The Equitable Cultural Tourism Handbook

The goal of this book is to deal, in a provocative way, with a number of key issues involving the increased participation of the private sector within cultural tourism. My goal is not to write a complete overview of the field. Instead, this short book deals with a fairly circumscribed set of issues involving contemporary changes within cultural tourism. Since modern business largely focuses on serving customers, a major focus of this book concerns marketing thought and its implications in regard to cultural tourism. In large measure, this book seeks to help host communities and their advocates to become familiar with and comfortable within a private sector context as well as being able to interact in such an environment.

The book starts with a two-chapter introduction that focuses upon the distinctive role of cultural tourism. As emphasized in chapter 1, a dilemma arises because cultural tourism must simultaneously serve multiple stakeholders and do so in equitable ways. This is much more complex than the more typical task of concentrating upon the needs, wants, and desires of customers. These ideas are refined in chapter 2 where the discussion centers primarily upon the importance of serving host communities, in addition to customers. Certainly, catering to customers continues to be an issue, but it should be envisioned as an ad hoc method of serving the host community.