Tourism Geographies

ISSN: 1461-6688 (Print) 1470-1340 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtxg20

Heritage and Cultural Tourism: The Present and

Future of the Past
Alon Gelbman & Amos S. Ron
To cite this article: Alon Gelbman & Amos S. Ron (2009) Heritage and Cultural
Tourism: The Present and Future of the Past, Tourism Geographies, 11:1, 127-129, DOI:
10.1080/14616680802643441
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616680802643441

Published online: 23 Jan 2009.

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Tourism Geographies
Vol. 11, No. 1, 127129, February 2009

Heritage and Cultural Tourism: The

Present and Future of the Past
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ALON GELBMAN & AMOS S. RON

Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel

Heritage and culture have long been recognized as core components of tourism.
Whether we are dealing with pilgrimages and visits to sacred sites, visits for cultural interaction with other host societies, or elaborating on other forms of spiritual
activities, tourism has always been an important platform for such meetings and interactions. This report is a summary of the conference Heritage and Cultural Tourism:
The Present and Future of the Past. The conference was held on 1719 June 2008,
at the Brigham Young University, Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, in
Jerusalem, Israel. It brought together 75 tourism researchers from fifteen countries
in the Middle East, Europe, North America and the Pacific, and was organized by
the Department of Geography at Brigham Young University (Utah, USA) with the
assistance and sponsorship of several regional partner institutions.
The conference aims were to examine and highlight the magnitude of heritage and
culture-based tourism, and stimulate meaningful dialogue. This enables scholars to
continue to understand and share their findings regarding how to support principles of
social, economic and ecological sustainability by mitigating the negative aspects and
enhancing the positive sides of tourism. The conference was designed to be small,
to encourage in-depth discussions of critical issues in heritage tourism scholarship.
While most attendees were from the Middle East, the subject matter and case materials
were broad in their scope, underscoring all aspects of tourism that are found in cultural
heritage contexts, with special interest in current practices and policies, and future
trends and directions for heritage and cultural tourism.
Tom Selwyn, the opening keynote speaker, examined the ideas, concepts, practices
and assumptions associated with lessons learnt from experience, in two programmes
of work funded by the European Commission in the fields of pilgrimage, tourism
and cultural heritage one in Bosnia-Herzegovina (involving university and other
Correspondence Address: Alon Gelbman, Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, MP Jordan Valley 15132, Israel. Fax: +972-4-6653764; Tel.: +972-50-6283038;
Email: along@kinneret.ac.il
C 2009 Taylor & Francis
ISSN 1461-6688 Print/1470-1340 Online /09/01/001273

DOI: 10.1080/14616680802643441

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128 A. Gelbman & A. S. Ron

institutional partners from Sarajevo and Banja-Luka, as well as the UK and Italy),
and the other in Palestine (involving university partners from Bethlehem/Jerusalem,
UK and Finland). The aims of these two TEMPUS projects, each of which lasted
between two and three years, were varied and included, among others, the training
of mid-career professionals (25 in the Bosnian case, 10 in the Palestinian case) at the
MA degree level, and the preparation of strategic plans for the development of tourism
and the cultural industries in both countries. The overall purpose of these projects was
to respond to the tourism, cultural and heritage industries in Palestine and Bosnia,
as these were contextualized in more general economic and political landscapes. In
both cases the heritage element bears a direct relationship to conflict, post-conflict
and economic transition.
The session about managing heritage places in critical times included presentations
on customizing interpretations in multi-heritage sites; restoring place image; effective
management of heritage visitor attractions; the challenge of people with disabilities
visiting art museums; and the segmentation of visitors at heritage sites. The pilgrimage
and religion session focused on the following issues: the search for authenticity in the
pilgrim experience: introducing a new concept for planning the old city of Nazareth;
perspectives of sacred sites management; and Israeli backpackers in search of Judaism
in Indian resorts. Shopping on the Heritage Trail was the title of a session that presented
two different aspects of cultural heritage trail tourism, and interpreted various cases
of souvenir shopping experiences from the perspective of the tourists as well as that
of the merchants. Siting places of pilgrimage, heritage tourism development in the
United Arab Emirates, and the effect of World Heritage designation on tourism and
tourist behaviour were included in a session about archaeology and heritage.
In a session about environmental and geo-spatial issues, the following presentations
were given: territorial coherence of cultural resources and tourism dynamics; heritage
tourism and future global environmental change; pilgrimage communitas: the case
of BYU Holy Land tours; heritage-orientated destinations in the American West; a
case of uneven geography of past places in California; and local initiatives to instill
heritage tourism development in Palestine. The borders, heritage and cross-border
co-operation session included papers that dealt with different aspects of the issue
the transformation of formerly hostile boundaries into current tourist attractions; a
common perspective for Palestine, Israel and tourism to the Holy Land; the interplay
between heritage tourism landscapes and use of land for security purposes in border
areas; and perceptual borders in a borderless century and their impact on destination
visitation. The session on dark tourism included presentations about the psychosociology of dark tourism in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem; graves as
tourist attractions; and invisible/suppressed heritage the case of Japanese-American
internment camps.
Alison McIntosh, the concluding keynote speaker, looked back on conceptual developments in heritage and cultural tourism scholarship with a view to discussing
future considerations for advancing current heritage tourism theory and discourse. In

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Commentary: Heritage and Cultural Tourism

129

particular, she focused on conceptual developments that have sought to understand

the role and prominence of the tourist in the heritage and cultural tourism experience.
McIntosh claimed that emphasis has been given to the personal, subjective, sensory
and interactive nature of the heritage tourism experience and where tourists become
active players in shaping their own experiences of heritage and cultural contexts. Indeed, an increasing number of scholars have conceptualized the heritage and cultural
tourism experience in relation to the extent of personal significance, identity, familiarity and meaningful engagement for the visitor. Her paper argued that there is a need
also to examine the heritage tourist experience within a more holistic perspective,
i.e. through tourists own reflections on self, and their deep and personal stories of
everyday life, family and relationships.
Jerusalem is one of the worlds great laboratories for studying the multiplicity
of dynamics at play with the growth of heritage-based tourism. Sacred for Jews,
Christians and Muslims alike, Jerusalem (and the Holy Land, as a whole) plays a
pivotal role in the religious heritage of more than half of the worlds population. In
addition to its strong academic grounding, the three-day conference took place on the
beautiful campus of Brigham Young Universitys Jerusalem Center, overlooking the
Mount of Olives, the Kidron Valley and the Old City, and included a number of field
trips focusing on the heritage sites of Jerusalem.
The conference was successful in fulfilling the main goal of gathering a handful of
scholars to advance thinking about cultural and heritage tourism and its future. It was
also successful because, as Dallen J. Timothy, head of the conference, summarized,
although many research findings were presented and questions raised, We now know
less than we knew before, and in my estimation this is a good thing . . . we have
stimulated more thought and raised more questions to keep our debate and research
going far into the future.