Heritage, identity and places: for tourists and host communities.

Abstract

This chapter investigates some aspects of the relationship between tourism and local communities. The idea of heritage, i.e. the contemporary uses of the past, is used to partly limit an otherwise wide discussion and partly as a means of linking people and places through heritage as the vehicle for the creation and transmission of place identities. A conceptual model of a more flexible and dynamic relationship between local and tourism senses of place is presented. Three examples (Newfoundland, Canada; New Mexico, USA; and Kraków-Kazimierz, Poland) that differ widely in size and situation but share the characteristics of a strongly developed tourism sense of place are presented. Policy implications arising from these cases are explored.