The Role of Heritage Tourism in Multinational Development

Along with the considerable development of the society, the diversity of the economic forms clearly spike, causing the economic sectors to adapt swiftly. Tourism industry, not an exception, rapidly transforms and creates new paths including heritage tourism. This kind of tourism, recently, has become a fast-growing and high-yielding sector; this essay will explore two outstanding nations having the potential for development in this cultural trend and give some influences of it for both beneficial and harmful aspects.

Heritage tourism has been published under many definitions. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s definition is “Cultural heritage tourism is traveling to experience the places, artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. It includes cultural, historic, and natural resources.” (ColoradoPreservation, 2011). In 1985, two definitions of culture heritage tourism were published by World Tourism Organization (WTO). The first definition - the narrower, includes: “movements of persons for essentially cultural motivations such as study tours, performing arts and cultural tours, travel to festivals and other cultural events, visits to sites and monuments, travel to study nature, folklore or art, and pilgrimages”. Another definition – the wider, includes: “all movements of persons, … because they satisfy the human need for diversity, tending to raise the cultural level of the individual and giving rise to new knowledge, experience and encounters” (Johan & Joppe, 2005).

Heritage tourism appears in many countries all over the world, from the developed nations to the developing countries. To begin with, the U.S is a byword for one of the outstanding nations that should be listed. In 2009, the Cultural & Heritage Traveler Study has been made among U.S. domestic travelers, revealing that “ 78 percent of all U.S. leisure travelers participate in cultural and /or heritage activities while traveling, translating to 118.3 million adults each year. With cultural and heritage travelers spending an average of $994 per trip, they contribute more than $192 billion annually to the U.S. economy” (McCormick, 2010). That fact has demonstrated that the U.S’s developing potential not only comes from the future values but rather being reviewed by the real numbers. Furthermore, the conservation has been made for long: “Watershed associations, local and regional land trusts, and local conservation commissions continue to work to protect scenic, recreational or ecological resources, often in partnership with other organizations and with state and federal agencies. Increasingly, protected open space has become an important component in community and regional planning initiatives with a wide array of benefits. While 19th and early 20th century initiatives to preserve open space generally focused on a specific argument (utilitarian conservation, scenic preservation, or habitat protection), contemporary initiatives increasingly recognize that open space serves multiple uses” (Chapman, n.d).

Another country that will be described is a developing South East Asia country, Vietnam. Vietnam, having more than 4000 historical years of formation and development, is currently embracing the trend to develop the cultural heritage tourism. According toVietnam News Agency (2017), official statistics demonstrates that there are around 40,000 tangible and 60,000 intangible heritages in Vietnam. Most of them have relations with the religious, beliefs and cultures like temples, pagodas, monuments, churches, and expressed in religious rituals, traditional festivals and art forms. Furthermore, Ms. Hoa Nguyen Quynh (2016) also revealed that “The Government’s development strategy towards 2025 has considered the tourism industry as one of the most powerful competitive abilities of Vietnam, making up the propitious occasion for Vietnam to progress the cultural heritage tourism industry”. It means that the potential exploitation in cultural heritage tourism in Vietnam is very significant and this is the opportunity for Vietnam to develop this type of tourism eager to explore. In 2016, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has announced that “one-third of 62 million domestic tourists visited destinations with spiritual significance” (Vietnam News Agency (VNA), 2017).However, there are still many limitations such as: unfavorable transportation system, inadequate exploitation or the laxity in management.

Accordingly, the above mentionedhas expressed the most common influences of the heritage tourism on the nations’ development. It can’t be denied that heritage tourism brings various benefits including for the economics, society, culture, etc. Tourism industry’s development extremely “contribute to the income generation, improvement of economic quality of life through increasing of personal income and increasing tax revenues”, it also “ increases employment opportunities, improves investment development, and profitable local businesses and investment in infrastructure, improves public utilities infrastructure, improves transport infrastructure, increases opportunities for shopping, economic impact (direct, indirect, induced spending) is widespread in the community and creates new business opportunities” (Gnanapala & Sandaruwani, 2016). Nevertheless, there are still some existent problems and issues related to this industry such as “over-dependence on tourism, the conflicts of interests, unauthorized constructions and modifications, misinterpretations through guiding and poor site management etc” (Gnanapala & Sandaruwani, 2016).

In conclusion, heritage tourism's appearance has created an important step in the development of many nations all over the world; moreover, it promotes the preservation of the national culture of many countries.Conversely, it still has particular limitations, creating the negative impact and finally the negative publicity about the destinations.