Friday, 28 April 2017

HERITAGE AND CULTURAL TOURISM MANAGEMENT (SM25)

Introduction
Tourism is considered as the fastest growing business across the world. It enables the travellers to have fun, travelling abroad, educational tours, gather meaningful experiences and business tours. This particular study is on the cultural and heritage management of various tourism industry. The importance of the relationship between the development as well as the growth of the industries has been discussed in this study. The potential conflicts during the conversion of the cultural and heritage resources have also been discussed in this study. The researcher has assessed the purpose of the cultural and heritage attractions for meeting the requirements of customers. An evaluation of the effect of various ownership types on cultural and heritage management has been provided. The researcher has also analysed various roles as well as responsibilities of organisations within cultural and heritage industry. At the end of the study, various methods and roles that are used to interpret in cultural and heritage industry have been evaluated.
The heritage sites within Tibet are very attractive. Pargor street, which is located in the downtown of Lhasa surrounds the Jokhang temple has been renovated in early 2010. Vendors from various ethnic groups would crowd on the street by blocking the temple road. Over 3000 stalls have been relocated to the commercial building of Pargor by November 2013, which made the temple easily accessible for the tourists.
As opined by Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., (2015, p.25), in 1988, it has been announced by the Ninth TAR five-year-plan that the tourism is a pillar industry. After that, Lhasa has been converted to major destination for the tourists. From the report of the analysts, it has been observed that most of the revenue that comes from tourism takes the region into China. The tourism has increased with the opening of railways in Tibet in 2006, due to which has become a historical cultural site (Smith and Richards, 2013, p.36).
While Tibet has been marketed as the tourist destination by the Chinese authorities based on spiritual attractions of the Buddhist culture as well as landscape, Beijing has recently tightened control on the Tibetan religious practices and expression. As stated by Almond and Verba (2015, p.14), Buddhism in Tibet is considered as an integral part of the Tibetan identity as well as Tibetan nationalism. Therefore, it has been considered as the potential threat to the state authority. With this development, a new national law of tourism of China that has been enforced in 2013.
It has been observed that most tourists who visit TAR have been Chinese nationals and stay mostly in the hotels that are run and owned by Chinese. It could be said that most of the revenue that has been generated by tourism is channelled by such venues. In these prevailing conditions, tourism industry would face much difficulty in functioning as pillar industry that is self-sustaining. The tourism industry of Tibet should accumulate the capital a well as profits from the TAR, instead of being served as another drain through which the resources would flow back to China (Aitchison et al. 2014, p.23).
The mountains that are snow-capped, green grasslands as well as cultural heritage and mysterious religious of Tibet have been becoming the biggest tourist attraction for the travellers. This place is also known as the place of adventure.
1.2 Discussion on the potential conflicts during the conversion of the cultural and heritage resources
Tourism is considered as a phenomenon including economic, political, biophysical, social and ecological perspectives. As opined by Graham et al. (2014, p.24), tourism is termed as a positive force for cultural and natural convection. However, there exists potentiality of occurrence of conflicts in cultural resources as well as conservation of heritage.
Lacking in a presentation of place:
The inability of the tourism industry to present the places to the visitors efficiently sometimes gives rise to conflicts. In this context, the visitors would lack awareness and would not be able to concentrate on the conservation as well as protection of the sites.
Disrespecting the rights as well as interests of tourists:
In case the personal interests of the host community, indigenous people, and local people along with the property owners are not met, cultural practice, knowledge, beliefs and activities would be affected adversely (Calvert. and Mabee, 2015, p.210).
Misinterpretation of physical attributes: Inappropriate presentation or interpretation of various physical attributes such as intangible aspects and cultural expression, might lead to narrower concepts as well as misunderstanding regarding the cultural heritages.
Poor planning as well as land usage: In case potential conflicts among the tourism project as well as the conservation of heritage could be recognised or minimised, it might lead to poor planning as well as poor usage of the land, the associated land with the heritage sites and poor lifestyle of the host community.
Conservation threats: In case the authorities or designers of various heritage sites keep the sites outdated by not upgrading the sites or repairing them for development and make it attractive, the development of the tourism business would be very difficult.
Greenfield and brownfield sites: In case proper concentrations have not been provided to the aesthetic value regarding the proper position of brown sites or the green sites, or any other social as well as cultural dimensions, then it would impact in the development of the tourism industry adversely.
Lack of advanced technology as well as innovation: Lack of appropriate use of advanced technologies, integrated training as well as education of the employee's opportunities, interactive software and lacking in policy maker, interpreters, tourism operators, designers, researchers, architects as well as converters might create adverse affect on the development of the tourism industry.
Lacking consultation: Consulting with the indigenous people or the host community regarding the achievement of goals, preservation, considering strategic policies, management and interpretation of historical sites would enable the authority to determine the shortcomings of biases to search for better solutions. Lack of this consultation might lead to the conflict and as a result, would hinder the development of heritage sites (Trueba et al. 2014, p.37).
Less accessibility of advanced technologies: In case there is no software based or integrated approaches for matching the capital costs as well as the target of revenue generation, providing training to new as well as existing employees, increasing the skills of employees and management for bringing changes, the tourism industry would not be able to develop. 
Equal treatment to all people irrespective of gender as well as geographic location: The authority of the tourism industry might be able to ensure appropriate balancing with respect to gender and geographic locations of the visitors along with the factors such as education, economic condition and social culture. Therefore, the tourism industry would be able to utilise the resources of the heritage properly.



Task 2
In Tourism Industry the cultural and heritage attractions play a great role. The heritage tourism is also known as Diaspora tourism. In today’s world main objective of tourism is culture. It's because from all over the world many tourists those are travelling mainly visits these cultural and historical places (Alvarez, et al. 2016, p.121). Purpose of travelling also changes from place to place along with people to people.
Visitors those who come to UK for the purpose of travelling goes to visit various heritage spots including the historical and cultural ones too(Su and Lin, 2014, p.49). The attractive spot fulfills the different needs of the tourists in many ways. The purposes are discussed below:
     Education: People from different places visit these cultural and heritage attractions for gathering knowledge for different reasons like academic purposes or for personal use. These attractions can be a great source of learning about the history, culture and heritage about a particular topic or a country. Different education systems visit these places to take knowledge. For example the Victoria and Albert museum which the museum of art and design allows different educational program to gather knowledge about it through various kinds of programs (Trinh and Ryan, 2017, p.77). Programs like dramas, stories based on themes, signs and labels are introduced to show the importance of the museum to the visitors.
     Research: Research based works are also done based on these places. Science Museum and the British Museum could be one such place. Tourists come here to see the various discoveries that took place in United Kingdom. The British museums have the largest collection of antiquities in the world. Also it contains the unique collection of Egyptian antiquities. The science museum contains the exhibitions related to any field in science for one's learning purposes. The museum also contains lie detector, place for exploring space, etc... One can do experiments over here which could be very beneficial to a researcher. People have interest in this place if they have interest in science and technologies.
     Recreation: Nowadays people have become busier and due to this recreation period have become shorter due to shortage of time. So these people try to enjoy recreation within this short period of time by spending more money. People have become money making machine (Kempiak et al. 2017, p.391). One does not have time to even go for a long tour. For such people this type of heritage and historic spots are much more entertaining.
     Entertainment: These places keep the visitors entertained in all possible ways. People see different things that are not easily found outside or which they saw earlier only in pictures or movies. Spending few hours in these museums people would come to know about the country’s history. Families take their children to these museums for entertainment purpose and to extend their kids knowledge for the purpose of enhancement. Even the children enjoy watching this heritage sites and acquire knowledge from it.
Through all the observations, it is concluded that these places are fulfilling the needs of the visitors in a proper manner. A travel industry’s important part would be selecting the audience i.e. targeting the proper audience correctly. For example a student would go to these places either for their academic purpose like research work or for gathering knowledge. Whereas a business man with his family go there for entertainment purposes to enjoy their vacation. Also from this we understand that people with higher income visits long distance whereas people with average income usually goes to local places (Roch and Quinn, 2017, p.15).
Various kinds of ownership exist in a nation that plays an important role in handling the heritage and cultural spots (Ababneh et al, 2016, p.21). These heritage spots are owned by the government sectors or any other nonprofit organizations. These ownerships are:
Private ownership: As per Barthel-Bouchier (2016, p.169) they are the ownerships that are controlled and managed by the private sectors. Even the important decisions are taken by these private entities. Main objective is being the same to give best experience to the people visiting these sites. Other objectives of this firm's are to increase sales by bringing more and more visitors to the heritage sites. They also give different promotional offers to bring more customers. For example the HHA (Historic House Association) is a UK based private firm which maintains and takes care of the different heritage and cultural places in the country.
Public ownership: They are the ownership where the important decisions are taken by the government of the nation, i.e., government is the main controller of the firms. The main objective is to bring in maximum foreigners along with domestic visitors of a country to increase sales. Also their objective is to conserve the different heritage places of the country (Braille and Saviano, 2015, p.73). From this we understand that these firms not only focus on promoting heritage and cultural tourism in the country but also aim at conserving the cultural heritage of a country. For example public ownership named as English heritage and the HLF (Heritage Lottery Fund), etc. which aims at protecting the heritage and cultural sites of the country. 
Political: The core controller to maintain and protect the heritage sites is the government. They regulate to strengthen the value of historic places in a country. Here if the government thinks they cannot properly manage the policies then they can take help from the country experts as they will be able to guide them properly according to effective management
Collaboration: If the government bodies collaborate with the private sectors in order to secure the heritage sites then it’s known as collaboration ownership. These firms could be more effective in planning and maintaining the heritage sites at different stages.
The responsibilities of an organization include the preservation, maintenance and complete management of the heritage and cultural sites effectively (Macdonald and Cheong, 2014, p.165). These organizations promote tourism across the country which helps in boosting the economy of the particular nation. Some UK based heritage organizations along with their roles and responsibilities.
National Trust: It is an organization in UK which is dedicated in prevailing and to secure the heritage sites of a locality or a particular geographical area. They are to ensure that the natural beauty and the country's historical significance is preserved in an efficient manner. These firms also ensure the protection of environment and cultural valuable of an area. Ancient monuments and human culture and historical things are preserved by these organizations. They work at a national level and also promote the tourism of heritage and cultural at an international level too.
English Heritage:  They are the charity trust which is a government registered that looks after the country’s heritage and cultural collection. This trust contains a collection of above 400 historic monuments, architectures, etc. It is a public firm that works to secure the natural environment of the nation which is undertaken by the British government. More focus is given towards the protection of archaeological monuments and to attract more visitors by giving promotional offers (Lord and Markert, 2017, p.129). There is also evidence that shows English heritage is a much known and publicly praised heritage in the world. A very famous heritage sites namely Stonehenge in the country is an only part of English Heritage.
Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF): It was founded in UK under the National Lottery Act 1993 and came into existence in 1994. They make policies regarding the safeguarding of national heritage and cultural sites. It is responsible for developing the communities and people of UK also raises fund from the National Lottery. This fund helps in raising the economy of heritage. Investments are done to protect the various heritage sites in UK and to bring more tourists in the country.
Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS): As the name says, it is responsible for developing the Media, Culture and Sport across the country. The media is responsible for broadcasting and internet related issues. The UK department mentioned also has duties towards the promotion of tourism and leisure industries. They were also playing important role in Paralympics games and helped building the digital economy of UK. Other roles that are played by this organization are towards preserving historic monuments and also towards the GAC (Government Art Collection.) 

Task 4
Various approaches and methods are used by the governments and corporations for presenting the opportunities and features of sites. The Victoria and Albert museum in London arranged various methods such as signs, drama, labels and thematic stories to conduct and uphold various historic events as well fairs. These methods enable tourists to get a clear idea about the heritage sites they have visited. For attracting the visitors towards the museum, role plays are arranged along with drama on an ancient history of the antic museum's collection. People visit the museum in the UK from various countries. Besides the promotional activities, an authority of the heritage site along with the culture and heritage industry is able to take the help of various broad level and worldwide coverage by media. For instance, the industry is able to publish various materials regarding the business prospects through the considerations of various pros as well as cons of the heritage sites. The management of the tourism industry is able to arrange various interactive technologies for providing available information to the visitors and others (Fladmark, 2014, p.31). Moreover, they can also use various audio-visual documentaries for providing information about the heritage sites to the visitors.

From the above study, it has been concluded by the researcher that development as well as growth of cultural or heritage industry in the tourism as well as travel management are very important. Tourism is the fastest growing industry all over the world. In this study, the researcher has analysed the development as well as growth of cultural industry and discussed about the potential conflicts within the conservation of cultural and heritage resources. The researcher has assessed the reason of cultural as well as heritage attractions for achieving the requirements of various customers. An evaluation of the impact of various ownership types on cultural as well as heritage sites management has been provided. The researcher has also analysed various roles as well as responsibilities of the organisations within cultural and heritage industry. At the end of the study, the researcher has evaluated the methods as well as media that used for interpreting in cultural and heritage industry for the tourists. 

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