heritage tourism theory

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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.

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Heritage Theory

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Helaine Silverman 2

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Introduction

The field of heritage studies burst onto the academic scene in the late 1980s in tandem with the birth of critical museum studies, rise of the new social history, growth of postcolonial theory, the cultural turn in anthropology, and so forth throughout the humanities. Over the past three decades, heritage studies have ranged from descriptive to theoretical, local to worldwide in scale, focused on developing and developed societies, and directed at deep prehistory through to the present day. A multitude of issues in countless places have been addressed, sometimes repeatedly with different disciplinary nuances.

The retheorization of heritage studies as “critical heritage studies” (henceforth, CHS) focuses on many topics of interest in the humanities and social sciences overall: bodies of knowledge, class, colonialism/postcolonialism, dominant rhetoric/authoritative discourse, gender, globalization, identity, ideology, institutions, memory work, nationalism,...

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Silverman, H. (2014). Heritage Theory. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_287

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This book examines the symbiotic relationship between museums, heritage attractions and tourism, using a range of international case studies.

Divided into three clear sections, the author first outlines a theoretical framework for understanding the role of museums in heritage tourism, before addressing practical challenges of interpretation, design and pandemic response. Finally, he traces the development of museum and heritage attraction design through the key figures of John Ruskin, James Gardner and Alex McCuaig. Each chapter incorporates a key case study, with an international scope including examples from Hong Kong, the UK, Taiwan, Qatar, Dubai and Kuwait.

An essential introduction for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in museum studies, heritage studies and tourism management.

“This important book is one of the first to integrate museum heritage and tourism. It examines the issue from a deep conceptual foundation and then translates this knowledge into a range of practical applications that are suitable for practitioners, students and the academic community. Written by a true global expert with many years of international experience, Museum and Heritage Tourism: Theory, Practice & People is a must-have resource.”

Professor Bob McKercher, University of Queensland

“This unique and erudite book provides valuable insight into the crossover between museums, heritage and tourism. It is a welcome addition to the growing literature in heritage tourism studies and brings to light many of the challenges and opportunities associated with museum management and design, heritage management, and tourism. This work is a valuable asset to students and scholars throughout the world.”

Professor Dallen Timothy, Arizona State University

Introduction

Part One: Theory

History vs Heritage 2. Heritage Tourism 3. Museums as Tourism Attractions

Part Two: Practice

4. Issues in Interpretation 5. Museum Design Management 6. Museums in an Age of Pandemics

Part Three: People

7. John Ruskin: Learning to Look 8. James Gardner: Interacting to Learn 9. Alex McCuaig: Experiencing to Inspire Conclusion

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Unesco social media, kremlin and red square, moscow.

Description

Inextricably linked to all the most important historical and political events in Russia since the 13th century, the Kremlin (built between the 14th and 17th centuries by outstanding Russian and foreign architects) was the residence of the Great Prince and also a religious centre. At the foot of its ramparts, on Red Square, St Basil's Basilica is one of the most beautiful Russian Orthodox monuments.

Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Le Kremlin et la place Rouge, Moscou

Indissolublement lié à tous les événements historiques et politiques les plus importants survenus en Russie depuis le XIII e siècle, le Kremlin a été construit entre le XIV e et le XVII e siècle par des architectes russes et étrangers exceptionnels. C'était la résidence du grand-prince ainsi qu'un centre religieux. Au pied de ses remparts, sur la place Rouge, s'élève la basilique Basile-le-Bienheureux, l'un des plus beaux monuments de l'art orthodoxe.

الكرملين والساحة الحمراء، موسكو

يرتبط الكرملين ارتباطاً وثيقاً بجميع الأحداث التاريخيّة والسياسيّة المهمّة التي توالت على روسيا منذ القرن الثالث عشر ولقد جرى تشييده بين القرنين الرابع والسابع عشر على يد مهندسين روس وأجانب استثنائيين. وكان الكرملين مقرّ الأمير الكبير كما كان مركزاً دينيّاً. عند أسفل أسواره في الساحة الحمراء شيدت بازيليك القديس بازيل وهي من أروع تحف الفنّ الأرثوذكسي.

source: UNESCO/CPE Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

莫斯科克里姆林宫和红场

由俄罗斯和外国建筑家于14世纪至17世纪共同修建的克里姆林宫，作为沙皇的住宅和宗教中心，与13世纪以来俄罗斯所有最重要的历史事件和政治事件密不可分。在红场上防御城墙的脚下坐落的圣瓦西里教堂是俄罗斯传统艺术最漂亮的代表作之一。

El kremlin y la Plaza Roja de Moscú

Indisolublemente vinculado a los más trascendentales acontecimientos históricos y políticos de Rusia desde el siglo XIII, el kremlin de Moscú fue construido entre los siglos XIV y XVII por toda una serie de excelentes arquitectos rusos y extranjeros. Además de ser la residencia del Gran Príncipe, fue un importante centro religioso. Al pie de sus murallas, en la Plaza Roja, se alza la basílica de San Basilio el Bienaventurado, uno de los más hermosos monumentos de arte ortodoxo.

モスクワのクレムリンと赤の広場

source: NFUAJ

Kremlin en Rode Plein, Moskou

Het Kremlin is onlosmakelijk verbonden met alle belangrijke historische en politieke gebeurtenissen in Rusland sinds de 13e eeuw. Het werd door de Grote Prins Yuri van Kiev gesticht als residentie en religieus centrum. De bouw vond plaats tussen de 14e en 17e eeuw en het ontwerp was in handen van uitstekende Russische en buitenlandse architecten. Binnen de muren van het Kremlin vindt men een reeks meesterwerken qua architectuur, maar ook beeldende kunst en religieuze monumenten van uitzonderlijke schoonheid. Aan de voet van de stadsmuren, op het Rode Plein, bevindt zich een van de mooiste Russisch-orthodoxe monumenten, de Pokrovkathedraal ook wel Basiliuskathedraal genoemd.

Source: unesco.nl

Outstanding Universal Value

Brief synthesis

At the geographic and historic centre of Moscow, the Moscow Kremlin is the oldest part of the city. First mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle in 1147 as a fortification erected on the left bank of the Moskva river by Yuri Dolgoruki, Prince of Suzdal, the Kremlin developed and grew with settlements and suburbs which were further surrounded by new fortifications - Kitaigorodsky Wall, Bely Gorod, Zemlyanoy Gorod and others. This determined a radial and circular plan of the centre of Moscow typical of many other Old Russian cities.

In 13th century the Kremlin was the official residence of supreme power - the center of temporal and spiritual life of the state. The Kremlin of the late 15th – early 16th century is one of the major fortifications of Europe (the stone walls and towers of present day were erected in 1485–1516). It contains an ensemble of monuments of outstanding quality.

The most significant churches of the Moscow Kremlin are situated on the Cathedral Square; they are the Cathedral of the Dormition, Church of the Archangel, Church of the Annunciation and the bell tower of Ivan Veliki. Almost all of them were designed by invited Italian architects which is clearly seen in their architectural style. The five-domed Assumption Cathedral (1475–1479) was built by an Italian architect Aristotele Fiorvanti. Its interior is decorated with frescos and a five-tier iconostasis (15th–17th century). The cathedral became the major Russian Orthodox church; a wedding and coronation place for great princes, tsars and emperors as well as the shrine for metropolitans and patriarchs.

In the same square another Italian architect, Alevisio Novi, erected the five-domed Church of the Archangel in 1505-1508. From the 17th to 19th century, its interior was decorated by wonderful frescos and an iconostasis. In this church many great princes and tsars of Moscow are buried. Among them are Ivan I Kalita, Dmitri Donskoi, Ivan III, Ivan IV the Terrible, Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich Romanovs.

The Cathedral of the Dormition was built by Pskov architects in 1484–1489. Inside the cathedral some mural paintings of 16th–19th century have been preserved and the icons of Andrei Rublev and Theophanes the Greek are part of the iconostasis.

In 1505-1508 the bell tower of Ivan Veliki was built. Being 82 metres high it was the highest building in Russia which became the focal point of the Kremlin ensemble.

Among the oldest civil buildings of the Moscow Kremlin, the Palace of the Facets (1487–1491) is the most remarkable. Italian architects Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solario built it as a great hall for holding state ceremonies, celebrations and for receiving foreign ambassadors. The most noteworthy civil construction of the 17th century built by Russian masters is the Teremnoi Palace.

From the early 18th century, when the capital of Russia moved to St. Petersburg, the Kremlin mainly played a ceremonial role with religious functions. By the end of the century the architectural complex of the Kremlin expanded with the Arsenal reconstructed after the Fire of 1797 by Matvei Kazakov. The Senate was built in 1776–1787 according to the plans of the same architect as the home of the highest agency of State power of the Russian Empire - the Ruling Senate. Today it is the residence of the President of Russia.

From 1839 to 1849 a Russian architect K.A. Thon erected the Great Kremlin Palace as a residence of the imperial family which combined ancient Kremlin buildings such as the Palace of the Facets, the Tsarina’s Golden Chamber, Master Chambers, the Teremnoi Palace and the Teremnoi churches. In the Armory Chamber built by K.A. Thon within the complex of the Great Kremlin Palace, there is a 16th century museum officially established by the order of Alexander I in 1806.

Red Square, closely associated with the Kremlin, lies beneath its east wall. At its south end is the famous Pokrovski Cathedral (Cathedral of St Basil the Blessed), one of the most beautiful monuments of Old Russian church architecture, erected in 1555–1560 to commemorate the victory of Ivan the Terrible over the Kazan Khanate. In the 17th century the cathedral gained its up-to-date appearance thanks to the decorative finishing of the domes and painting both inside and outside the cathedral. The construction of Red Square was finished by the late 19th century together with the erection of the Imperial Historic Museum (today the State Historical Museum), the Upper Trading Rows (GUM) and the Middle Trading Rows. In 1929, , Lenin’s Mausoleum, designed by A.V. Shchusev and an outstanding example of the Soviet monumental architecture, was finished.

Criterion (i) : The Kremlin contains within its walls a unique series of masterpieces of architecture and the plastic arts. There are religious monuments of exceptional beauty such as the Church of the Annunciation, the Cathedral of the Dormition, the Church of the Archangel and the bell tower of Ivan Veliki; there are palaces such as the Great Palace of the Kremlin, which comprises within its walls the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin and the Teremnoi Palace. On Red Square is Saint Basil the Blessed, still a major edifice of Russian Orthodox art.

Criterion (ii) : Throughout its history, Russian architecture has clearly been affected many times by influences emanating from the Kremlin. A particular example was the Italian Renaissance. The influence of the style was clearly felt when Rudolfo Aristotele Fioravanti built the Cathedral of the Dormition (1475-79) and grew stronger with the construction of the Granovitaya Palace (Hall of the Facets, 1487-91) by Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solario. Italian Renaissance also influenced the towers of the fortified enceinte, built during the same period by Solario, using principles established by Milanese engineers (the Nikolskaya and the Spasskaya Towers both date from 1491). The Renaissance expression was even more present in the classic capitals and shells of the Church of the Archangel, reconstructed from 1505 to 1509 by Alevisio Novi.

Criterion (iv) : With its triangular enceinte pierced by four gates and reinforced with 20 towers, the Moscow Kremlin preserves the memory of the wooden fortifications erected by Yuri Dolgoruki around 1156 on the hill at the confluence of the Moskova and Neglinnaya rivers (the Alexander Garden now covers the latter). By its layout and its history of transformations (in the 14th century Dimitri Donskoi had an enceinte of logs built, then the first stone wall), the Moscow Kremlin is the prototype of a Kremlin - the citadel at the centre of Old Russian towns such as Pskov, Tula, Kazan or Smolensk.

Criterion (vi) : From the 13th century to the founding of St Petersburg, the Moscow Kremlin was directly and tangibly associated with every major event in Russian history. A 200-year period of obscurity ended in 1918 when it became the seat of government again. The Mausoleum of Lenin on Red Square is the Soviet Union’s prime example of symbolic monumental architecture. To proclaim the universal significance of the Russian revolution, the funerary urns of heroes of the revolution were incorporated into the Kremlin’s walls between the Nikolskaya and Spasskaya towers. The site thus combines in an exceptional manner the preserved vestiges of bygone days with present-day signs of one of the greatest events in modern history.

From the date of including the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square on the World Heritage List all the components representing the Outstanding Universal Value of the property are within its boundaries. The territory and the integrity of the World Heritage property have also remained unchanged. Within its boundaries the property still comprises all the elements that it contained at the date of nomination. The biggest threat, however, is unregulated commercial development of the adjacent areas.

Authenticity

The history of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square is reflected in the archival documents of 12th–19th century, for example in medieval chronicles, cadastral surveys, estimated construction books, painted lists, inventories, foreign notes and in graphic matters such as manuscripts, chronicles, plans, drafts, engravings, lithographs, sketches of foreign travelers, paintings and photographs. These documents are exceptionally valuable information sources. Comparison of the data received from archival documents and those obtained in the process of field study gives the idea of authenticity of the property and its different elements. This comparison also serves as the basis for project development and for the choice of the appropriate methods of restoration that may preserve the monuments’ authenticity.

On the border of the ensemble a number of monuments destroyed in the 1930s were reconstructed according to measured plans.

Protection and management requirements

The statutory and institutional framework of an effective protection, management and improvement of the World Heritage property “Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow” has been established by laws and regulations of the Russian Federation and the city of Moscow.

According to the decree of the President of RSFSR of 18 December 1991 № 294, the Moscow Kremlin was included among especially protected cultural properties of nations of Russia - the highest conservation status for cultural and historical monuments in Russian legislation.

“Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow” is a Cultural Heritage Site of federal importance. State protection and management of federal sites is provided by Federal Law of 25.06.2002 № 73-FZ “On cultural heritage sites (historical and cultural monuments) of nations of the Russian Federation”. The federal executive body responsible for protection of the cultural property is the Department for Control, Supervision and Licensing in the Cultural Heritage Sphere of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.It is in charge of all methodological and control functions concerning restoration, usage and support of cultural heritage sites and the territories connected.

The World Heritage property is situated in the urban environment of Moscow. The city policy regarding cultural heritage protection and town-planning regulation is the responsibility of Moscow City Government, represented by the Department of Cultural Heritage, the Department of Urban Development and the Committee for Urban Development and Architecture of Moscow. In 1997 the boundaries of the protective (buffer) zone were approved in order to preserve the property, and to maintain and restore the historical architectural environment as well as the integral visual perception of the property.. There is a need to ensure the creation of an appropriate buffer zone and to develop close liaison between all stakeholders, including the Moscow City authorities, to ensure that constructions around the property do not impact adversely on its Outstanding Universal Value.

The World Heritage property is used by the following organizations: FGBUK (Federal Government Budgetary Institution of Culture), the State Historical and Cultural Museum-preserve “The Moscow Kremlin”, the Administrative Department of the President of the Russian Federation, the Federal Guard Service of the Russian Federation and OJSC “GUM Department Store”.

Official site of 'The Moscow Kremlin' State Historical and Cultural Museum and Heritage Site
Moscow Kremlin Museums Telegram Group (in Russian only)
Moscow Kremlin Museums VKontakte Page (in Russian only)
Moscow Kremlin Museums Dzen Page (in Russian only)
State Historical Museum VKontakte Group (in Russian only)
Msk Guide Page (in Russian only)
Official site of the State Department Store
State Historical Museum (in Russian only)

State of Conservation (SOC)

Revue belge de géographie

Accueil Numéros 4 Constructing urban cultural lands...

Constructing urban cultural landscapes & living in the palimpsests: a case of Moscow city (Russia) distant residential areas

A metaphor of palimpsest is used to describe the multivocal cultural landscapes since the 1970s. Interventions into new cultural / humanistic geography, semiotics and the theory of regional geography help to regard each layer of the palimpsest as a constructed context, centered by dominant representation of a place. Real-and-imagined landscapes are regarded as palimpsests lived through everyday practices seen as processes of (re)construction of new layers. Trying to unite those “constructing’ and “living’ perspectives is a challenging task for urban cultural agenda. A series of mobile quest games was made by the author for Moscow Agency for Area Development through Culture in order to construct new tourist sights outside city centre. This project is discussed as a case of constructing new geographical contexts (palimpsest’ layers) and the lived experience rediscovering the distant residential areas, traditionally regarded as standardized “non-places’, as becoming rich in symbolic capital.

La métaphore du palimpseste est utilisée pour décrire les paysages culturels polysémiques depuis les années 1970. Les emprunts à la nouvelle géographie culturelle/humaniste, à la sémiotique et à la théorie de la géographie régionale aident à percevoir chaque couche du palimpseste comme un construit contextualisé, centré sur une représentation dominante d’un lieu. Les paysages à la fois réels et imaginés sont envisagés comme des palimpsestes vécus à travers des pratiques quotidiennes, elles-mêmes vues comme des processus de (re)construction de nouvelles couches. Tenter d’unifier ces perspectives en construction et vécues est un enjeu à l’agenda de la culture urbaine. Une série de jeux de questions sur le terrain ont été construits par l’auteur pour l’Agence moscovite du développement par la culture, afin de construire de nouvelles perspectives touristiques en dehors du centre de Moscou. Ce projet est discuté comme étude de cas d’une volonté de construction de nouveaux contextes géographiques (couches du palimpseste) et d’une expérience vécue de redécouverte de zones résidentielles périphériques, traditionnellement perçues comme des « non-lieux » standardisés, mais qui pourraient acquérir un riche capital symbolique.

Entrées d’index

Mots-clés : , keywords: , texte intégral.

I’m thankful to Uliana Seresova , Assistant Professor of Academy of Public Administration of Moscow region (Russia) for her assistance in the empirical study mentioned in the article.

1 Every city is a place, a place we live in or a place we love, a place we are willing to leave or a place we hate. That means, that any place has multiple functions, visions, representations, emotional ties with people. A model of palimpsest is a one I use hereby to consider that inevitable multiplicity.

2 The structure of this article is as follows. At first I study the history of the “place as palimpsest” concept, trying to single out what it could mean to geographers and social scientists. The contradiction of the idea of symbolic construction of cultural landscapes originating from the new cultural / humanistic geography and the turn to everyday life practices of people shaping the landscape (typical for critical geographies) is in the focus of the 2 nd part of this paper. Finally I use an example of a cultural project I’ve designed in Moscow (Russia) in order to describe how this original place model and these contradictory concepts are shaped and contested in a Post-Socialist city.

Place as palimpsest

3 The term “palimpsest” originally described a medieval manuscript in which new text was written over previous text that had been erased. The word originates from the Greek “palin”+ “psaio” (“again I scrape”). What was peculiar about palimpsests was the fact that any layer didn’t fully erase their predecessors, so one could always recognize the previous layers of the text written earlier (Mitin, 2010). These specific features have made a palimpsest an important metaphor used in social sciences and the humanities to stress multiplicity of a text or phenomenon, to witness its layering and to single out some – by chance partly hidden – layers of reality.

4 The idea of palimpsest was borrowed by geographers from the theories of architecture and urban history. The original metaphor was used to describe the coexistence of material elements that originated in different historical periods in a building or an urban site. This is how A. Baglajewski describes Gdansk city in Poland:

“Textual Gdansk – to say it from the very beginning – is a place-palimpsest of mixed & hidden civilization and material cultural layers, a specific melting pot of traces, fragments, elements that may be pulled out of the recent new layers and read in different languages […]. Gdansk is made of those layers taken together, but not any of them alone” (Baglajewski, 1998, pp. 9-11).

5 This seems close to the classic interpretations of temporal changes in the cultural landscapes (Sauer, 1963) and sequent occupance (Whittlesey, 1929). However it was transformed into a certain model within historical geography by J. Vervloet in the 1980s only (Vervloet, 1984).

Figure 1. Historical-geographical model of landscape as palimpsest.

Vervloet, 1984, p. 2; translation: Urbanc et al., 2004, p. 119

6 The first geographer to call a landscape a palimpsest was obviously Donald Meinig (Meinig, 1979) who wrote in the preface to a famous volume “The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes” that “it is at once a panorama, a composition, a palimpsest, a microcosm; […] in every prospect there can be more and more that meets the eye” (Meinig, 1979, p. 6).

7 The meaning of a landscape as palimpsest was thus changed due to the cultural turn . The palimpsest “provides the possibility for erasure and overwriting and the co-existence of several different scripts, implying not just different historical eras, but several historical and contemporary actors as well” (Schein, 1997, p. 662). What Richard Schein meant here was the very multiplicity of human interpretations and representations of a place. The palimpsest model turns out to be not about the temporal changes alone, but also about the differences in the landscape as it is “read” by social groups and individuals, differentiated by identity, occupation, lifestyles, experience, imaginative power, and emotional factors (Mitin, 2010).

8 This turns any cultural landscape – no matter at what time period it originated – into “a sum of erasures, accretions, anomalies and redundancies over time” (Crang, 1998, p. 22). In terms of the “linguistic turn” (Lees, 2002) we are likely to call a landscape a text that can be read (Cosgrove, Jackson, 1987; Duncan, 1990; Lavrenova, 2010; Rowntree, 1986). As Lewis puts it, “reading landscapes is not as easy as reading books” as “ordinary landscape seems messy and disorganized, like a book with pages missing, torn and smudged; a book whose copy has been edited and re-edited by people with illegible handwriting” (Lewis, 1979, p. 12). The landscape is seen as a specific kind of text, in which “different layers or fragments of texts can get into conflict, questioning and contesting each other. Unavoidably inviting controversial interpretation, the reading of such a palimpsest is more like a process of multivocal, and often ambiguous, communication than an act of linear understanding. In modern and postmodern theory of text and communication, this process has been called ‘intertextuality’” (Brockmeier, 2001, p. 222).

9 The model of palimpsest turns the “landscape as text” into an intertext , that is a structure of mutual references of multiple meanings (Kristeva, 1969; Barthes, 1973). Thus I define palimpsest as “a conceptual model of a place as a multilayered structure that emphasizes the coexistence of multiple visions and impacts of different cultures on the landscape” (Mitin, 2010, p. 2111).

Urban cultural landscape: symbolic construction vs. lived practices

10 The model of a multivocal place as a palimpsest has become a result of cultural turn in geography, as I have mentioned above. The development of cultural geography from the classical theories of the beginning of the XX th century (Sauer, 1925) to the second half of the XX th century was contradictory, yet important. The cultural turn has become a main trend of that change (Gritzner, 1966; Norton, 1981; 1984; Mikesell, 1978; Zelinsky, 1973).

11 The representatives of the new cultural geography criticized the Sauerian Berkeley school for focusing “their studies on the material artifacts, exhibiting a curious and thoroughly antiquarian ‘object fetishism’ over such items as houses, barns, fences and gasoline stations” (Price, Lewis, 1993, p. 3). Instead, they regard the cultural landscape through its human interpretation, symbolization & signification (Brace, 2003; Robertson, Richards, 2003; Rowntree, Conkey, 1980). They stated that “the total cultural landscape is information stored in symbolic form” that “in part functions as a narrative” (Rowntree, Conkey, 1980, p. 461), and “the symbolic qualities of landscape, those which produce and sustain social meaning, have become a focus of research” as this “allows us to disclose the meanings that human groups attach to areas and places and to relate those meanings to other aspects and conditions of human existence” (Cosgrove, Jackson, 1987, p. 96).

12 This idea of place as being constructed has been developed in various directions inside humanistic geography (Tuan, 1974, 1976; Hall, 1978; Entrikin, 1985; Hasson, 1984). “Space is transformed into place as it acquires definition and meaning”, Yi-Fu Tuan (1977 [2002], p. 136) states. “The central concept is ‘meaning’, and indeed ‘place’ may be redefined as coming into existence through men according meaning to locations” (Jeans, 1979, pp. 207-208). Dennis Jeans found the exact words for that constructing perspective: “To make a place is to surround a locality with human meanings” (Jeans, 1979, p. 209).

13 My model of a palimpsest originates from the vision of a place as a “fuzzy set” of diverse interpretations, not only historically different elements, as legitimized by new cultural / humanistic geography. To touch upon the relations between various layers of one and the same place, the semiotic model of mythogeography is used (Mitin, 2007).

14 “Mythogeography’s main peculiarity is in the special vision of the ‘ filling ’ of every place with constructed realities , created with the help of mythological models of communication and the theory of the semiosis of modern myths” (Mitin, 2007, p. 215). The model combines several theoretical frameworks described below.

15 First, we need to look on each layer of that “place as palimpsest” alone. Yi-Fu Tuan regarded those layers as place narratives (Tuan, 1991), however I argue they are rather contexts , as each layer of the palimpsest is centered by a few unique dominant peculiarities of a place (Mitin, 2004). This idea is borrowed from the theory of regional geography .

16 Geographers have been traditionally saying about the process of construction of the texts describing this or that place through the theory of regional geography . Those layers are in fact special kinds of those texts. Different modes of geographical descriptions have been described throughout the XX th century (Darby, 1962; Davis, 1915; Finch, 1934; Hart, 1982; Lewis, 1985; Paterson, 1974). Being opposed by the positivist view of storing the entire data on any place in a form of encyclopedic classification, the idea of a good description as a geographer’s art of constructing a place is as follows.

“Good regional geography should begin with, and probably should be organized around, the dominant theme of each region, which of course will vary from region to region. No standard list of criteria or checklist of features-to-be observed can be universally applicable to the study of all regions […]. Features that are overwhelmingly important in one region may be completely missing in another, and the regional geographer should give pride of place in each region to its most important or significant features” (Hart, 1982, p. 23).

17 The history of Soviet human geography has been to a larger extent focused on the regions (though primarily economic ones) and regionalization. As a result, the theory of regional geography (“stranovedeniye”) has been productively discussed and developed (Baransky, 1950, 1980; Yefremov, 1981; Mashbits, 1998; Mironenko, 1992; Mitin, 2004). Combining the Anglo-American debates on the “highest form of geographer’s art” with those Russian concepts, I argue that “genuine complex geographical descriptions should be based on picking the dominant features of place and adopting the secondary features to the dominant with the usage of internal and external textual interconnections” (Mitin, 2007, p. 219).

18 For example, there is no use in making a full long description of St. Petersburg in Russia if our message is to stress its dominant feature in the sphere of tourism as a “cultural capital of Russia”. World famous State Hermitage, Peterhof and other museums, the historical intent of Peter the Great as the city founder to build a new capital “sticking” Russia to Europe, and the largely discussed special intellectual and authentic local identity would be those secondary features revealing and explaining the dominant one.

19 While that legitimizes certain rules of constructing each layer of place as palimpsest as a context, I need other theoretical frameworks to describe how the combination of various layers is created. The layers seem autonomous, and their hierarchy is easily changeable under the internal and external circumstances. However, the psychological essence of perception & imagination processes makes us always consider one of those layers the main – the dominant – one, though we may change our mind immediately. The palimpsest is a unite totality of those autonomous layers, that regards a place as multidimensional.

20 To understand how that totality is created through representations the semiotic model of semiosis is used to describe the interconnections between the autonomous layers of the palimpsest. A theory of modern mythologies as developed by Roland Barthes (1972 [1991]) turned out to be the best framework with each layer regarded as a certain spatial myth. Similarly to the place within humanistic geography, “mythical speech is made of a material which has already been worked on so as to make it suitable for communication” (Barthes, 1972 [1991], p. 108).

“In myth, we find again the tri-dimensional pattern […]: the signifier, the signified and the sign. But myth is a peculiar system, in that it is constructed from a semiological chain which existed before it: it is a second-order semiological system. That which is a sign (namely the associative total of a concept and an image) in the first system, becomes a mere signifier in the second. We must here recall that the materials of mythical speech (the language itself, photography, painting, posters, rituals, objects, etc.), however different at the start, are reduced to a pure signifying function as soon as they are caught by myth. Myth sees in them only the same raw material; their unity is that they all come down to the status of a mere language” (Barthes, 1972 [1991], p. 113).

Figure 2. Myth as a semiological system.

Barthes, 1972 [1991], p. 113

21 The vision of urban imageries through myths’ semiosis explains how multiple representations are constructed through history, and the new ones replace the previous ones. For example the myth of St. Petersburg as the “ bandits’ capital of Russia ” emerging in the 1990s was to a much extent based on its strong opposition to the previously stated idea of country’s cultural capital.

22 The process of semiosis (Figure 2) is usable for the endless number of re-interpretations of spatial meanings , as the essence of any certain place (or any previously constructed place image) is reduced to a form of a myth that constructs a new meaning out of one and the same place (Mitin, 2004).

23 Combining (a) the idea of the cultural landscape as being constructed through symbolic values, (b) the theory of regional geographical descriptions, and (c) the semiotic model of modern mythologies altogether form a model of place as palimpsest as being created and re-created. However, it is to a much extent settled within a representational paradigm of geography.

24 Meanwhile cultural geographers’ focus on the representations has been changed to a concern about certain rematerializing of the discipline, or a call towards combining material and immaterial realms as typical for contemporary urban geography (Lees, 2002).

25 The cultural turn within non-representational geography is seen through the lens of what Henry Lefebvre names a double illusion (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 27). In Lefebvrian terms, cultural geography in the XX th century has executed a shift from the material / perceived space towards the conceptual space of representations, but the forthcoming critical paradigm is concerned about the third realm, that is the “representational spaces: the space directly lived through its associate images and symbols, and hence the space of ‘inhabitants’ and ‘users’” (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 39).

26 Critical geography uses that Lefebvrian triad to focus on the thirdspace (as Edward Soja names it), as “spaces of representation are seen by Lefebvre both as distinct from the other two spaces and as encompassing them, following his strategic use of social space in his preliminary thirding” (Soja, 1996, p. 67). Moving beyond that double illusion of real (Firstspace) and imagined (Secondspace), Soja stresses, that his thirdspace “contain all other real and imagined spaces simultaneously” (Soja, 1996, p. 69), it is a real-and-imagined space we live in .

27 While geographers call for rematerializing the discipline and the focus on what is “real” in that thirdspace, Lefebvre moves forward describing what kind of space it is. “Every society […] produces a space, its own space” (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 31), and the society we live in is named as completely urbanized, or simply “the urban society” (Lefebvre, 2003). While the previous mode of a city linked to the industrial society is seen as rationally planned and characterized by imposed homogeneity, the urban society and its space make a certain opposition to it.

“During this new period differences are known and recognized, mastered, conceived and signified. […] It is constituted by a renewed space-time, a topology that is distinct from agrarian (cyclic and juxtaposing local particularities) and industrial (tending towards homogeneity, toward a rational and planned unity of constraints) space-time. Urban space-time, as soon as we stop defining it in terms of industrial rationality – its project of homogenization – appears as a differential, each place and each moment existing only within a whole, through the contrasts and oppositions that connect it to, and distinguish it from, other places and moments […]. The urban space is complete contradiction” (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 37-39).

28 The urban space is stressed to be complex, heterogeneous, multifaceted, interrelated. This vision of the new space constitution revives the idea of a palimpsest , as the latest embraces that very endless multiplicity co-existing in one and the same place. What is needed, is to shift the focus from those layers being constructed to the places being lived and experienced.

Mobile quest games in Moscow distant residential areas

29 In order to implement the model of “place as palimpsest” in practice in the sphere of urban cultural policy and to create that mix of representational and lived modes of a cultural landscape I elaborated a project of mobile quest games. It is aimed at the cultural development of distant residential areas of Moscow (Russia) city which lack both unique local imageries and place-specific practices. The process of creation of the images which stick to those placeless distant areas (as a part of project management) is regarded through the lens of symbolic construction of urban cultural landscapes. The process of local dwellers using the quest games and getting acquainted with the suggested unique features of their own home areas is regarded as lived consumption of places and changing the lived practices.

30 The project including the launch of 22 mobile quest games during 2015-2017 was implemented by “Moscow Agency for Area Development through Culture” (“MosART”) as the operator. The Agency was founded by the Department of Culture of the Moscow city Government as a cultural events’ management and methods’ development centre for promoting socio-cultural activity outside the centre of the city, in particular, outside the Third Ring Road. “MosART” has been an official name of the Agency till 2016, when it was renamed into “Cultural Centre ‘Ivanovsky’” without changes in its main functions.

31 Mobile quest games were suggested as an alternative to traditional excursions , as the areas outside of the city centre have been traditionally out of tourist interest and were not regarded as important leisure sights by local residents. There are a few sights outside the Third Ring Road, which are considered to be tourist objects, like Tsaritsyno or Kolomenskoye museums and parks. Those popular places were intentionally excluded from the project.

32 Traditional excursions are hardly possible in the areas with poor tourist infrastructure, the attractions in physically poor condition, located far one from another, and/or representing industrial / engineering heritage, or traditional residential blocks from the XX th century, that are rarely considered valuable as tourist destinations in contemporary Russia. Those objects and areas were intentionally chosen for the project.

33 Muscovites are considered the main target audience of the project according to the Department of Culture’s policy agenda.

34 New cultural / humanistic geography, the ideas of symbolic construction of tourist sights and the model of “place as palimpsest” were considered to be the theoretical background of the project. It was thought to be a means of creating new attractive sights in distant residential areas and constructing the new local images which could become important parts of local imageries, areas’ branding and promoting local identities.

35 All mobile quest games are promoted at the Agency’s website ( https://ivcenter.ru/project/vse-kvesti/ ) and through Moscow city official cultural and tourist websites and social media. As soon as a user chooses one of the quest games from the website, s/he is forwarded to a web page of “Street Adventure” company, a project partner responsible for technical support. In a few minutes after being registered at that web page the user receives the individual link to start the quest game online. Users follow the directions from that link, receive the questions and insert their answers online using their tablets or smartphones, and thus follow the route of the quest game. Apart from providing questions and checking the answers, the online interface provides the attractive information about the places visited, that might be useful to answer the questions, but is more likely to serve to create the certain images of the places and the area as a whole.

36 An example of that kind of a small text about “Fabrika 1 Maya” settlement, located in the Novomoskovsky district of Moscow in some 30 km from the Kremlin, that became a part of the city in 2012 only, is below.

A cloth factory opposite has an interesting history. It was first mentioned in 1853 as a possession of D.A. Okulova. She married Nikolay Pavlovich Shipov, a colonel and a real state councilor famous for the agricultural innovations he implemented in his Ostashevo estate near Mozhaysk, Moscow region. Okulova was also acquainted to Pyotr Vyazemsky, a poet and an owner of the neighboring Ostafyevo estate that we have just visited. The factory was sold to engineer Ivan Ivanovich Baskakov in 1879, however there is an evidence that Baskakov reconstructed the estate and built a new factory. He also built a dam across the Desna river, though the one you’ll see as you walk a hundred meters upstream has been seriously rebuilt later on. Baskakov also constructed the manufacturer’s estate and the red-brick barracks for the workers. Some of them are still used as residential houses. Those were probably built before 1912, though we can’t know that for sure. However, there is a building further on with a construction year you can know for sure. Find it and insert that year as an answer! Tip 1: Walk between the houses on the Desna river bank. Tip 2: Find a house No. 3. Answer: 1927.

37 The tips from the example are used if the user fails to find the right answer or loses the way.

38 Some 22 mobile quest games were launched for three years, and 34 000+ people played at least one of them. The exact user statistical data is below (Table 1).

Table 1. User statistics for mobile quest games by “MosART”, by December 31, 2017.

39 The analysis shows, that in spite of the effort to promote the most distant and unknown areas of the city, the most closely connected to the Third Ring Road and the most well-known areas were the most popular. Vorobyovy hills seem the best evidence here: though the route passes through the historic picturesque park, the viewpoint on top of Vorobyovy hills is a known tourist sight, and its name attracts the users to this mobile quest game (No. 8 in Table 1). However, I argue that by means of the project even the least attended areas could be transformed from real “ non-places ” into certain meaningful places , though not widely known and recognized.

Lived practices of the quest game users

40 The idea of the project of mobile quest games was in fact to create a new layer of place as palimpsest. The possible influence of those new representations towards lived practices of people is critically important in the light of critical non-representational urban geography. An experiment was held in order to study those effects of mobile quest games towards everyday lived practices of its users. I needed to check if there was any influence of playing the quest game on (a) the imagery of the area, and (b) the estimations of its comfort for everyday living. 60 students of the Academy of Public Administration of Moscow region were asked to pass 2 quest games in the Northeastern district of Moscow, not far from their campus and dormitories, and share their statements and images of Sviblovo area before and after the experiment. Sentence completion and drawing tests were used as an initial point of the research to learn about the current imageries of Sviblovo area. The survey was held for the participants of one of 2 routes (N=32) to check if the imagery was changed. Observation and in-depth interviews (N=12) were used to witness the essence of the new local images and the new lived practices possibly emerging after the completion of the game.

41 The initial image of the area (Figure 3) included the underground (metro) station and the Academy campus for the majority of informants. Those living in the dormitories also mentioned the shopping malls and the restaurants in the vicinity (an example is in the left part of the Figure 3). A small “Zodiac park” established in 2007 was mentioned a few times, as well as the Kapustinsky pond. Nothing more than some points of the students’ everyday routine was pictured.

Figure 3. A typical drawing of Sviblovo area.

Female, from Moscow region, living in the dormitory

42 Some of the students used Wikipedia data in the sentence completion test to mention the exact amount of inhabitants of the area, the Yauza river and the fact that the famous Soviet comedy “Operation Y and Shurik’s Other Adventures” was filmed there. Sviblovo was generally characterized in the sentence completion tests as a distant dull area of residential blocks with no specific sights to visit .

43 The final image was influenced by the mobile quest game. 66% of quest users agreed that their image of the area was changed after the game according to the survey conducted, and 75% of the latter said it has become more positive .

44 The interviews could help me to understand the substantial changes. The users mentioned the old estate, the houses filmed in the Soviet comedy movie, some street-art objects, which were a surprise for them in their neighborhood:

“We didn’t feel anything special at first. It was all ours, so familiar. But it was astonishing to see that street-art object, as I’ve never noticed it before” (Female, from Central Asia, living in the dormitory).

“I would say, I have opened Sviblovo from so different sides after all, though a heavy rain started. It was [previously] just a place where I study, and that’s all of it” (Female, from Moscow, living in another district of Moscow).

45 However, the idea of Sviblovo as a historic neighborhood that could be “read” through literary sources and famous movies was not transferred to the quest users.

46 The picturesque Yauza river bank was one of the most discussed places together with a neighboring old estate. There was even an idea for new everyday practices mentioned in one of the interviews:

“It would be not bad to go for a walk on those grounds near the [Yauza] river, may be in summertime with my boyfriend. It creates a special atmosphere, [it is] helpful to forget about the routine” (Female, from another region, living in the dormitory).

47 However this was the only mention of any possible changes in the lived uses of a place. The transformation of the local imagery, which I would regard as the influence of a new representation constructed, was hardly influential enough to give birth to the new practices which remained unchanged.

48 I have discussed a model of place as palimpsest as a possible framework to study and to transform urban cultural landscapes in the Post-Socialist cities with Moscow distant residential areas as an example.

49 New cultural / humanistic geography, semiotics and theory of regional geography taken together make a unique framework for the original “ palimpsestic” vision of any place and the tool of constructing new layers of that palimpsest.

50 Place as palimpsest is a useful tool in the sphere of cultural management to legitimate the “space production” and the construction of attractive tourist sights. Deep insights into Moscow city distant residential areas’ imageries make the experience of the mobile quest games valuable for the locals, rediscovering their neighborhoods, traditionally regarded as standardized “non-places”, as becoming rich in symbolic capital.

51 The palimpsestic idea of multiplicity of layers is especially useful in the Post-Socialist cities , as they are produced and reproduced through opposing, exaggerated, outdated or imposed imageries, and the meaning of Post-Socialism itself is multi-layered (Gentile, 2018). Mimi Urbanc and her colleagues studying the Post-Socialist landscape transformation focus on a certain value change creating that multiplicity:

“Some landscape elements have remained the same through all the changing socio-economic formations. Some others have been forgotten or destroyed by the emerging formations. Some have been replaced by other objects. Yet others have retained their physical structure but the meanings have changed. […] What is valuable will be retained, what is not valuable will disappear. But value systems keep changing, too. Some elements were considered valuable during the national states period then ignored during the Soviet era and became valuable again after independence” (Urbanc et al., 2004, p. 119).

52 However, my conclusion is rather contradictory due to the results of the empirical research. Trying to unite the majorly “ constructing” perspective of new cultural geography and “ living” perspective of critical geography is still a challenging task for urban cultural agenda. The connections of place images and local practices are not that close , as one could expect.

53 Nevertheless, I argue, that the palimpsest metaphor originated from the new cultural geography may be revived through the critical approach as a model embracing the multivocal multiplicity of agents, everyday strategies, lived practices and (re)constructed images of Post-Socialist cities, characterized by representational & non-representational effects intertwined.

54 I would definitely continue studying that effects in Moscow distant residential areas using a model of palimpsest, however, a more complex approach combining cultural geographical research and cultural management with broader horizons of place management seem necessary and prospective.

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Table des illustrations

Pour citer cet article, référence électronique.

Ivan Mitin , « Constructing urban cultural landscapes & living in the palimpsests: a case of Moscow city (Russia) distant residential areas » , Belgeo [En ligne], 4 | 2018, mis en ligne le 05 novembre 2018 , consulté le 01 mai 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/28126 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/belgeo.28126

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow), [email protected]

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Applying indigenous wisdom to sustainable tourism

Roshis Krishna Shrestha recently completed his PhD within the ANU College of Business and Economics’ (CBE’s) Research School of Management. Shortly after graduating, Roshis started his new role as a Research Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU).

In this interview, Roshis provides insights into his dissertation, talks about his new role, and reflects on the ups and downs he encountered while completing his PhD.

Q. Congratulations on completing your PhD! Can you give us an overview of the focus of your research, and some of the conclusions you drew from it?

My dissertation is entitled An Indigenous wisdom framework to sustainable collaborative Indigenous tourism development: The case of Nepal’s Newars and, as its name would suggest, draws on the traditional knowledge of Indigenous Newars to empower sustainable and collaborative tourism development. The thesis takes insights from the traditional and contemporary practices of Guthi, a socio-cultural cooperative unique to the Indigenous Newars of Nepal with a history spanning over 1700 years. The Guthi system, which continues to thrive in many Newari communities, empowers its members to collectively organise events of cultural, social, economic, and religious significance. The Indigenous Wisdom framework, inspired by Newars’ relational norms, values, and traditional knowledge systems, seeks cultural empowerment by preserving heritage, enhancing social cohesion, and promoting ecological sustainability. This framework presents a collaborative approach that deeply respects and embraces Indigenous perspectives and knowledge, fostering equitable and sustainable tourism development.

Q. One of the papers from your PhD recently won the 2023 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management’s (JHTM) Best PhD Award. What are the key practical contributions of this paper and how does it inform your future research directions?

The paper, separate from my thesis and titled 'A place where I belong' - The ambiguous role of the outsider-within dichotomy among Indigenous Gurung women tourism entrepreneurs in Nepal , offers valuable insights into the empowerment of Indigenous female Gurung tourism entrepreneurs, highlighting the crucial role of grassroots associations. By comparing the grassroots associations that performed really well and associations that were barely afloat, this research provided insights into how effective grassroots associations gave Indigenous women entrepreneurs who feel ‘outsider-within’, a safe space to empower their creative potential. Local government bodies or destination-management organisations can adopt the proposed strategy to empower the Indigenous women entrepreneurs in the peripheral region of developing countries, such as Nepal. This study fuelled my interest in grassroots mobilisation and performative justice in marginalised contexts.

Q. When did your interest in Sustainable Collaborative Indigenous Tourism Development begin to grow?

Before embarking on my academic journey, I gained over five years of managerial experience in various sectors in Nepal, including automotive and consumer-durables industries. As an Indigenous Newar from Nepal, I have a longstanding connection with Guthi. From a young age, we are introduced to cultural practices such as the Machhindranath Jatra, a renowned cultural festival that has persevered for over 1700 years. Observing how deeply Guthi is ingrained in our community has always piqued my curiosity. I’ve found myself continually intrigued by the significance and enduring nature of this social cooperative among Indigenous Newars. My curiosity took an academic shape when I was reading some of the existing scholarly works on Guthi, and then I realised that this was not how I saw Guthi, and this was not what it meant to me. This discrepancy sparked my desire to delve deeper into this area and provide a more authentic representation of Guthi, one that resonates with the lived experiences of Indigenous Newars like myself.

Q. You have accepted a new appointment as Research Assistant Professor at HKPU. How do you feel about starting in this role, and what do you hope to achieve?

I am thrilled to start my new role. HKPU’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management is home to 75 distinguished faculty members that I look forward to learning from and collaborating with. My research interests extend to sustainable tourism, culture and heritage tourism, and rural tourism, as applied to my native country of Nepal, and informed by ethnographic methods and grounded theory. My goal is to develop holistically as an academic, excelling in securing research grants, producing high-quality research, and delivering impactful teaching. I am eager to foster collaborations within and beyond the university, and believe that these partnerships can drive innovative research to address pressing challenges in our field. This opportunity to contribute to and grow in this vibrant academic environment is truly exciting.

Q. What were some of challenges you faced during your PhD, and how did you overcome them? What was a highlight?

The biggest challenges I faced during my PhD were flow-on effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, travel restrictions delayed my fieldwork by over six months and meant I had to develop virtual relationships with community elders and key informants prior to going out into the field. Also, being in isolation within a few weeks of arriving in the country all by myself tested my motivation and productivity. To cope with this, I took regular breaks, started meditation, and started exercising. Also, my supervisor, Dr L’Espoir Decosta, provided invaluable support and motivation during this difficult time.

Q. What will you miss the most about life at ANU?

At ANU, I met some amazing people who enriched my life and helped me focus on what really matters. In addition to these wonderful people, I will miss the beautiful campus, especially morning coffees at Atticus with friends and the tranquil walks across the campus during the late afternoon or evening. The serene parks of Canberra, which provided a peaceful escape, will always hold a special place in my heart. Lastly, the philosophical discussions I had with my supervisor were invaluable and will be deeply missed. These experiences have left an indelible mark on my professional journey.

The College is always keen to explore research collaborations with the public and private sector and to reconnect with alumni . Please get in touch if you would like to know more about partnering with us.

India Vision @2047 – Mr. Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI)
A Word with Chef Sunit Sharma, Executive Chef at ‘Cidade de Goa’
Assimilate the art of mesmerizing food with Food Stylist & Photographer Nitin Tandon
Passion for cooking can finds its way from anywhere, anytime believes Rakhee Vaswani, Celebrity Chef & Owner Palate Culinary Studio!

Heritage and Cultural Tourism in South India: Discovering the Region Through Hospitality

Authored article by Vishal Vincent Tony, Founder & MD, Ayatana Hospitality South India stands as a captivating destination for today’s travellers. Apart from the historical temples, colonial roots, traditional arts, and culinary delights, the region's hospitality

Authored article by Vishal Vincent Tony, Founder & MD, Ayatana Hospitality

South India stands as a captivating destination for today’s travellers. Apart from the historical temples, colonial roots, traditional arts, and culinary delights, the region’s hospitality is also renowned among the travel community. That being said, hospitality establishments like resorts and hotels are also significantly contributing to southern tourism, by seamlessly integrating into the culture as well as extending the land’s hospitality. In this article, we will delve into the role of hospitality in promoting cultural tourism, the challenges faced, and the future trends that await this thriving industry.

The Synergy Between Hospitality and Tourism

Travelling in India can be overwhelming due to its vastness, diversity, and sensory overload. The country’s rich history, bustling cities, vibrant culture, and diverse landscapes can be both thrilling and challenging for travellers. Hospitality establishments play a key role in helping tourists navigate the clutter and experience the authentic heritage and culture that the place has to offer. By creating a space wherein one can immerse themselves in the food, music, art and language of the local communities, an establishment makes cultural tourism more palatable and experiential. This has a direct impact on the overall industry that contributes to the economic growth of the region.

Furthermore, establishments have also been adept at fostering cultural exchange with local communities. Be it a coracle boat ride in river Cauvery that flows through Coorg, collecting tea with the plantation workers of Ooty or even trying the traditional fishing technique in Cochin, tourism has become more about cultural integration, thanks to the constant efforts of hospitality establishments.

Challenges and Sustainability in Heritage Tourism

While heritage tourism brings numerous benefits, it also poses challenges that require careful consideration. Balancing tourism development with preservation efforts is of paramount importance. It is vital to strike a harmonious equilibrium between promoting tourism and conserving the historical sites and cultural artefacts that make South India a unique destination. Responsible tourism practices, like preserving traditional customs, implementing sustainable practices, and educating tourists about conservation, are essential for safeguarding the region’s heritage for future generations. Additionally, curating experiences for the tourists should be cohesive with the community and improve their livelihood to make it a sustainable ecosystem. On the governance front, involving local communities in tourism planning and development can ensure their voices are heard, their concerns addressed, and their cultural heritage respected.

Future Trends in Heritage and Cultural Tourism in South India

The heritage and cultural tourism industry in South India is evolving, embracing emerging trends that enhance visitor experiences while preserving the essence of the region’s heritage. One notable trend that is emerging is the integration of technology. From virtual reality tours that allow visitors to explore historical sites remotely to interactive mobile applications that provide detailed information about cultural landmarks, technology offers exciting possibilities to further the popularity of heritage tourism in South India.

To conclude, South India stands as a treasure trove of heritage and cultural tourism that captivates travellers. Aside from its awe-inspiring monuments and cultural attractions, the region’s significance as a heritage tourism destination is also due to its integration of said traditions into the hospitality industry. Establishments like Ayatana continue to serve as important catalysts for the growth of tourism in the region and help in creating a memorable experience for travellers.

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About the portal.

A technological tool for effective communication between the leading players in the Moscow tourism market and representatives of the foreign/regional tourism industry through online events. OBJECTIVES: • Building long-term cooperation with foreign/regional representatives • Raising awareness among foreign/regional representatives of the tourism industry of the tourism opportunities, measures and attractiveness of the city of Moscow in the field of tourist infrastructure development

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The Tourism Committee, or Mostourism, is the executive body of the Moscow City Government that oversees tourist activities in the capital. The Committee is responsible for legislative initiatives, congress and exhibition activities, and event and image projects. As the brand manager for an attractive tourism image for Moscow, Mostourism constantly analyses global trends, offers Russian and foreign tourists what they want, and also uncovers new opportunities for the capital in terms of interesting and rewarding leisure activities.

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Local insight to help you plan your next San Diego vacation.

April 30, 2024 By Julia Buescher

Celebrating Asian-Pacific Heritage: A Taste of Culture with Cristian Liang

Cristian Liang is a San Diego restaurant owner who embodies the cultural richness of our region: He’s an Asian-American entrepreneur who was born across the border in Baja California and now owns a trio of popular pan-Asian eateries in San Diego. To mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we caught up with Cristian and chatted about his success story, some favorite dishes and where he goes to celebrate his heritage.

Q : Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to launch your businesses — as well as why you felt San Diego was the right place to do so.

A : I was born in Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico. My parents owned and operated a Chinese restaurant in Tijuana for over 30 years, and I went to school in Tijuana until the age of 14. Entrepreneurship is the main reason for starting my own business, and I guess since the restaurant business is in my blood, I felt comfortable getting into the hospitality industry as my first business venture.

Q : What are some of your recommended must-try item(s) on the menus at your restaurants: Common Theory Public House and Realm of the 52 Remedies?

A : Common Theory Public House – Szechuan Hot Fried Chicken Sandwich and Realm of the 52 Remedies – “KFQ,” Korean-Fried Quail, paired with Saigon Dreamer cocktail Ingredients: “KFQ” Korean-Fried Quail, Yuzu Honey Sambal, Almond Gremolata, Fish Sauce, Candied Orange Peel, Thai Basil Saigon Dreamer Mr. Black Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur, Michter’s Rye Whiskey, Creme de Cacao, Lemon, Pineapple, Sugar, Clarified with Whole Milk. (Citrusy and nutty.)

Q : What are a few of your local favorites within your neighborhood?

A : Woomiok , Chon Ju Jip , and Matoi .

Q : If someone were to come to your business, what are a few surrounding things that would be interesting to do?

A : Eating and grabbing dessert on Convoy is the best! This neighborhood has an amazing variety of Asian eateries. Once your belly is full, go out for some boba pearl tea or sweet desserts from a local bakery or some shaved ice!

Q : Locally, where do you go to connect with your heritage?

A : Everywhere on Convoy connects me to my Chinese background, especially all the Asian grocery stores like 99 Ranch Market and H Mart! I’m able to find all the Asian ingredients I need for home and businesses, as well as all the snack favorites I loved since my childhood days.

Q : What are your favorite AAPI-centered events, neighborhoods, museums and other highlights in San Diego?

A : Chinese New Year celebration at Common Theory is always fun; we hire the local group of Lucky Lion Dancers to perform at the restaurant. We also hand out to every guest a traditional red pocket (pre-filled with a lucky $1 dollar bill) so that each guest can feed the dancing lions the lucky money for good luck, good health and prosperity!

Q : If someone were coming to San Diego for the first time, what would you tell them to do? (Besides visit your business, of course!)

A : I would recommend they explore the craft beer scene , visit Balboa Park , go to the beach in the spring/summer, and then come back to Convoy for dinner and drinks at Realm of the 52 Remedies before leaving town!

Q : What do you think would most surprise a newcomer to San Diego?

A : It’s not a surprise, but they will find that the city has many beautiful beaches, friendly people with laid-back vibes, and the best weather in the States. This is why people visit and end up staying!

Q : Looking forward, what makes you excited about growing your business in San Diego?

A : The potential in this city, and the appetite San Diegans have for better food , better drinks , and better experiences . As long as we continue to create concepts that focus on those three things, we can keep growing.

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Heritage Tourism
Abstract. 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 ...
Museums and Heritage Tourism
ABSTRACT. This book examines the symbiotic relationship between museums, heritage attractions and tourism, using a range of international case studies. Divided into three clear sections, the author first outlines a theoretical framework for understanding the role of museums in heritage tourism, before addressing practical challenges of ...
Museums and Heritage Tourism Theory, Practice and People
Written by a true global expert with many years of international experience, Museum and Heritage Tourism: Theory, Practice & People is a must-have resource." Professor Bob McKercher, University of Queensland "This unique and erudite book provides valuable insight into the crossover between museums, heritage and tourism.
Journal of Heritage Tourism
The Journal of Heritage Tourism ( JHT) is a peer-reviewed, international transdisciplinary journal. JHT focuses on exploring the many facets of one of the most notable and widespread types of tourism. Heritage tourism is among the very oldest forms of travel. Activities such as visits to sites of historical importance, including built environments and urban areas, rural and agricultural ...
The Heritage-scape: Origins, Theoretical Interventions, and Critical
Written by the author of The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage and Tourism (Lexington 2009), this article is a critical reflection of the heritage-scape concept nearly a decade after it was introduced in the literature. Including personal background stories that paint a picture of the intellectual origins and inspirations for the term, the article discusses the theory behind the heritage ...
A construal level view of contemporary heritage tourism
This research investigates heritage tourism from the perspective of Construal Level theory, which postulates that individuals mentally represent objects and events by adopting either low or high construal levels. We show that heritage tourism leads tourists to adopt a higher psychological distance and therefore a higher construal level.
Journal of Heritage Tourism
Tourism based on living traditions, built heritage resources, and intangible culture is one of the most pervasive forms of tourism. It involves many different resources, and people's motivations for visiting are manifold (McKercher and du Cros 2014; Timothy 2011).Many places depend almost entirely upon the cultural past for their tourism-based economies, resulting in many political, social ...
Heritage and Tourism
Abstract. 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 ...
Heritage Theory
Introduction. The field of heritage studies burst onto the academic scene in the late 1980s in tandem with the birth of critical museum studies, rise of the new social history, growth of postcolonial theory, the cultural turn in anthropology, and so forth throughout the humanities. Over the past three decades, heritage studies have ranged from ...
Cultural and heritage tourism: an introduction
Cultural and heritage tourism: an introduction by Dallen J. Timothy, Bristol, UK, Channel View Publications, 2020, 576 pp., $149.95 (hardback), ISBN: 978184541771 Deepak Chhabra School of Community Resources and Development, Arizona State University, 411 North Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ85004, USA Correspondence [email protected]
PDF JOURNAL OF HERITAGE TOURISM
Journal of Heritage Tourism (JHT) is looking for innovative research that deals with all aspects of cultural heritage and tourism: theory, management, methods and case studies. Key issues and topics include, but are not limited to: Authenticity . visitor management interpretation intangible culture arts and handicrafts conservation heritage ...
Museums and Heritage Tourism: Theory, Practice and People
Written by a true global expert with many years of international experience, Museum and Heritage Tourism: Theory, Practice & People is a must-have resource.". Professor Bob McKercher, University of Queensland. "This unique and erudite book provides valuable insight into the crossover between museums, heritage and tourism.
Sustainable Heritage, Tourism and Communication: Theory and Practice
This Special Issue aims to publish original research focused on these various topics related to sustainable heritage and tourism, review articles that discuss and present the current state of the field, as well as case studies and new perspectives. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
Museums and Heritage Tourism: Theory, Practice and People
Download Citation | On Mar 27, 2023, White Chris published Museums and Heritage Tourism: Theory, Practice and People | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
The role and dimensions of authenticity in heritage tourism
The first three meanings are relevant to relationship authenticity; 'authentic' connotes genuiness, truthfulness and sincerity ( Lau, 2010, p. 484). Authentic cultural heritage experience means an unspoiled, pristine, genuine, untouched real and traditional experience ( Belhassen et al., 2008, p. 671). Table 1.
Heritage Tourism
Heritage Tourism provides a comprehensive review of the main issues and concepts related to heritage tourism. It considers the area broadly to include culture and nature in both urban and rural contexts, and presents an in-depth discussion of important global issues. Heritage Tourism is a core text for 2nd and 3rd year students on tourism and related degrees where the major focus is on ...
Heritage Tourism
Heritage and Economy. G.J. Ashworth, in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2009 Heritage as Tourism Industry. Heritage tourism is not only a special case of a heritage industry but its numerical and economic importance has generated special management and scientific and political attention. Tourism treats much heritage as a zero-cost, freely accessible, flexible, and inexhaustible ...
Enhancing visit intention in heritage tourism: The role of object‐based
When implemented in a heritage tourism context, VR technologies have been argued to provide tourists with unique and authentic experiences (Jin et al., 2020; ... This model was based on the SOR theory framework, and is hereby extended, as it considers and measures authenticity as a construct consisting of two variables (i.e., object-based ...
Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow
World Heritage partnerships for conservation. Ensuring that World Heritage sites sustain their outstanding universal value is an increasingly challenging mission in today's complex world, where sites are vulnerable to the effects of uncontrolled urban development, unsustainable tourism practices, neglect, natural calamities, pollution, political instability, and conflict.
(PDF) D2.1 -Theoretical framework for cultural tourism in urban and
D2 .1 - Theoretical framework for cultural tourism in urban and regional destinations. are amongst the most recognised economic benefits of cultural tourism (e.g. Chang & Teo, 2009; du. Cros et ...
Constructing urban cultural landscapes & living in the palimpsests: a
A metaphor of palimpsest is used to describe the multivocal cultural landscapes since the 1970s. Interventions into new cultural / humanistic geography, semiotics and the theory of regional geography help to regard each layer of the palimpsest as a constructed context, centered by dominant representation of a place. Real-and-imagined landscapes are regarded as palimpsests lived through ...
Applying indigenous wisdom to sustainable tourism
My research interests extend to sustainable tourism, culture and heritage tourism, and rural tourism, as applied to my native country of Nepal, and informed by ethnographic methods and grounded theory. My goal is to develop holistically as an academic, excelling in securing research grants, producing high-quality research, and delivering ...
Heritage and Cultural Tourism in South India: Discovering the Region
While heritage tourism brings numerous benefits, it also poses challenges that require careful consideration. Balancing tourism development with preservation efforts is of paramount importance. It is vital to strike a harmonious equilibrium between promoting tourism and conserving the historical sites and cultural artefacts that make South ...
Discover Moscow About Us
About the portal. A technological tool for effective communication between the leading players in the Moscow tourism market and representatives of the foreign/regional tourism industry through online events. OBJECTIVES: • Building long-term cooperation with foreign/regional representatives. • Raising awareness among foreign/regional ...
Celebrating Asian-Pacific Heritage with Cristian Liang
To mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we caught up with Cristian and chatted about his success story, some favorite dishes and where he goes to celebrate his heritage. ... Common Theory - Szechuan Hot Fried Chicken Sandwich . ... The San Diego Tourism Authority is funded in part by the San Diego Tourism Marketing District Corporation ...

Heritage Tourism

Heritage in Tourism

Organizing Heritage Tourism

Conflict as Cultural Heritage

Built Heritage and Tourism

Postwar Heritage Tourism

Made or Experienced?

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Le Kremlin et la place Rouge, Moscou

الكرملين والساحة الحمراء، موسكو

莫斯科克里姆林宫和红场

El kremlin y la Plaza Roja de Moscú

モスクワのクレムリンと赤の広場

Kremlin en Rode Plein, Moskou

Outstanding Universal Value

State of Conservation (SOC)

Constructing urban cultural landscapes & living in the palimpsests: a case of Moscow city (Russia) distant residential areas

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Place as palimpsest

Urban cultural landscape: symbolic construction vs. lived practices

Mobile quest games in Moscow distant residential areas

Lived practices of the quest game users

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Applying indigenous wisdom to sustainable tourism

Q. Congratulations on completing your PhD! Can you give us an overview of the focus of your research, and some of the conclusions you drew from it?

Q. One of the papers from your PhD recently won the 2023 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management’s (JHTM) Best PhD Award. What are the key practical contributions of this paper and how does it inform your future research directions?

Q. When did your interest in Sustainable Collaborative Indigenous Tourism Development begin to grow?

Q. You have accepted a new appointment as Research Assistant Professor at HKPU. How do you feel about starting in this role, and what do you hope to achieve?

Q. What were some of challenges you faced during your PhD, and how did you overcome them? What was a highlight?

Q. What will you miss the most about life at ANU?

Heritage and Cultural Tourism in South India: Discovering the Region Through Hospitality

Review overview

The Orchid Hotel Pune Appoints Bhavin Damania as Human Resource Manager

ITC Grand Central Mumbai Appoints Chef Anshul Dhyani as Executive Chef

Tamara Lilac Kumbakonam appoints Unnikrishnann V Menon as General Manager

Goa Marriott Resort and Spa Elevates Shilpa Kampani as the Director of Services

Tourism Web Portal

Moscow City Tourism Committee

ANO «Project Office for the Development of Tourism and Hospitality of Moscow»

Video materials about Moscow

Celebrating Asian-Pacific Heritage: A Taste of Culture with Cristian Liang

Q : Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to launch your businesses — as well as why you felt San Diego was the right place to do so.

Q : What are some of your recommended must-try item(s) on the menus at your restaurants: Common Theory Public House and Realm of the 52 Remedies?

Q : What are a few of your local favorites within your neighborhood?

Q : If someone were to come to your business, what are a few surrounding things that would be interesting to do?

Q : Locally, where do you go to connect with your heritage?

Q : What are your favorite AAPI-centered events, neighborhoods, museums and other highlights in San Diego?

Q : If someone were coming to San Diego for the first time, what would you tell them to do? (Besides visit your business, of course!)

Q : What do you think would most surprise a newcomer to San Diego?

Q : Looking forward, what makes you excited about growing your business in San Diego?

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