Clearly there are some tensions existing between the cultural sector’s concept of marketing and the over-eager aims of some of our friends in the pure tourist sector whose jobs may depend upon the rise or fall of this year’s tourist arrival figures.

For some, this underlying fear and the reliance on short-term “fixes” have resulted in some rather badly judged public statements. For example, the Director of the Northumbria Tourist Board, a richly historic area dividing England and Scotland, was quoted in a major English newspaper as saying, with almost religious fervour:

"People are looking to tourism … as a major help towards salvation in this region... This is still a backward tourism area but we have started attracting a different type of visitor. We have to see tourists as walking wallets or handbags." (Daily Telegraph, 13/4/88 )

A curious mixture of the missionary and the mercenary!

It goes without saying that however energetically they may wish to pursue this theme, local or national Tourist Boards cannot "create" culture or delicately "bend" history into "heritage".

However, a properly co-ordinated programme, marketed under a comprehensible and accessible marketing banner, can be a useful and productive stimulus to 'appropriate tourism'.

In a rapidly and radically changing tourist marketplace, there are far more pros than cons in adopting a sound heritage marketing strategy, both as an exercise in the cultural sector’s self promotion and also as an agent of self-defence! It will also be evident from what I say that I view the local community as a vital agent in making this strategy successful.


THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TOURISM MARKET TODAY.

Let us first remind ourselves of the significance of the tourism market.

Tourism is now set to become the world’s largest industry. Bigger than oil, bigger than motor-car production.

The fastest growing sector of the tourism industry is “Cultural Tourism”.

The impact of this industry on the cultural sector is massive - sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. I see it as our job to manage this transfusion of energy and enthusiasm for “culture” across the nations to our advantage.

I regret that I only have British figures easily to hand, but I think they reflect a general trend in Europe and will therefore provide a useful illustration.

Britain is now the fifth largest world earner from international tourism.

In 1997, 332 million visits were made to museums, art galleries and historic buildings.

Tourists from abroad constituted 35% of visits to historic buildings, 22% of visits to museums and art galleries, 13% for displayed gardens, and 5% for wild-life attractions.

In other words, 75% of foreign tourist visits in Britain were to cultural/heritage attractions. That is to say, 249 million visits by people wishing to see the “cultural heritage” of our territory.

This is big money and the cultural sector should not be hesitant to claim its due share of it.

However this tourist market is constantly evolving and the need to understand and cater for the changing demands, as well as for the traditional markets, makes for an extremely complex but tremendously powerful industry and we need expert evaluation to help us understand it to our own best advantage.


THE TOURISM MARKET AS IT AFFECTS CULTURAL VENUES.

I am sure you have noticed as you have travelled yourselves as tourists, that there is an increasing similarity of international tourism destinations. This makes the service that we in the cultural sector can offer a very important and potent agent for creating a distinctive "SENSE OF PLACE". That is to say, an image of environmental, cultural and historical identity which fundamentally affects the decision of a tourist to choose to visit your location.

This identity can be interpreted at either a city, regional, or national level. In other words, IT'S OUR DIFFERENCES THAT MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.

There is a real and undeniable power of “local culture” to affect the visitor’s perception of the territory he or she is visiting. Intuitively, we all know this, but we in the cultural sector have never made this argument properly to those who seek to define a clear international image for their location.

The unique contribution which can be made by museums and related organisations to the creation of this sense of place is seen by many people as a potent marketing agent in the light of the dramatic increase in recent years of SPECIAL INTEREST HOLIDAYS, a trend which is of surpassing interest to we who work with culture in its various forms.


SPECIAL INTEREST TOURISM.

Or, as it is sometimes otherwise known, "Yuppie tourism" and "wrinkly tourism". These terms remind us of the predictions for the continuing growth of young, upwardly mobile wealth and that by the year 2000 one in four people in western Europe will be aged 55 or over.

Now this kind of jargonistic description of 'targeted marketing' can be a total turn-off for many museum people who see it as an unnecessary pressure on the integrity of their endeavour in the museum world. However APPROPRIATE special interest tourism can in fact be an important spur to the nurturing of local culture and environment, and provide a greater incentive to pay attention to the breadth of the cultural landscape of the interpreted place. That is, providing the potential for extending rather than diminishing the cultural asset.

In the modern world where almost anyone travelling anywhere for any purpose is classed as "a tourist" not least, people like ourselves at this conference today, Manx National Heritage has not been slow to recognise the psychological as well as financial benefits that tourism can bring to the sustenance of heritage assets for a community. But the emphasis is on appropriate tourism.


APPROPRIATE TOURISM

The term "appropriate tourism" was coined by Gabriel Cherem of Michigan University, who defines it as:
"... based on and perpetuating the heritage identity of an area, expressed through the co-ordinated interpretation of site history, cultural history and natural history."

If we develop our unique assets appropriately, involving and providing visible benefits for the local resident and educational communities at each stage, the assets develop long-term viability and the heritage process (as opposed to the heritage industry) becomes self-sustaining in terms of a passed-on sense of values worth maintaining by future generations of the modern world.

"Appropriate tourism" can help to protect resources, spread the traditional season, and provide a source of increased spending per head, all of which are key goals in a tourism marketing strategy.