ARTICLE

Highlighting Identity and Building Cultural Tourism

December 12, 2017 – Christopher Visentin

Culture and heritage is a cornerstone of every community, and when that community’s economy relies on tourism, its local culture can be a valuable resource.

The city of New Orleans, ten years after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, has experienced both a revival and transformation, fueled in large part by the city’s distinctive heritage and wealth of cultural offerings.

An article appearing in Adweek, “Why New Orleans Tourism Is Soaring 10 Years After Katrina,” notes that New Orleans’ tourism comeback represents 9.5 million visitors and $6.8 billion in revenue in 2015, up from 3.7 million in 2006, the year following Katrina. By taking advantage of media attention through marketing initiatives following Katrina, the city was able to shed light on the depth of the its cultural heritage and its vibrant art scene.

In response, visitors no longer visited the city just for the main tourist attractions, but began exploring further—venturing out to other culture-rich areas to engage with a more authentic expression of New Orleans’ culture and history.

With the promise of an in-depth cultural experience, visitors started to spend more and stay longer. These cultural tourists were connecting and appreciating the city’s people, neighborhoods, arts, and food on more meaningful levels.

New Orleans’ success story is a testament to the city’s resilience and drive, but also reflective of the transformative role culture can play in developing a more sustainable tourism product.

Small communities around the world are increasingly playing host to this new brand of cultural tourism—sustainable tourism that encourages a more immersive cultural exchange between visitors and communities to the greater benefit of both.

Sustainable cultural tourism takes on many forms, depending on the nature of the destination; it is not an opportunity for cities alone. A recent post from Solimar International, a consulting firm serving the sustainable tourism market, points out that the rise of cultural tourism has allowed small communities to “celebrate and promote what distinguishes their communities” as never before, while also helping boost economic growth.

From small communities in Morocco to Columbia, concerted efforts to foster a more sustainable tourism model that promotes interaction with local culture has produced greater income for communities. In addition, this opportunity has helped to spread awareness within the community itself of its own unique cultural offerings.

The goal of sustainable tourism is to provide many of the economic benefits of mass tourism without the inevitable drawbacks. Where environmental ecotourism initiatives attract and inform tourists by emphasizing the value of a destination’s natural resources, an active and sustainable cultural tourism industry does the same by emphasizing a community’s distinctive and important cultural resources.

Cultural tourism, then, offers a great deal to tourist destination communities.

In the article “How Culture and Heritage Tourism Boosts More Than A Visitor Economy,” tourism business consultant Carolyn Childs points out how,a thoughtful and well-developed cultural tourism product brings in economic, social and environmental benefits.

• Economic benefits include more local “jobs, businesses, events and attractions,” which in turn leads to greater economic diversity. A diverse, community-based economy supports small businesses, helps fund cultural preservation and other local initiatives, and encourages new community centers to the benefit of visitors and residents alike.

• Building a sustainable cultural tourism product leads to the preservation of local traditions and customs. This preservation leads to greater awareness of and pride in local customs, and increases local investment in local cultural institutions for visitors and residents alike.
• Cultural tourism initiatives inspire a “culture of preservation” of the community’s surroundings. A community-wide mindset encourages residents and visitors alike to be mindful of their impact on both cultural and natural sites.

The challenge, then, is to build a meaningful cultural tourism product and attract those tourists looking for such experiences. To that end, the short piece “Place as Product” by tourism industry professional Steven Throne encourages communities to build and market a “place-based” product, which focuses on the “unique identity, cultural character, and ‘sense of place’” of the area, and invite tourists to explore more and engage at a deeper level.

Given the distinctive nature of culture, approaches to such a “place-based” product will vary. For example, Thorne suggests a community might devise “themed cultural routes” to lead visitors to different historical sites, arts galleries, or even restaurants. These routes help convey that the community has more to offer than the main tourist stops.

Without attention and thoughtful initiative, tourists and tourist destinations may well overlook what the local community’s culture has to offer. In the Caribbean, for instance, natural offerings—sand beaches, warm weather, blue waters—can overshadow the vibrant history, heritage, and culture of the communities that populate the region. However, Caribbean communities have unrealized potential to attract sustainable cultural tourism.

Inspired by a visit to Taiwan and experiencing the engaging, well-funded cultural tourism industry at work there, Associate Editor for Caribbean News Now Ben Anson considers how the Caribbean is “blessed with such history [and] culture.” The Caribbean’s long, vibrant, and intriguing history stretches from before the colonial era to today, with cultures influenced and shaped by a melting pot of inhabitants and other countries. Today, much of that history and heritage remains underfunded and underappreciated.

There is a good deal of evidence around the world—from New Orleans to Taiwan—of the promise that a more developed cultural tourism industry holds for communities.

By raising awareness of local cultural assets and incorporating these qualities into a sustainable tourism product, communities can experience greater benefit from the local tourism industry, and better recognize the wealth they already possess.

http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/why-new-orleans-tourism-soaring-10-years-after-katrina-166584/
http://www.solimarinternational.com/resources-page/blog/item/224-cultural-tourism-four-examples-of-how-it-works-for-destinations
http://www.vicapitalresources.com/2017/11/04/ecotourism-promoting-sustainability-in-the-tourism-product/
https://www.mytravelresearch.com/culture-and-heritage-tourism-boosts-visitor-economy/
https://www.creativecity.ca/database/files/library/steven_thorne_place_product.pdf
http://wp.caribbeannewsnow.com/2017/11/01/caribbean-learn-taiwan-part-1/