Heritage Tourism

This piece of work focuses on the role of heritage as a London tourism product. The 1983 National Heritage Conference defined heritage as: ‘that which a past generation has preserved and handed on to the present and which a significant group of population wishes to hand on to the future’ (Hewison, 1989, p.6). As not all countries are not able to sell ‘sun, sea and sand’ as their main tourism product, subsequently they have to sell history or culture. Some tourists and visitors when travelling to a place are not just interested in relaxing or changing their familiar scene, they also want to be educated and entertained. Heritage provides these points in order to satisfy tourist needs, it has become a huge sector of the global tourism industry.

Zeppel and Hall (1992) argue that heritage tourism has designed part of what is recognised as singular interest travel. Pilgrimage was one of the initial practices of heritage tourism; this movement occurred when some individuals started to travel and visit places with religious or spiritual importance. There are two different components of heritage; tangible elements and intangible elements. For instance, buildings, rivers, objects in museums and natural areas are good examples of tangible elements. But also there are some non-tangible elements that may attract tourists and visitors such as, values, customs, lifestyles and festivals. Both aspects can be the main factor that motivates a large amount of visitors to visit London each year. Hall and McArthur (1993) identified four solid areas in heritage that can obtain some profit from it, which are political, economic, social and scientific significance. Heritage in the majority of the time is preserved because of the status it contribute...

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...rs and in 2013 the number of individuals that visited the Tower of London was 2,894,698 this means that in Seven years there is a difference between these two data which is approximately 81 thousands. A survey was taken in the South Bank in Central London by the author of this piece of work in which visitors/tourists were the primary target, the effort was to question about tourist attractions in London that may interest them, and principal factors that made them visit that particular area. Nineteen individuals contributed with their answers, female and male, different ages. Heritage attraction is the basis of heritage tourism. In London there are some cultural and natural heritage places such as monuments, gardens, churches that attract international tourists as well. The information provided through the survey will be discussed in more details below of each table.