Romanian Tourism Guide

Over the past 10-15 years, visiting historic and cultural sites is one of the most popular tourist activities today. Families, seniors, groups, and even international visitors choose to frequent historic attractions when on vacation. As a result, destinations are paying attention to one of the fastest growing niche market segments in the travel industry today—heritage tourism. What is heritage tourism? The National Trust for Historic Preservation defines heritage tourism as traveling to experience the places, artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. Heritage tourism also uses assets—historic, cultural, and natural resources—that already exist. Rather than creating and building attractions, destinations look to the past for a sustainable future. Cultural versus Heritage tourism; Sometimes, the term heritage is replaced by cultural. One can hear about cultural tourism instead of heritage tourism. But, as you can see above, ‘cultural’ is a part of heritage. Cultural tourism is the spiritual state that one senses when traveling, encountering, experiencing peoples’ heritage: places, monuments, people, customs, regarding past or present.

Cultural Travel is a type of travel that emphasizes experiencing life within a foreign culture, rather than from the outside as a temporary visitor. Cultural travelers leave their home environment at home, bringing only themselves and a desire to become part of the culture they visit. Cultural travel goes beyond cultural exploration or discovery; it involves a transformation in way of life.

This definition was first used by Gary Langer “Travel to Learn” (March 1977). Transitions Abroad 1: 12-15. Transitions Abroad Publishing. As a way of describing travel that requires a “transition” to a new level of understanding of and appreciation for a foreign culture.

The term is often distorted and misused by travel agents, tour operators and international tourism organizations. Culture primarily has to do with people and less with places or things. So visiting museums, touring ancient structures, attending festivals, and eating local food does not provide the same experience as becoming a member of the culture itself.

The antithesis of cultural travel is tourism, where people bring their home environment with them wherever they go and apply it to whatever they see.

by Cultural Travel & Tours

Tags: cultural sites, Cultural Tourism, Heritage Tourism, historic places, romania

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.