Tourism Impacts on Heritage Sites in Japan: From Government’s View to Local People’s Awareness

Abstract

Culture and heritage have been a major part of travel as their contribution to a tourism destination’s appealing. Recently, heritage tourism is the fastest-growing segment of the tourism industry as the volume of tourists seeking adventure, culture, history, archeology, and interaction with local people is increasing. Heritage tourism gives positive economic and social impacts, establishes and reinforces identity, and helps preserve the cultural heritage. However, as the volume of traveling rises, there are negative impacts on local communities in heritage sites that create tensions and conflicts among different stakeholders. Therefore, understanding the tourism policymakers’ view and local people’s awareness of tourism impacts is not only useful in the conservation of a heritage site, but it also contributes to promote the image of that destination and balance the stakeholders’ benefits. This paper aims to study (1) the tourism impacts on local community, (2) the local people’s awareness and consideration between positive impacts and negative impacts, and (3) the difference between government policymakers and local people’s points of view about tourism impacts and development. The data were collected from a qualitative survey on Japanese government officers and academic people, and a quantitative survey on 245 local people in some Japanese heritage sites. From the findings, some gaps between government policymakers and local people’s point of view were found and analyzed to contribute to the future tourism policy development for Japan heritage conservation.