Into the Tourist's Mind: Understanding the Value of the Heritage Experience

Abstract

Abstract The individual consumer of heritage has, up until recently, been neglected in much heritage management. The heritage visitor is nevertheless, an important evaluator of the service experience being provided at cultural heritage attractions. A survey of 1200 domestic tourists visiting three major British cultural heritage attractions examined the emotive and psychological processes experienced by tourists in their interaction with the attraction settings and how these experiences were valued or seen as beneficial. The paper concludes by outlining the notion of 'insightful' tourism as an appropriate paradigm for the study of the essentially personal emotive and symbolic context associated with cultural tourism encounters, from which visitors derive valued insight, appreciation and meaning of life Key Words: Heritagetourist experiencecultural tourismheritage management