Many cities and locations throughout the world pride themselves in their historic landmarks and culture. Cultural heritage has always played a major role in tourism and the overall personal experience of each tourist.
It can contribute with a sense of discovery and familiarize the person with the location that they visit by learning to help the person learn its customs. Cultural tourism is the process of traveling to a particular place so that one can learn its traditions and participate in activities that helps a person learn about the cultural past of a particular place.
A traveler engages with the region’s art, architecture that has influenced and shaped the country’s lifestyle.
Cultural Heritage and Tourism
The culture of an area is the total accumulation of experiences, beliefs, meanings, hierarchies, religion, and concepts acquired over time by a group of people and passed down through generations.
It plays a major role in the lifestyle and customs that are shared by the residents. Cultural heritage tourism encourages people to visit famous cultural and historical attractions such as museums, historical buildings, archaeological sites or ethnic and ecological heritage sites.
Cultural heritage can be used in a variety of ways to help promote a location by making use of its folklore, legends, celebrities, historic buildings, and sites. More importantly, guided tours can be used for educational purposes and help tourists understand the local area.
Cultural and heritage tourism adds many benefits to a country or a location that include:
– the creation of businesses, events, attractions
– helps to support local businesses
– it helps to promote the protection and preservation of historical sites and important local resources.
– it helps to reinforce national identity
– beautifies the local area
– it provides enjoyable cultural experiences for residents and tourists
– leads to better overall infrastructure and living environment, not just for tourists but for the locals as well
In today’s world, many locations throughout the world look to distinguish themselves from one another. All destinations have their own unique experiences and cultural heritage. The image of a country is greatly influenced by its geographical position, art, and numerous other features.
Notable examples of cities that people visit due to their cultural and historical heritage are cities such as Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice and such. These cities are known for their historical sites and cultural traditions that have been gathered over hundreds of years.
Making Use of Smart Technologies
A new trend on the rise is the concept of smart cities. As technology advances, tourists demand more tech-savvy experiences and countries like the UK look to developing more technically enhanced experiences for tourists to experience.
An example would be Smarter London Together, a project that aims to make London the smartest city in the world. An important component of a smart city would be smart tourism and it refers to making use of a combination of technologies such as software, hardware, and networks to make the interaction between tourists and much easier and provide personalized services and real-time information to help tourists make smarter decisions.
Smart tourism comes with its own set of challenges such as the major gap between digital and non-digital devices and its inability to cater to tourists that want to experience tourism outside the smart city environment.
Also, the reliance on smart devices for running applications and power for the functioning system.
Smart technologies can also be applied in the field of cultural heritage that would be available for both the individual as well as for the cultural site. For example, with the use of state of the art augmented technology, a 3D object can be placed on top of the real environment.
The 3D objects are obtained using photogrammetry which is a popular and digitalization technique. This is one method of applying digital applications to cultural heritage sites to help improve the documentation of artifacts and sites as well as digital preservation and exploration.
To enhance the user experience, more and more museums all over the world have begun exploring new ways to enhance the tourist experience. Making use of the previously mentioned augmented reality, location-aware audio guides, interactive multi-touch displays as well as mobile applications and games.
Alternative Forms of Tourism
Another popular form of tourism would be gaming tourism or gambling tourism which is a form of tourism-related to people that want to participate in gambling activities. This sort of tourism can be designated to cities such as Las Vegas and Macau and them, it is the most attractive feature.
Cities such as these are visited by people from all over the world that go there with the purpose of gambling. Gaming tourism is mostly centered around casino resorts, hotels, bars, restaurants which people visit with the sole purpose of gambling.
Many casinos such as Admiral Casino provide online alternatives and with the continuous rise of internet usage and new online casino websites, there is no telling how gaming tourism will be affected over time but for now, tourism related to gambling is still going strong.
Smart tourism does not have a definitive definition. It is a combined usage of information and communications technologies and tourism alongside the incorporation of the internet and social media platforms.
Smart tourism looks to make information more accessible and interactive, offering tourists the possibility of making online bookings, view local maps and find points of interests in the area.
Besides helping each tourist, incorporating smart technology with cultural heritage can help boost the experience of visitors, helping them learn more about the history, culture, and traditions in a location.
