Tourism is one of the largest industries in the UK.

Essay by begonia April 2004

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THERE IS LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEFINITIONS OF HERITAGE TOURISM AND CULTURAL TOURISM. CRITICALLY APPRAISE THIS STATEMENT IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT YOUR OWN DEFITION OF HERITAGE TOURISM.

"Tourism is one of the largest industries in the UK, worth approximately £75.9 billion to the UK economy in 2002 and supporting around 2.1 million jobs" StarUK (2002). And within this burgeoning industry, multiplying too , are the industries of cultural tourism and heritage tourism. The growth in tourism industry is intrinsically linked to a parallel growth in museums and cultural attractions of all kinds. As people travel more, they don't travel aimlessly -- they travel to get to know a particular place in a meaningful way. The power of cultural and heritage tourism is in its ability to satisfy this desire. "A growing number of visitors are becoming special interest travelers who rank the arts, heritage and/or other cultural activities as one of the top five reasons for traveling" www.nasaa-arts.org/artworks/cultour.

But there seems to be some problems in the tourist industry to define the terms "cultural tourism" and "heritage tourism." There is a large number of definitions of the two terms but is still confuse to get to know whether cultural tourism and heritage tourism are two different entities or similar ones with areas in common. First, we should define exactly what is culture and what is heritage to help us to understand afterwords the different definitions of cultural tourism and heritage tourism. The second step will be to analise as much definitions as possible of the two terms and therefore approach to a personal definition of heritage tourism.

In order to understand the multiple difinitions of heritage and cultural tourism is relevant to present firstly some definitions of what is meant by heritage and culture.

Heritage are "tangible and intangible...