Heritage Sites: Strategies for Marketing and Development

Abstract

Increasingly, leisure time is becoming available to a wider range of people and there is a growing demand for recreational facilities. While much leisure time is spent at home, for the UK, a nation of urban dwellers, the significance of day trips to the countryside has assumed importance as a means of spending leisure time. It is in this context that heritage sites have come to enjoy new roles as the foci for tourists and leisure seekers. There is now a 'heritage industry' very diverse in its context and practices, for which guidelines and rules for good practice are still being formed, and in which the issues of promotion versus preservation remain. Drawing largely upon the findings of a major research project in Wales, UK, an attempt is made to address the key features of the emergence of heritage sites as visitor attractions. The opening three chapters establish the context by discussing leisure trends and the heritage market; a market segmentation of heritage sites by visitor characteristics; and the role of, and reasons for visiting, historic sites. The following four chapters examine various strategies for marketing and developing heritage sites, including the effectiveness of media marketing and advertising, the market for the historic site as an educational resource, the question of interpretation and pricing policy at heritage sites. In conclusion, chapters are presented on historic sites and their local environment, and research and the heritage operator.