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One of the first issues to address when developing a cultural tourism activity is the assessment of the tourism assets and resources of the tourist destination. Public bodies devoted to tourism management will develop comprehensive inventories that include all those elements that a destination can offer for tourists. For entrepreneurs planning to start an activity of cultural tourism the list of resources of a given area will be reduced to those elements related to heritage that may be tangible or intangible. In order to clarify the concepts of tangible and intangible culture we refer to the UNESCO definition of cultural heritage:
The cultural heritage of a people includes the works of its artists, architects, musicians, writers and scientists and also the work of anonymous artists, expressions of the people's spirituality, and the body of values which give meaning to life. It includes both tangible and intangible works through which the creativity of that people finds expression: languages, rites, beliefs, historic places and monuments, literature, works of art, archives and libraries (UNESCO, Mexico City Declaration of Cultural Policies, Mexico City, August 1982).
This is a broad definition that encompasses almost every category and aspect of human life, but it is very useful for the purpose of assessing tourism resources, because it divides cultural heritage into two main categories: tangible and intangible, and points our attention to the later, which is often neglected or undervalued because of the difficulty of approaching and dealing with it.
Inventory is one useful tool for the collection and management of all those elements. Inventories are itemized lists, maps or reports dealing generally with resource-based features, areas and values. They are mostly developed by stakeholders or public bodies for tourism planning and management and they include extensive information about the resource state of conservation, ownership and use.
For our own purposes, as small tourism entrepreneurs, our inventories will not include information about tourism infrastructures or resource management. Our inventory will focus on cultural assets and will be a crucial tool to compile information about the tourism features of the area in which we work. It will help us to gather and manage information about the most interesting or outstanding features of our region and, most importantly, will be the basis for the planning of any cultural tourism activity we want to undertake.
For the purposes of this manual on cultural tourism, cultural tourism assets have been classified into seven different categories: architecture and archaeology, sites of historical interest, ethnography, gastronomy, nature, arts and crafts and cultural events. All these categories are developed in depth in section two of this manual.
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2. Inventories | Objectives and Methods |
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