Impact of Cultural Heritage on Tourists. The Heritagization Process

Abstract

Impact of tourism on residents has been the subject of numerous studies over time. The impact on tourists caused by local residents and local cultural heritage has barely been discussed. The presumption is that a tourist needs to be confronted with something unfamiliar, like authenticity, regardless if it is authentic or not. It has been claimed that tourists sometimes do not care about authenticity. If they don´t, the greater the likelihood is that they will be influenced by reproduced authenticity. The concept of heritagization is a process to adapt use of culture heritage to promote images favorable for the political management. It is a final stage of a social process, where cultural heritage is used in order to have wished political impact on the visitors. This paper will analyze the role of heritagization from three different aspects by using examples from Transylvania in Romania, Western Pomerania in Poland and the relation between All Saint´s Day and Halloween in Sweden.