Defining Heritage Tourism
Heritage tourism is becoming popular among the tourism branches due to the eagerness of tourist’s understanding and reconnects themselves with the past. Heritage tourism is concerned with cultural and heritage and the location where tourism sites are. (Graham, 2016) (Carson, 2014) Cultural heritage involves traveling to different places, to observe activities that were carried out in the past and those that are carried out in the present activities. (Carson, 2014) Due to the adventurous spirit, tourism has shifted toward heritage and culture. Some of the locations visited includes trade sites, where trade was taking place an example long distance traders along the Sahara desert areas in Africa, where slaves were being kept before being transported, especially the trading location where the slave trade took place, places where war took place are also a very important site to be visited by tourist, tourist like to visit such places to verify what they learn from the history and satisfy their perception of their history. A historical event is unforgettable, and hence everyone likes to learn where the war took place and what happened after the war. Both slavery sites and war sites are too important because they evoke emotions of anger, sorrow, and anguish. Tourists are able to reconnect themselves with the past event. Communities have different cultures which differ from other community. Heritage tourism is becoming popular because the individual has that thirst of learning other culture. Most of the communities tend to preserve their culture and pass it to the succeeding generation; this leads us to discuss the Timothy 1997 model of’ levels of heritage experience’ for tourism, this model shows the following levels; local heritage, personal heritage, and national heritage. (DeCorse, 2016) The paper is about defining what is perceived as, experience and how the levels integrate to give out an experience that the tourist needs and be able to motivate tourist to always visit the site
The meaning of heritage tourism is verse, and everyone has his own explanation of the meaning of heritage. (Banerjee, 2017)To define the meaning of the word heritage, there is a need to review what constitutes heritage.
Heritage tourism not only based on the sites and location of heritage places but the impression that the sites give, the site perfection and how the site vividly verifies the past or present event. Heritage tourism is. Hence on this paper heritage tourism is the perfection of the tourism site, the site motivation towards the experience of the tourist and the site should be capable of verifying the past by providing both tangible and intangible elements that act as proof, in order to connect the tourist with the past.
The study focuses on Timothy levels of heritage experience; this determines the perception and the experience the tourist have while exploring the heritage site. The levels try to distinguish different perception according to a different level of heritage tourism experience. Timothy’s model describes the difference in the measure of the scale of different level in tourism experience and how they are linked together to form shared heritage. Which combines both levels to explain the experience of the tourists on the heritage sites. (Yan, 2016)
Levels of Heritage Tourism Experience
World scale heritage connects the experience of all world visitors to a heritage site. This is whereby visitors come from different countries to experience a heritage. (Maitland, 2014) Example of heritage is FORT JESUS heritage. (Bita, 2015) which is situated in Kenya on the coastal region, this site serves as world heritage site that attracts the world tour to come and learn and see a site that was created by Asian before the colonial days, the experience that is exhibited by the world tour is not personally attached as, it could be the case on the personal heritage, world tourist experience is different because most are not attached to the tourist site they only visit the site for leisure and some just visit due to itinerary, especially the scholars and the authors of different books visits the site to learn on activities that took place on those days and the impact to the country. This shows that not all world visitors have that attached experience on the site. As in the case of Fort Jesus, visitors always visit the site to learn how trade came about and what lead to the building of the old fort that has remained up to this age. Most visits for scholarly and leisure.
National heritage is able to create a feeling of patriotism, this measure the experience of the locals to experience the honor of being patriotic. National sites help stimulate the emotional attachment on the site like an MT Kenya mountain in Kenya acts as a site that helps the countrymen to remember the first flag of the country was mounted on the mountain, and it is where the name of the country originates. Some of the other sites like kapenguria prison act as a site that helps a tourist in the local area to recall the colonial period, the site was used as a prison for Kenya leaders who fought for the independence of the country during the colonial period. (Mak, 2017) National tourism serves as an interactive site for both residents of the nation who are inside or outside the country; they act as a tourist attraction because they portray the origin of the country and events that lead to the formation of the country and development up to date. (Bita, 2015) Though different Patriots have a verse emotional attach on the tourist sites, according to their experience and perception of the sites most experience the feeling of accomplishment and ownership of the country as well as anger due to the fact some of the sites such as Kapenguria prison act as a reminder of colonization and hard times experienced.
Most of villagers, communities, and towns in the world go an extra mile to preserve their culture and heritage, through the preservation of their culture, it creates a sense of belonging. This makes individuals trace their origin and activities carried out in their native communities or villages. This creates an experience of identity to a certain heritage example preservation of a prying site like a Mugoma tree in Kenya. (Coupland, 2017) which is located in the central region served as a prayer site in the past, and even in present days, the elders of the village visit the site to pray. This site shows that the local tourist has a sense of belonging and positive perception of the local site it also creates a personal experience. (Timothy, 2011) The Kenyans in that village feel, they’re connected to the past, that’s why they preserve the site, the villagers also feel connec,ted with ancestors who were also praying at the same site. This shows that there is a difference in all the levels of heritage experience when it comes to perception and experience. (Marschall, 2016) When the world visit such site there concerned with knowing the history of the site, hence there is no that strong feeling of attachment to the site as compared to locals of that village. (Jansen, 2017) Also, the national tourist visits the site to learn the history of the site and to quencher the eagerness they have. This shows a verse difference in the perception and experience of the different levels according to Timothy model levels of tourism heritage
World-Scale Heritage
Personal heritage tourism is a wide coverage and is concerned with person eagerness and attachment to the site. Personal tourism is an inside spirit of adventure that makes one be attached to a heritage site; personal tourism is averse because even national, world and local tourism can have that attached feeling to the site. (DeCorse, 2016) This makes the individual to route to where the site is and visits it to satisfy the experience and anguish they have for the site. An example is of the people in the Diaspora; they have an attachment of their origin example is the American Kenyans who live in America. Some of the African in America originates from Africa, and they were taken there during the error of the slave trade, which makes them feel to visit their original homeland. (Graham, 2016) Due to this personal attachment makes the individual at the diaspora to visit their native country. More so, they’re attracted to the historical site of their native country and the slavery sites where their ancestors were being taken to be sold. Others were taken by their family for studies and others went for settlement, but still, they have that sense of belonging to their native country. Hence making them travel all the way to their country to visit the heritage sites in their native country and feel that experience of belonging, this motivates them to become attached to their heritage. Personal heritage sounds different from other levels; this is because personal experience is inbuilt and draws from far and wide visitors who perceive to have a personal connection to the site. (Coupland, 2017) This shows that the increase in personal tourism is the determination and spirit of routing once identity and verse increase in the love of heritage, culture, and family. (Buhalis, 2015)
The previous discussion explains the different levels of heritage and how they differ from each other their experience and perception that motivates tourist to visit heritage sites. All this forms the basis of tourism and shows that tourism is composed of this levels, all these levels when combined they give a shared experience on the factor concerning tourism. (Boniface, 2016) When the experience is combined, they give a vivid meaning of the heritage and experience. Hence heritage tourism experience is the way the tourist perceive their experience and perception and motivation toward visiting the site. (Carson, 2014) This means that the tourism site should be in a manner that satisfies the experience of the tourist
Conclusion
In my conclusion, there are different levels of experiences which are of concern if the tourism sector needs to grow and satisfy the experience and perception of the tourist. The levels show that the verse different between the levels is determined by the sites. (Clayton, 2015) There some sites which are world sites which attract everyone across the world , this means that this sites should be marketed and taken care of and be maintained for a long period of time to cater for experience of the people who are interested in visiting the site , local sites also cater for the experience of the villagers who maintain the heritage , the sites act as memory of the community which should be preserved in order for the coming generation to get that experience of belonging, national sites are very important, they mark changes of events in nationally this makes to maintain the patriotic spirit of the citizen. This historic site helps in maintaining the citizenship and unity of the country. As seen from the present discussion personal level is more concern in rooting one’s origin, especially those who were enslaved during the colonial period and those also who flee from their country. Hence it makes them find and satisfy their quencher of identifying their roots and what caused them in either their ancestors to be enslaved. Hence this heritage site helps individual to connect with the past and also to experience. (Banerjee, 2017)
References
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