, as well as its associated Marketplace projects developed by the World Heritage Centre;
• Takes note of the activities implemented by CRATerre in the framework of the World Heritage Earthen Architecture Programme, under the overall institutional guidance of the World Heritage Centre, and of the lines of action proposed for the future, if funding is available;
• Invites  States Parties, international organizations and donors to contribute financially to the Thematic Programmes and Initiatives as the implementation of thematic priorities is no longer feasible without extra-budgetary funding;
• Requests furthermore  the World Heritage Centre to submit an updated result-based report on Thematic Programmes and Initiatives, under Item 5A: Report of the World Heritage Centre on its activities, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 44th session in 2020.

1.   Having examined document WHC-12/36.COM/5E,

2.  Recalling Decision 34 COM 5F.2 adopted at its 34th session (Brasilia, 2010),

3.  Welcomes the finalization of the new and inclusive Programme on World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism and notes with appreciation the participatory process for its development, objectives and approach towards implementation;

4.  Also welcomes the contribution of the Steering Group comprised of States Parties representatives from the UNESCO Electoral Groups, the World Heritage Centre, the Advisory Bodies (IUCN, ICOMOS, ICCROM), Switzerland and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in the elaboration of the Programme;

5.   Thanks the Government of Switzerland, the United Nations Foundation and the Nordic World Heritage Foundation for their technical and financial support to the elaboration of the Programme;

6.   Notes with appreciation the contribution provided by the States Parties and other consulted stakeholders during the consultation phase of the Programme;

7.   Takes note of the results of the Expert Meeting in Sils/Engadin (Switzerland), from 18 to 22 October 2011 contributing to the Programme, and further thanks the Government of Switzerland for hosting the Expert Meeting;

8.   Adopts the World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme;

9.   Requests the World Heritage Centre to refine the Draft Action Plan 2013-2015 in an Annex to the present document and to implement the Programme with a Steering  Group comprised of representatives of the UNESCO Electoral Groups, donor agencies, the Advisory Bodies, UNWTO and in collaboration with interested stakeholders;

10.   Notes that financial resources for the coordination and implementation of the Programme do not exist and also requests States Parties to support the implementation of the World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme;

11.  Further requests the World Heritage Centre to report biennially on the progress of the implementation of the Programme;

12.   Notes with appreciation the launch of the Programme foreseen at the 40th Anniversary of the World Heritage Convention event in Kyoto, Japan, in November 2012

1. Having examined Document WHC-10/34.COM/INF.5F.1 and WHC-10/34.COM/INF.5F.3,

2. Highlighting that the global tourism sector is large and rapidly growing, is diverse and dynamic in its business models and structures, and the relationship between World Heritage and tourism is two way: tourism, if managed well, offers benefits to World Heritage properties and can contribute to cross-cultural exchange but, if not managed well, poses challenges to these properties and recognizing the increasing challenges and opportunities relating to tourism;

3. Expresses its appreciation to the States Parties of Australia, China, France, India, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and to the United Nations Foundation and the Nordic World Heritage Foundation for the financial and technical support to the World Heritage Tourism Programme since its establishment in 2001;

4. Welcomes the report of the international workshop on Advancing Sustainable Tourism at Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites (Mogao, China, September 2009) and adopts the policy orientation which defines the relationship between World Heritage and sustainable tourism ( Attachment A );

5. Takes note of the evaluation of the World Heritage Tourism Programme by the UN Foundation, and encourages the World Heritage Centre to take fully into account the eight programme elements recommended in the draft final report in any future work on tourism ( Attachment B );

6. Decides to conclude the World Heritage Tourism Programme and requests the World Heritage Centre to convene a new and inclusive programme on World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism, with a steering group comprising interested States Parties and other relevant stakeholders, and also requests the World Heritage Centre to outline the objectives and approach to implementation of this programme, drawing on the directions established in the reports identified in Paragraphs 4 and 5 above, for consideration at the 35th session of the World Heritage Committee (2011);

7. Also welcomes the offer of the Government of Switzerland to provide financial and technical support to specific activities supporting the steering group; further welcomes the offer of the Governments of Sweden, Norway and Denmark to organize a Nordic-Baltic regional workshop in Visby, Gotland, Sweden in October 2010 on World Heritage and sustainable tourism; and also encourages States Parties to support the new programme on World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism including through regional events and the publication of materials identifying good practices;

8. Based upon the experience gained under the World Heritage Convention of issues related to tourism, invites the Director General of UNESCO to consider the feasibility of a Recommendation on the relationship between heritage conservation and sustainable tourism. 

Attachment A

Recommendations of the international workshop

on Advancing Sustainable Tourism at Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites  

Policy orientations: defining the relationship between World Heritage and tourism

1. The tourism sector

The global tourism sector is large and rapidly growing, is diverse and dynamic in its business models and structures.

Tourists/visitors are diverse in terms of cultural background, interests, behaviour, economy, impact, awareness and expectations of World Heritage.

There is no one single way for the World Heritage Convention , or World Heritage properties, to engage with the tourism sector or with tourists/visitors.

2. The relationship between World Heritage and tourism

The relationship between World Heritage and tourism is two-way:

a. World Heritage offers tourists/visitors and the tourism sector destinations

b. Tourism offers World Heritage the ability to meet the requirement in the Convention to 'present' World Heritage properties, and also a means to realise community and economic benefits through sustainable use.

Tourism is critical for World Heritage:

a. For States Parties and their individual properties,

i. to meet the requirement in the Convention to 'present' World Heritage

ii. to realise community and economic benefits

b. For the World Heritage Convention as a whole, as the means by which World Heritage properties are experienced by visitors travelling nationally and internationally

c. As a major means by which the performance of World Heritage properties, and therefore the standing of the Convention , is judged,

i. many World Heritage properties do not identify themselves as such, or do not adequately present their Outstanding Universal Value

ii. it would be beneficial to develop indicators of the quality of presentation, and the representation of the World Heritage brand

d. As a credibility issue in relation to: i. the potential for tourism infrastructure to damage Outstanding Universal Value

i. the threat that World Heritage properties may be unsustainably managed in relation to their adjoining communities

ii. sustaining the conservation objectives of the Convention whilst engaging with economic development

iii. realistic aspirations that World Heritage can attract tourism.

World Heritage is a major resource for the tourism sector:

a. Almost all individual World Heritage properties are significant tourism destinations

b. The World Heritage brand can attract tourists/visitors,

i. the World Heritage brand has more impact upon tourism to lesser known properties than to iconic properties.

Tourism, if managed well, offers benefits to World Heritage properties:

a. to meet the requirement in Article 4 of the Convention to present World Heritage to current and future generations

b. to realise economic benefits.

Tourism, if not managed well, poses threats to World Heritage properties.

3. The responses of World Heritage to tourism

The impact of tourism, and the management response, is different for each World Heritage property: World Heritage properties have many options to manage the impacts of tourism.

The management responses of World Heritage properties need to:

a. work closely with the tourism sector

b. be informed by the experiences of tourists/visitors to the visitation of the property

c. include local communities in the planning and management of all aspects of properties, including tourism.

While there are many excellent examples of World Heritage properties successfully managing their relationship to tourism, it is also clear that many properties could improve:

a. the prevention and management of tourism threats and impacts

b. their relationship to the tourism sector inside and outside the property

c. their interaction with local communities inside and outside the property

d. their presentation of Outstanding Universal Value and focus upon the experience of tourists/visitors.

a. be based on the protection and conservation of the Outstanding Universal Value of the property, and its effective and authentic presentation

b. work closely with the tourism sector

c. be informed by the experiences of tourists/visitors to the visitation of the property

d. to include local communities in the planning and management of all aspects of properties, including tourism.

4. Responsibilities of different actors in relation to World Heritage and tourism

The World Heritage Convention (World Heritage Committee, World Heritage Centre, Advisory Bodies):

a. set frameworks and policy approaches

b. confirm that properties have adequate mechanisms to address tourism before they are inscribed on the World Heritage List

i. develop guidance on the expectations to be include in management plans

c. monitor the impact upon OUV of tourism activities at inscribed sites, including through indicators for state of conservation reporting

d. cooperate with other international organisations to enable:

i. other international organisations to integrate World Heritage considerations in their programs

ii. all parties involved in World Heritage to learn from the activities of other international organisations

e. assist State Parties and sites to access support and advice on good practices

f. reward best practice examples of World Heritage properties and businesses within the tourist/visitor sector

g. develop guidance on the use of the World Heritage emblem as part of site branding.

Individual States Parties:

a. develop national policies for protection

b. develop national policies for promotion

c. engage with their sites to provide and enable support, and to ensure that the promotion and the tourism objectives respect Outstanding Universal Value and are appropriate and sustainable

d. ensure that individual World Heritage properties within their territory do not have their OUV negatively affected by tourism.

Individual property managers:

a. manage the impact of tourism upon the OUV of properties

i. common tools at properties include fees, charges, schedules of opening and restrictions on access

b. lead onsite presentation and provide meaningful visitor experiences

c. work with the tourist/visitor sector, and be aware of the needs and experiences of tourists/visitors, to best protect the property

i. the best point of engagement between the World Heritage Convention and the tourism sector as a whole is at the direct site level, or within countries

d. engage with communities and business on conservation and development.

Tourism sector:

a. work with World Heritage property managers to help protect Outstanding Universal Value

b. recognize and engage in shared responsibility to sustain World Heritage properties as tourism resources

c. work on authentic presentation and quality experiences.

Individual tourists/visitors with the assistance of World Heritage property managers and the tourism sector, can be helped to appreciate and protect the OUV of World Heritage properties.  

Attachment B

Programme elements recommended by the Draft Final Report of the Evaluation of the World Heritage Tourism Programme by the UN Foundation:

1. Adopt and disseminate standards and principles relating to sustainable tourism at World Heritage sites;

 2. Support the incorporation of appropriate tourism management into the workings of the Convention ;

 3. Collation of evidence to support sustainable tourism programme design, and to support targeting;

 4. Contribution of a World Heritage perspective to cross agency sustainable tourism policy initiatives;

 5. Strategic support for the dissemination of lessons learned;

 6. Strategic support for the development of training and guidance materials for national policy agencies and site managers;

 7. Provision of advice on the cost benefit impact of World Heritage inscription;

 8. Provision of advice on UNESCO World Heritage branding.

1. Having examined Documents WHC-09/33.COM/5A, WHC- 09/33.COM/INF.5A.1, WHC-09/33.COM/INF.5A.2, and WHC-09/33.COM/INF.5A.3 ,

2. Recalling Decision 32 COM 5 adopted at its 32nd session (Quebec City, 2008),

3. Takes note with appreciation of the activities undertaken by the World Heritage Centre over the past year in pursuit of the Committee's five Strategic Objectives;

4. Takes also note of the findings of the study undertaken by UNESCO's Internal Oversight Service on the mapping of the workload of the World Heritage Centre presented in Document WHC-09/33.COM/INF.5A.3;

5. Notes with satisfaction that the World Heritage Centre is working with the secretariats of intergovernmental committees of related conventions such as the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage , and the Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage-2001 and recommends that such cooperation be encouraged as this would further strengthen the work of the Centre;

6. Requests the World Heritage Centre to prepare a document on the World Heritage Convention and its cooperation and exchange with other conventions and programmes in the field of cultural heritage for discussion at the 34th session of the World Heritage Committee (2010);

7. Also requests the World Heritage Centre, in future reports on activities undertaken, to further strengthen the information and analysis available to States Parties by:

a) Retaining the current format to report activities and including an update on progress with implementing the Committee's decisions,

b) Describing the criteria by which the World Heritage Centre makes decisions as to which activities under the Convention it undertakes,

c) And including, on a discretionary basis, analysis of strategic issues and new directions;

8. Further requests the World Heritage Centre to produce, on an experimental basis, an indexed audio verbatim recording of the proceedings of the 33rd Session in addition to the standard summary records (as produced since the 26th session of the World Heritage Committee);

9. Notes the outline provided by the World Heritage Centre of its roles and the roles of the Advisory Bodies and agrees that this topic be further discussed at the 34th session of the Committee in 2010 under a separate agenda item;

10. Requests furthermore the World Heritage Centre to outline the forward direction of the World Heritage thematic programmes and initiatives, to enable an understanding of how these themes connect with and integrate into general programmes, and how they might be resourced;

11. Notes that the Centre already proactively engages women in its Heritage Programmes in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean as part of its gender balance policy and the provision of equal opportunity to all, and recommends that gender balance and community involvement be prioritized in the Centre's programmes;

12. Adopts the World Heritage Thematic Programme on Prehistory presented in Annex 1 of document WHC-09/33.COM/5A ;

13. Requests the World Heritage Centre to reconsider the term "prehistory", to better recognize the continuing cultures of indigenous communities, to ensure global representation in the identification and conservation of related properties, and to present a report on progress in developing an Action Plan on Prehistory and World Heritage at its 34th session in 2010;

14. Notes with concern the ongoing destruction of some of these fragile sites, including the recent destruction of the Rock Art sites of Tardrat Acacus in Libya, and requests the State Party to take immediate action and other measures as necessary to address the problem in consultation with the World Heritage Centre and to invite a joint World Heritage Centre / ICOMOS mission;

15. Expresses its gratitude to the Governments of Bahrain, South Africa and Spain for the financial and technical support for the various international scientific encounters, and recognizes the proposal of the Government of Spain in establishing a centre for the research of Prehistory;

16. Recalling the Decision of the World Heritage Committee 31 COM.21C to carry out a programme of sustainable development concerning the conservation of earthen architecture, thanks the Governments of Italy and France for their support of the programme on earthen architecture in Africa and the Arab States in particular, and requests the potential financial donors and the States Parties to support the implementation of activities and further requests the World Heritage Centre to submit a progress report at its 35th session in 2011;

17. Takes note of the progress report on the World Heritage Tourism Programme;

18. Thanks the Governments of Australia, China, France, India, Switzerland and United Kingdom, who have worked in close collaboration with the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, the World Tourism Organization and other partners, for contributing to the Initiative of Sustainable Tourism;

19. Expresses its gratitude to the Governments of Australia and China for the organization of a workshop on sustainable tourism at the World Heritage site, Mogao Caves, China, in September-October 2009 and requests that the following elements be submitted to the Committee for examination at its 34th session in 2010:

a) A report on the workshop,

b) The subsequent recommendations of the workshop regarding the adoption of best practices policy guidance, and concerning the changes proposed for the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention ,

c) A document concerning the progress of the World Heritage Programme on Tourism;

20. Finally requests the Director of the World Heritage Centre to identify supplementary sources of funding to put into place a sufficient number of staff and resources at the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies in order to continue to efficiently contribute to the resolution of problems related to World Heritage conservation.

XVII.8 The Secretariat provided the following justifications for the selection: 

• Tourism - growing threats on World Heritage sites from tourism which, if sustainably managed could offer socio-economic development opportunities;
• Forests - since close to 60 of the natural sites on the World Heritage List are forests and that the lessons being learned from the large-scale UNESCO-UN Foundation projects in the tropical forest sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo can serve as case studies to enrich the programme;
• Cities - since close to 200 of the cultural sites on the List are historic centres or entire cities, and because 20% of the Fund's international assistance have served to address the challenge of urban heritage conservation;
• Earthen structures - since some 30 of the cultural sites on the List are included in this category, and due to the particularity of conservation of earthen heritage, and threats.

XVII.10 The Committee expressed its appreciation for the clarity of the presentation and the justifications provided. Indicating strong support for the overall programming approach, the Committee however indicated the need for the programme to respond to the priorities established by the Committee and to create strong links with the results of the Global Strategy actions and Periodic Reporting. The Committee approved the four proposed themes of the programmes in this first series of initiatives and authorized the Centre to proceed in their development.

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The UK used to be a European tourism hot spot. Here’s how it all went wrong

It’s hardly a great tourism slogan.

“Britain is grinding to a halt” was the verdict of the UK’s Labour Party on the country they hoped to govern, as they were setting out their case for election in June.

On July 4, they won by a landslide, promising change. As residents wonder what to expect day-to-day, those abroad might wonder what it means for their travel plans. Because one industry that could do with a change is tourism.

Since time immemorial, visitors have flocked to the UK. Its heritage and cultural sites have traditionally made it one of the jewels in Europe’s crown.

Yet while visitor numbers are up across the board on the continent – nearly all EU member states saw numbers rise in 2023 year-on-year – the UK has not yet caught up with pre-pandemic numbers.

Nearly 41 million overseas residents visited the UK in 2019. In 2023, 37.68 million entered – a drop of 7.3%.

Compare that with Italy, which set a new record for arrivals numbers in 2023. Only Luxembourg saw a drop of 0.1% fewer tourists.

What’s more, international visitors applying for a tourist visa were down by 19% on pre-pandemic numbers.

The slow recovery coincides with tourism-allied hiccups. Regular strikes have been hampering transport. “Rail cancelations are at record levels,” according to the new government in its pre-election manifesto.

The UK has a glorious coastline, but in recent years many beaches are increasingly polluted by sewage . Tax-free shopping for tourists has been axed, and EU visitors now need a passport to visit, which most don’t have.

And in 2024, the rhetoric around safety in the capital has been ramped up. In February, then prime minister Rishi Sunak suggested the country was descending into “mob rule.” He also flagged a 20% rise in knife crime in London in May.

His comments were political, made while campaigning for local elections. Yet few listening from abroad would have noted the context.

So what’s gone wrong for the UK – and can the incoming government turn it around? Labour’s pre-election manifesto , in which the party outlined its plans for the country, pretty much ignored the tourism industry. But it didn’t mince its words when describing the problems.

“Britain is grinding to a halt,” it said. “Rail cancelations are at record levels… Conservative chaos has seen major projects abandoned, decades-long delays… and our infrastructure crumbling.”

The party has promised to “modernize” UK transport infrastructure, “rebuilding Britain.” The railways will be brought under public ownership. Those traveling by car will be pleased to know that Labour also pledged to repair potholes.

However none of this will be quick. Labour’s infrastructure overhaul is based on a 10-year plan.

Shifting priorities

Is the UK really doing that badly or have travel trends shifted, post-pandemic? For Tom Jenkins, CEO of the European Tourism Organisation , it’s the latter. “I think the UK is doing perfectly well but we’ll see more people going to [continental] Europe,” he says of 2024, adding that there’s “allegedly a slight plateau of American demand for the UK.”

Patricia Yates, CEO of VisitBritain , disagrees, saying that American visitors have “driven our recovery since the pandemic.” Kayla Zeigner, owner of travel agency Destination Europe , says she is booking ever-more trips to the UK.

But for Marcy Zyonse, owner of Live The Dream Travel , a luxury vacations company, the UK has been hit by changing post-pandemic travel trends. “The appetite for epic, culturally immersive travel has been so strong in the past couple of years,” she says.

“People were starved for that. In the US, we didn’t go beyond the Caribbean for a couple of years, so people are looking to do that Greece or Italy trip. We’ve missed out on two or three years of travel, and I think the UK is too low down on the list.” English-speakers want a more exotic experience, she says – starting with a foreign language.

After all, the UK is known for history, culture and the royals – all of which will be around next year. It’s easier to prioritize that for a much-needed Mediterranean break.

And that heritage has also meant the outgoing government has let the tourism industry slide, says Yates.

“There’s a view that we have enormous strength in our culture and heritage, and people will just come,” she says.

“That isn’t the case. Like every export industry, we have to pitch – to tell people why they should come now . The balance of being a history and heritage destination is that it was there 10 years ago and will be there in 10 years.”

There’s also a hangover from the pandemic, when UK travel rules were particularly chaotic, say experts. Destinations that opened early got visitors raving about their first post-lockdown trips – which had a knock-on effect.

“Current hotspots are destinations that opened early in 2021 to American tourists, which created a huge surge in demand,” says Zeigler.

Zyonse agrees. “You guys in the UK were behind, and people lost confidence. People booking in 2021 for 2022 didn’t book the UK, and the effect snowballed. Social media has driven people to those places [that opened up earlier].”

Making Britain ‘great’ again

So what’s to be done? For Yates, the new government could use tourism as an economy-booster – to the tune of 7% growth every year, she says, according to VisitBritain’s projections.

“The strength of tourism is that you can dial up quickly – we don’t need to build lots of infrastructure,” she says.

“It’s a case of promoting the right places at the right time to the right customers.”

Promotion is tricky in itself. The outgoing Conservative government was infamous for its “austerity” cuts to public spending. In evidence to parliament in March 2024 , VisitBritain revealed that its marketing budget was around “£18 million ($23 million) annually, compared to over 80 euros million ($85.5 million) for Ireland.”

Back in November 2021, Yates told CNN that VisitBritain didn’t know what its budget would be from March 2022.

Today, she explains, it has a £19.8 million core budget, and gets around the same amount from another government campaign . That’s still around half of Ireland’s budget – so private-sector funding is used to boost it.

“We know that for every £1 invested we get £15 spent by tourists – a slice goes to the treasury, and money goes directly from international visitors into the economy. It’s a win-win,” she says.

But she’s keen for the new government to help take things further.

“Tourism delivers over three million jobs, around 10% of the economy,” she says. “To have a real growth plan, we have to make a statement about Britain overseas that will drive visitors and investment.”

Welcoming visitors

Not many tourists will have cared about political instability – as Zeigler says, “Americans are dealing with our own political chaos.” But Yates says that what does cut through is “the message of welcome.”

“It’s hugely important as a driver for international visitors,” she says. “Sometimes Britain has done that well, like during the London Olympics. Sometimes we don’t score as well. We need to look at how we position Britain as a welcoming destination, and how we look at borders and visas.”

In the 2023 Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index , which ranks 60 nations on a range of attributes, the UK received its lowest ever rating for “Welcome.” Its rankings for “Culture” and “People” also dropped, though overall it rose two places to fourth position.

A visa for a Chinese visitor to the UK lasts a year, but costs the same about as a 10-year visa to the US, she says. Marcus Lee, CEO of China Travel Online says that visa efficiency is one of the top three drivers for Chinese tourists.

Visitors from the Gulf states have increased since the UK introduced a speedy “electronic travel authorization” scheme to fast-track their applications, says Yates. The scheme was due to expand to Europe and US markets – it will now be up to the Labour government to do so.

Meanwhile the self-styled “hostile environment” towards immigration of the last government hasn’t helped either. “For tourism, we want an efficient and effective border, but we do want people to come,” she says. “We need to think about language.” She says that people who visit the UK on vacation are 18% more likely to invest in the country – and investment is something the new government will be looking for.

Brexit side effects

As a result of Brexit, in 2021 the UK government abolished tax-free shopping for non-EU citizens. It means the UK is now the only European country not offering tax-free shopping to visitors from outside the continent.

Data from London retail promoter New West End Company in February showed that although visitor numbers in 2023 to the area were just 4% below 2019 levels, spending was down 19%. Visitors from the Gulf states – some of the wealthiest tourists to grace the UK – were up 20% on 2019 figures, yet they only spent 10% more.

The pattern was repeated with tourists from across the globe. US tourists were up 8% but spent 14% less. In Italy and Spain, however, US spending was up by 143% and 179% respectively.

“The impact of losing tax-free shopping is clear to see,” says Dee Corsi, chief executive of the NWEC. “While the UK strives to return to pre-pandemic levels of travel and spend, continental Europe’s recovery continues at pace.

“Whilst the likes of Italy and France are actively leveraging tax-free shopping as a driver of growth, British businesses continue to trade at a disadvantage. With domestic spend remaining squeezed, a continued decline of tourist spending will have a knock-on effect on employment rates, inward investment, and supply chains across the nation.”

She calls bringing back tax-free shopping a “rare, golden opportunity for the government to… inject a shot of growth back into the economy, with a tried-and-tested scheme and a captive audience.”

“We would urge the new government to grasp this opportunity with both hands,” she adds.

Meanwhile, EU citizens now need a passport to visit the UK, where pre-Brexit they could cross the border with their ID cards. In 2021, Jenkins told CNN that three-quarters of Europeans don’t have passports .

Then there are clouds on the horizon regarding getting in and out. When the new ETIAS scheme launches , every traveler entering the Schengen area for the first time will need their biometric data captured. “It’ll be time consuming initally,” he says. “There’s evidence that really bad entry systems deter people.”

’Bridgerton’ to the rescue?

So what can be done? For Zyonse, VisitBritain should spend that marketing budget on attracting influencers and travel advisors to lesser-known destinations. A self-declared lover of the UK, who calls London “a better version of New York,” she says that the post-pandemic drive for more “epic” adventures calls for a different approach. Timelapse videos of an elevator going up London’s Shard skyscraper, or something more wild in the Lake District, could attract social media likes, she says.

She also thinks that the “majority” of US family trips are driven by children’s choices. She just went to Greece to give her daughter a “Mamma Mia!” experience, and says that the UK “needs to get young girls posting on social media wearing a crown, or having afternoon tea, or doing something ‘Bridgerton’-related.”

She’ll approve of VisitBritain’s next big campaign, then. Launching at the end of 2024, “Starring Great Britain” will revolve around filming locations, says Yates, who adds that her team also wants to promote cheaper, out-of-season travel.

For Yates, the new government offers a chance to grow the industry. But she warns that the UK needs to revamp its international reputation, wishing for it “to be seen internationally as a welcoming, culturally diverse, vibrant country that people want to visit, send their kids to school and invest in.”

With the new government promising change from day one, it might not be long until she sees her dreams coming true.

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Soocheong (Shawn) Jang, Purdue University professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) and left, and HTM PhD candidate Dohyung Bang pose with a “best paper” award at a conference in Seoul, South Korea.

Written by: Tim Brouk, [email protected]

Airbnb is now a global force in vacation lodging with about 5.6 million active listings in 220 countries. About 150 million people have the app on their phones.

That’s a lot of data points to dissect for the researchers in Purdue University’s Center for Hospitality and Retail Industries Business Analytics (CHRIBA), which is housed in the White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management  (HTM).

Since its activation in 2022, the center has featured work by HTM graduate students under the direction of HTM professor SooCheong (Shawn) Jang, publishing several analyses of Airbnb use in cities and regions around the world. From New York City to Seoul, South Korea, numerous trends in hospitality can be found when studying tourists’ use of the short-term rental app, especially when compared to hotel use, rates and availability.

“Providing various options for lodging is a good thing for visitors — at a certain level,” Jang said. “I think allowing (Airbnb operators) to do their business freely is one strategy, but if it becomes a share of 10% or higher, then it starts to take a substantial portion of the market share.”

Recent analytical reports show major growth of Airbnbs in some regions but a leveling off in major sites such as New York and London. A May 2023 report, “The Airbnb Landscape of New York City,” found 42,926 listings for 54,646 total rooms. This added up to a whopping 27.4% share of available lodging for tourists wanting to experience Broadway, Central Park or the Empire State Building.

The CHRIBA researchers concluded Airbnb poses stiff competition for “economy, midscale and upper midscale hotels” and is already making “a notable impact on the lodging industry.”

In 2024, CHRIBA’s work on Airbnb’s effects on real estate prices in Seoul was picked up by several South Korean newspapers. A 2024 study by CHRIBA researchers won “Best Paper” at the recent Asia-Pacific Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education conference in Seoul.

By the numbers

While even the newest Airbnb users know rental rates fluctuate depending on the day, CHRIBA crunched prices on the thousands of available listings in New York City to find a mean of $163.55 per stay. This included entire homes and apartments, private rooms within a house or condo, hotel rooms that are managed under Airbnb, and shared rooms like a hostel.

Broken down, the rates averaged to $210.18 per entire house or apartment, $100.20 per private room, $286.95 per hotel room and $92.16 to share with another Airbnb user.

CHRIBA also investigated who hosts all these Airbnbs. While the names were omitted, one rental agency ran 526 homes or apartments while one individual controlled 394 private rooms around New York. However, these were outliers because 82.1% were single listings from single hosts. Only 0.6% of the hosts have more than 10 listings.

Most of the New York City listings were in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. A map shows both areas almost blanketed in listings. Jang said this is atypical for other cities because most listings appear around tourist attractions. Even London, with an astounding 40% of the market share and the only other city in the world with more Airbnb listings than New York, has clusters of heavy Airbnb listings around tourist destinations, such as Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

Beyond the Big Apple

In late 2023 and early 2024, Jang and his graduate student Dohyung Bang, both natives of South Korea, put their lens on Seoul, a city of 9.8 million, as well as other major cities in the Asia-Pacific Region. Even large cities like Tokyo and Bangkok don’t come close to New York’s Airbnb market share. Still, Airbnb is on a rapid rise in these cities, according to CHRIBA’s findings.  

“The increasing rate in Seoul is faster than other cities like New York and London, even though the actual number of listings is smaller,” Jang explained. “But we are seeing this increasing trend still going on. In London and New York, it’s a little saturated, but other major, international cities are growing in Airbnb rentals.”

Jang said Airbnb has a role in some international cities’ recent concerns of “over-tourism,” which occurs when there are too many visitors to a particular destination, and therefore, they overcrowd certain tourist sites. Historic cities in Italy are prime examples of the over-tourism phenomenon. This also results in higher hotel rates, according to Jang.

“(The tourist destinations) can manage a certain number of visitors, but since visitors can find very cheap options (on Airbnb), there can be more people than they can hold in the city because of Airbnb,” Jang added.

Airbnb stigma

CHRIBA found significant negative qualitative data in some cities. One divisive issue is Airbnb’s knack for increasing real estate prices, which often shuts out first-time homebuyers. Airbnb is essentially insuring a seller’s market in some U.S. cities. However, that means more property tax, and if your neighbors are renting out their home as an Airbnb, that means strangers hanging out on your block several nights of the year.

West Lafayette has been vocal about limiting the amount of Airbnb listings due to housing shortage struggles, according to Based in Lafayette news Substack .

“The West Lafayette City Council was a unanimous vote behind asking for a proposed ban on new short-term rentals in single-family zones,” Dave Bangert wrote.

The story added that Lafayette is investigating putting a cap on Airbnb rentals as well.

One European trend found that some castles can be rented via Airbnb. Yes, Airbnb users could spend the night in a 500-year-old castle for less than $1,000 a night. However, Jang found most castles struggle with upkeep, and the rental fees help keep the old structures standing.

“From a municipal government point of view, it’s very difficult to maintain those facilities,” Jang said.  “You spend many dollars to maintain those but if you use them as Airbnb facilities, people enjoy the castles, and those dollars will go to the municipality’s pockets to maintain all of those facilities, so all those cities are proud of their heritage and those facilities as evidence of their history. It’s kind of win-win in that sense.” 

Whether it’s a castle in Spain or a shared room in Brooklyn with a German DJ on holiday, Airbnb is here to stay. CHRIBA will continue to monitor Airbnb’s global expansion and its effect on hotels and the hospitality and tourism fields through extensive research.

“We’re focusing on data-driven decision-making on hospitality and retail industries, and we also try to add more importance to data analytics to our school (HTM),” Jang said. “If I am a tourism market supporter, I am welcoming many visitors. We need to invite many people to our city, that way our residents and business operators can enjoy this benefit as well. If Airbnb cannot survive here, from the visitor’s perspective, you have a lot fewer options to stay in West Lafayette or any other city, which results in a loss overall.”

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The Century-Long Saga of the Caesar Salad

The world-famous salad is the pride of Tijuana, Mexico. But 100 years later, no one can agree on who created it.

Tijuana, Mexico, plans to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Caesar salad, arguably the most famous salad in the world, on July 4. Credit... Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

Supported by

By Pati Jinich

• July 1, 2024

In the dimly lit dining room of Caesar’s , just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, Efraín Montoya stood beside a table draped in white cloth, tossing whole romaine lettuce leaves in an intensely pungent, creamy dressing, before topping them with garlicky, golden croutons. Above the checkered floors of the dining room hung a large portrait of the man for whom the salad — and the restaurant — are named: Césare Cardini.

Over his 14-year tenure, Mr. Montoya, an ensaladero, has made tens of thousands of the Caesar salads served at the restaurant, hailed by many as the dish’s birthplace.

The winding legacy of the Caesar salad is inextricable from Tijuana, which plans to commemorate the dish’s 100th birthday on July 4 with a four-day festival. “If you come to Tijuana and don’t visit Caesar’s,” Mr. Montoya says, “it’s as if you didn’t come to Tijuana at all.”

The celebration kicks off on Avenida Revolución on Thursday, complete with a gala and a cocktail party featuring chefs like José Andrés and Dominique Crenn, and the unveiling of a new sculpture of Mr. Cardini. Grupo Plascencia, the company that now operates Caesar’s, hopes that the festival can restore some glory to a city long derided as dangerous.

“The Caesar salad is our heritage,” said Javier Plascencia, a chef whose family of restaurateurs took over Caesar’s in 2010.

Diners have long flocked to the restaurant for a taste of the original Caesar salad. But the version on the menu today — which has garlic, whole anchovies, Dijon mustard, Parmigiano-Reggiano, lime juice, olive oil, salt, freshly cracked black pepper and a coddled egg yolk in the dressing — is but a distant cousin of the one served 100 years ago. And like many cuisine cornerstones, aspects of the original recipe — including Mr. Cardini’s role in its creation — continue to be disputed.

Armando Avakian Gámez, whose family owns the building that has housed Caesar’s since 1945, hired a local historian, Fernando Escobedo de la Torre, to untangle the origins and evolution of the salad. The two have contributed their findings to a new coffee table book, “ Caesar: La Ensalada Más Famosa ” (Larousse, 2024), whose release coincides with the festival. Many in Tijuana hope the book will “once and for all end all controversies,” Mr. Plascencia said.

According to Mr. Escobedo, Mr. Cardini, an Italian immigrant to the United States, arrived in Tijuana in 1920. As prohibition sent wealthy Americans streaming into Mexico to drink, feast, smoke and take in horse races and boxing matches, Italian hospitality professionals, including Mr. Cardini, followed suit to cater to them.

Within a few years, Mr. Cardini was creating a spectacle of his own as he rolled out imported ingredients and an immense wooden bowl in front of glamorous diners at the first location of Caesar’s, which he opened in 1926. But according to Mr. Escobedo, Mr. Cardini had created the salad two years prior — on July 4, 1924 — at another restaurant he’d owned, the Alhambra Cafe.

“It’s easy to track facts outside of Mexico,” Mr. Escobedo said, “but once you get to Tijuana, it’s impossible to navigate if you’re not a local, as the origins were not well documented or archived.”

Mr. Plascencia has subscribed to another prevailing origin story — that Mr. Cardini used a recipe from the mother of one of his cooks, Livio Santini, a fellow Italian immigrant. A portrait of Mr. Santini hangs across from the one of Mr. Cardini in the Caesar’s dining room.

According to Mr. Santini’s youngest son, Aldo Santini, a customer had seen the cook preparing the salad for himself, as he’d do whenever he was homesick, and requested one for herself. Mr. Cardini put it on the menu the next day, he said.

“The story I know is the one that my father told again and again,” said Aldo Santini, 71.

Mr. Escobedo says immigration documents dispute this, proving that Mr. Santini did not arrive in the port of Veracruz on the southeastern coast of Mexico until July 7, 1924. Aldo Santini, meanwhile, rejects the salad’s purported birthday entirely.

“That date was set conveniently to match the biggest holiday of the U.S.A. — and to dispute my father’s legacy,” Aldo Santini said.

The original recipe included a whole coddled egg, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce, and did not include anchovies, Mr. Escobedo said. Instead of emulsifying the dressing before tossing the salad, the lettuce was laid in the bowl and topped with the dressing ingredients, one by one, then mixed.

As the salad’s profile grew, Césare Cardini’s own brother, Alex Cardini, claimed responsibility for its creation, further complicating the tale. But the Hollywood personalities, restaurateurs and politicians who visited Tijuana returned home with tales of a salad they called by one name.

“Everyone in my family agrees that it is correct for the salad to be named after Caesar, as my father was a worker there,” Aldo Santini said. “But that doesn’t mean my father didn’t create it in Tijuana first.”

Just when it seemed like diners could not get enough of the salad, Mr. Cardini sold Caesar’s in 1936 on the heels of a yearslong economic recession and a gambling ban instated in Mexico 1935. He returned to the United States, where he started Caesar Cardini Foods Inc., a business he eventually shared with his only daughter, Rosa.

Back in Tijuana, Caesar’s struggled through a revolving door of new management. “My clients laugh when I tell them,” Mr. Plascencia said of the restaurant’s downward spiral. “When I was a teen, there was a pharmacy at the front, followed by booths, and a curtain in the back. American tourists would come in, make a stop at the pharmacy, eat the salad and go past the curtain for a lap dance.”

By the 1980s, the salad was still prepared tableside, but with store-bought croutons, shelf-stable, pregrated Parmesan and little care.

A halt in tourism to Tijuana after Sept. 11, 2001, coupled with the worst decade of crime, kidnappings and cartel violence in the city’s history, hampered business at Caesar's. The restaurant shuttered in 2008.

“People wondered why we were investing in a place that was closed and dead on Avenida Revolución, which had turned into a ghost town,” Mr. Plascencia said.

But his family felt a deep responsibility to honor the legacy of Caesar’s and the dish it made famous. “The Caesar salad has helped to show the world a different face of our city.”

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