Heritage and cultural tourism Essay

Tourism is third largest industry in the world and according to the report of World travel and Tourism Council tourism industry generates approx 12% of world GNP (Agyei and Samuel, 2006). Heritage and culture has always been one of the most significant aspects of world tourism. People live their lives against rich environment formed by historic buildings, countryside’s of ancient times (Chang, 2000). This present research report has objectives to discuss the growth and importance of heritage and cultural industry. To describe in better form some of the world’s most popular heritage place is considered in this report. Further this report will also focus on various aspects pertaining to heritage and culture industry (Barrà © and Hervà ©, 2002). TASK: 1 Understand the growth and development of the heritage and cultural industry within travel and tourism. a. Breakdown of Heritage and Cultural tourism locations Heritage and Cultural tourism locations are generally considered as a subdivision of tourism industry which is oriented towards the cultural heritages at the particular location where tourism is happening. It includes the process of traveling to experience all the historic places or take knowledge about the history (Chang, 2000). There are various places in world which consists with historic elements in it like Tateva which is situated in Armenia, Briteddine palace, Lebanon, Wudand Mountains, situated in china etc. But in present scenario there various factors which are responsible for destroying world heritage (Evans and Graeme, 2003). To give broad focus on the issue here is an example of some world heritages which are standing on the stage of demolition. Bamiyan Buddha’s statutes are the worlds famous monumental statues of Buddha’s are established in 6th century which was destroys in the year of 2001 (Evans and Graeme, 2003). These statues are built from stone and sand in the ancient times. The reasons are not yet clear for destruction of these two prehistoric statues. Figure : Bomiyan Buddha’s statue (Source: Evans and Graeme, 2003) Bomiyan Buddha’s statues are situated in the Afghanistan, 230 km northwest of Kabul, and standing into the side of cliff in Bamiyan valley. Lots of examples are observed where ancient assets are standing at the corner of devastation. There is also one example of â€Å"Pompeii† which is ancient roman town city. This ancient town was originated in the seventh century BC was captured by Romans in 80 BC (Bernick and Boo, 2013). This place was also known as House of Gladiators, but before some time unfortunately its breakdown report has been recognize. Pompeii is popular in tourist but suffered from lack of investments for further developments. One wall was destructed by the cause of heavy rain falls which reflects the lack of Italian governments in maintain the ancient sites. This place is situated near Nepal in the Italian region of Campania. It is the popular tourism place and it in the year of 2008 this place has recorded 2.6 million visitors per year (Harrison, 2006). Figure : Pompeii after destruction (Source: Bernick and Boo, 2013) b. Growth and development of heritage and cultural sites To consistently ensuring the development of heritage sites of the world, there is establishment of the World Heritage Center in 1992 (Harrison, 2006). They are working as a secretariat of the statutory bodies of the conventions. They assist the state parties in order to implement the development policies of heritages sites. This center also helps in executing the old conventions and to develop the domestic government capabilities to maintain the long term protection of historic sites. Governments of many nations are aware for develop their ancient sites to retain the past. They are working in order to provide enormous opportunities of employments for economy and social developments of their nation. There are various private and government originations which assist in the developments of heritage and cultural sites (Mehmetoglu and Normann, 2013). Culture and tourism is major source of revenue and various steps are taken by governments and private organizations to develop the heritage and culture. There are several steps has been taken by the governments, organizations, an community to develop heritage and culture (Mehmetoglu and Normann, 2013). Authentic cultural and heritage venues and programs: It is essential for each community to realize that heritage and culture is competitive venture (Petia and Peter, 2004). It is required by the governments and private organization to take some steps for gathering people and develop them understanding regarding importance of heritage and culture conservations. They can organize some events or programs to aware the public for appreciation of heritage (Petia and Peter, 2004). Coordination of stakeholders: This is another process of growth and development where organizations can take the help of workers and service providers in heritage place. Service provider can educate the customers regarding usefulness of history and traditions. Coordination of stakeholder will contributes a great support in aware the customers to take care of their heritage and traditions (Uriely, 2009). Development of Necessary infrastructure: By developing major infrastructure of the heritage places government can helps in increasing the numbers of visitors. The major infrastructure includes hotels, transportation, amenities, local attractions etc (Uriely, 2009). These things will attract the visitors to a visit that place and leads to generate sources of income for the local peoples. c. Potential conflicts in the conservation of heritage and cultural sites The term Heritage is generally used by the people for those things which are valuable for them and which they want to secure for future, and that thing will be source of pride for them. The common conflicts which could be occur and concern with defining tangible heritage and intangible heritage (Petia and Peter, 2004). Intangible heritage can be observed as meaning, values, memories, feeling etc and tangible heritage are those which are built in the ancient time. Potential conflicts regarding conservation of heritage and cultural sites should be cut down. In the case when conflict cannot be cut down, then significance of the heritage should be put forward. Different group from community have different preferences and values for heritage. Giving preference to conservation for particular place by skip another valuable place can become the major reason for developing conflicts in the group of the communities (Uzama, 2009). TASK: 2 Purpose and importance of heritage and cultural attractions a. Purpose and importance of heritage and cultural sites and attractions Heritages are divides in two part tangible and intangible heritage, it essential to preserve all the heritage and natural sites around the world. One aspect for retention of the heritage places is that major tourism business is associated with the heritage places. Tourism industry generally prefers to visits their travelers at heritage and natural attractions. It is reflected from recent survey that in between 1996 to 2002 data shows that heritage travel is increased by 13 %, more than double growth of US travel industry (Uzama, 2009). According to the report of US Travel Association, travel and tourism industry directly contributes to approx $800 billion to the economy of United States in the year of 2011 (Uriely, 2009). The main purpose of the heritage is concerned with protecting the environment by encouraging the peoples and government to save the world heritage to sustain local economy. Retention of heritage place also provides the quality of life and helpful in giving cultural identity to the communities (Uzama, 2009). The importance of heritage can be judged by observing the total contribution to the GDP by Egypt tourism which has recorded increase in 4% to 9% simultaneously 2009 to 2010 (Harrison, 2006). In the context of cultural attractions, for example cultural attractions in Saudi Arabia have contributes to 12% of GDP. Figure : Growth ratio of Heritage and Culture tourism (Source: Lafontine and Shaw, 2005) From the traditional point of view heritage is defined as architecture object. In present era heritage includes various monuments, buildings, landscapes, old traditions, urban areas, maritime places, country sites, etc (Lafontine and Shaw, 2005). Heritage sites and buildings, landscapes also contain various optimistic influences on many aspects to develop a social community. Rebuilding, education, economy development, increase in the level of employments are the key areas where positive impacts of the heritage and culture reservation can be observe (Rodgers, 2001). By recognizing the various advantages to these aspects it can be considered that heritage and culture are important for the economy and social developments (Sisay, 2009). The historic environment is proven as a source of benefits because there are various parts in world where tourist generally attracts to visits only that place which is consists with some past. This thing provides information to travelers regarding habits, patterns and preferences, styles, and a business concept of ancient’s communities. Social community feels very proud to have some history of them, but don’t always express how much they give value to the place until it is in problem. Reuse of the ancient building is a significant factor which relates to sustainable communities (Lafontine and Shaw, 2005). b. How do these sites and attraction meet the needs of different customers and stakeholders In tourism industry cultural and heritage is considered as fastest growing segment and consistently showing trends towards the rising flow of specialization among tourists. Developing heritage and cultural segment in the tourism industry reflects the fascination of travelers towards adventure, traditions, past, archeology and interest in interface with the traditional peoples (Laurie and et. al., 2004). According to perception of heritage and culture experts, customers are those who comes to visits heritage places and willful to take the information about local people culture and their traditional beliefs, conventions etc. They are the peoples who takes the services from the management of the heritage places and pay them charges where required (Laurie and et. al., 2004). In continuation stakeholders are those peoples who are associated with the heritage management to provide various services to their customers or travelers. In order to properly comprehend, regarding how heritage and cultural sites meets the needs of the customers and stakeholder, it is essential to understand the perceptions of the travelers (Nagle, 2000). Some travelers are seeking for various adventures in heritage places like mounting, tracking etc but at the other hand some are expecting to observe different cultural beliefs, values of the local peoples (Min, Min and Ahmed, 2005). Now here management or stakeholders of the heritage will arrange the safe area for adventures like organizing various adventures sports at heritage places to satisfy the needs of their customers. In return heritage organizations provide various allowances and incentives to their stake holder to engage in excursion work with them. In this way heritage and attractions sites will satisfy the needs of their customers and simultaneously heritage organizations satisfy the needs of their stakeholders (Laurie and et. al., 2004). Stakeholders are the management staff of the heritage organization which may be private or public (Nagle, 2000). They are continuously supporting the excursion work because heritage places are generally situated on the mountains and there are major chances of climate disasters, so they need proper support for their organization to survive there (Min, Min and Ahmed, 2005). Some of the impacts are perceived in the positive and negative manner (Lickorish, and Jenkins, 2007). If the ownership of the heritage place is in the hand of the government then they would not take initiative in the development of the management of the heritage. All the decisions regarding the heritage place would be in the hand of all employees. Anyone can be able to manipulate in polices of the government. In other words the uniformity in the decisions of the high level of ministers would not be similar by reaching at the lower level (Ottenbacher and Harrington, 2009). But at the other hand in the case of the private ownership of heritage place, organization would always seek to develop their property. In this statement â€Å"Property† word is used because despite of the government only ancestors of the place would be owner of that place (Lickorish, and Jenkins, 2007). Private owners always wants to develop more revenue from their property so the flow of decision would be precise. All the decisions regarding any kind of development or policies can be taken by the top management and all the lower level of managers needs to implement that. No one in the lower management would be able to manipulate in the decision making process (Yakhlef, 2004). TASK: 3 Roles and responsibilities and ownership of organizations in the heritage and cultural industry a. Impact of different types of ownership on the management of heritage and cultural sites Generally heritage and cultural industry are owned by their national government or by private owners who contains the ownership of particular place. This is responsibility of local government are divided in two acts one is Heritage act 1977 and second is Environmental planning and assessment act 1979 (Ottenbacher and Harrington, 2009). The local government needs to establish legislative framework to effectively manage the heritage which also includes the planning system. It is also essential to mention that Wild life service and National parks has a responsibility to take care about the conservations of the heritage and natural sites under the Wile life act 1974 (Yakhlef, 2004). There are different forms of managing the management of heritage private owners and government owners. Private owners generally seek to develop their heritage site to increase the revenue from it. Their flow of decision would always precise means no one can be edit in the decisions. All the decision making powers are in the hand of top management. But in the case of government owners which are less likely to invest in the development of the heritage and cultural sites. Every level of management can take decision in government organization (Yakhlef, 2004). b. Roles and responsibilities of organizations in the heritage and cultural industry Some of the major roles and responsibilities of private and government owners of the heritage places are: To create various effective strategies for the developments of heritage and cultural attractions for the tourism industry. Consistently take initiatives to take care of the cleanliness of the places. Organizations can financially help the traditional and heritage place for their development which leads to the large number of tourists which will strengthen the economy. Manage all the native state forestry to develop the heritage place in more widen manner. Collaborate in the various researches of the industry for innovations in order to improve the production from forest, wood quality etc (Martinez and Slooten, 2011). It is major role of government and organizations to plan future landscapes to increase the heritage and cultural environment to increase the tourism. Organizations can provide infrastructures by providing hotels and restaurants facility in heritage places, this thing will enhance the level of employment. It comes to know that approx 86% of domestic government total expenses they spent on waste management like managing wastewater and all kind of solid waste and balance spend on infrastructure activities (Touropia, 2010). It has observed that Australian Government has a constitutional roles and responsibility in order to managing every kind environmental matter which is very essential. These actions come under Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Planning Act 1999 (the EPBC Act). The EPBC Act has a requirement of approval for functions to perform (VisitBritain, 2012). TASK: 4 understand the methods of interpretation within the heritage and cultural industry a. Methods of interpretation within the heritage and cultural industry In the tourism industry with context to heritage and cultural sites, interpretations can be considered as a manner of learning which helps in embraces the educational concepts. It includes giving information pertaining to natural, cultural, physical, and history about the heritage and cultural sites (Touropia, 2010). These process includes various theories relates to psychology, philosophy, sociology and educational in order to helps in developing awareness and appropriate attitudes and behavior patterns. Interpretation also considered as an imperative manner of acquainting society with its life support system (Hall, Smith and Marciszewska, 2006). It is observe that foremost objective of the agencies and individual interpreters to lead the humans to develop consciousness about the heritage places. Agencies also concerns to make them able to take intelligent actions in order to sustain the nature, heritage and traditional environments. It is essential requirements of thorough understanding and knowledge about psychological terms of tourists to satisfy them and also to encourage them to save heritage nd cultural sites (Touropia, 2010). It is to be noted that the first principal of interpretation is to provide the knowledge which is pertains to experiences of the travelers. The concept of interpretations in tourism industry is developed by Enos Mills and suggested that interpretation is considered as educational activity which aims to disclose the meanings and relationships with the help of original objects by their own experience and also by illustrative media despite of basically communicate factual information’s (Watson, 2010). There are also various modes of interpretation within heritage and cultural industry which are described below. It is understood that interpretation may be give by off-site and on-site but there are also some typical interpretation methods which discussed below (Watson, 2010). Interpretation Methods