Heritage Tourism

Tourism based on heritage resources and/or motivations is becoming increasingly popular. Three main forms of heritage are distinguished—natural heritage, tangible cultural heritage, and intangible cultural heritage—and heritage tourism might be based on tourists interacting with any of these, individually or in combination. A wide range of subgenres of heritage tourism are also noted, although there is little agreement about how these are best differentiated and named. Many of these forms overlap with one another. Examples include dark tourism, family heritage tourism, ethnic tourism, and religious tourism. All of these subgenres are said to be growing in popularity, due perhaps to the increasing pace of modern life, which has the effect of disconnecting people from the past. This may produce feelings of nostalgia that can only ...