Cultural Heritage and Tourism in Africa examines the multiple and diverse manifestations of cultural heritage-based tourism in Africa from a regional, social science, and sustainability perspective. This book delivers a comprehensive treatise on the interdependent concepts of cultural heritage and tourism. Heritage is one of the most pervasive tourism assets worldwide and lies at the foundations of tourism in many localities, including Africa. However, despite its salience, there has not been a systematic examination of Africa’s heritage resources, markets, policies, practices, successes, and challenges in a tourism framework, despite the continent’s immense heritage value. This book reviews the different types of heritages that pervade the cultural environment of Africa and comprises its vast heritagescapes. It also examines the increasing potential for the growth of heritage tourism throughout the entire continent. The contributions in this volume delve into current thinking about space and place and their effects on heritage, mobilities, globalization, colonialism and indigeneity, conflict, identity and nation-building, connections with other regions through migration and the slave trade, and a greater emphasis on the ordinary heritage of Africa, which has long been ignored by tourism scholars and industry representatives. The chapters herein are authored by Africa specialists, most being from Africa, offering a truly African perspective. The chapters are conceptually rigorous and empirically rich with examples from all regions of the African continent. This unparalleled interdisciplinary glimpse at cultural heritage and tourism in Africa delivers strong value and is a vital resource for all students and researchers of tourism, cultural studies, heritage studies, geography, anthropology, sociology, history, and global studies.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism in the Developing World is the first book of its kind to synthesize global and regional issues, challenges, and practices related to cultural heritage and tourism, specifically in less-developed nations. The importance of preservation and management of cultural heritage has been realized as an increasing number of tourists are visiting heritage attractions. Although many of the issues and challenges developing countries face in terms of heritage management are quite different from those in the developed world, there is a lack of consolidated research on this important subject. This seminal book tackles the issues through theoretical discourse, ideas and problems that underlay heritage tourism in terms of conservation, management, economics and underdevelopment, politics and power, resource utilization, colonialism, and various other antecedent notions that have shaped the development of heritage tourism in the less-developed regions of the world. The book is comprised of two sections. The first section highlights the broader conceptual underpinnings, debates, and paradigms in the realm of heritage tourism in developing regions. The chapters of this section examine heritage resources and the tourism product; protecting heritage relics, places and traditions; politics of heritage; and the impacts of heritage tourism. The second section examines heritage tourism issues in specific regions, including the Pacific Islands, South Asia, the Caribbean, China and Northeast Asia, South-East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. Each region has unique histories, cultures, political traditions, heritages, issues and problems, and the way these issues are tackled vary from place to place. This volume develops frameworks that are useful tools for heritage managers, planners and policy-makers, researchers, and students in understanding the complexity of cultural heritage and tourism in the developing world. Unlike many other books written about developing regions, this book provides insiders’ perspectives, as most of the empirical chapters are authored by the individuals who live or have lived in the various regions and have a greater understanding of the region’s culture, history, and operational frameworks in the realm of cultural heritage. The richness of this ‘indigenous’ or expert knowledge comes through as each regional overview elucidates the primary challenges and opportunities facing heritage and tourism managers in the less affluent areas of the world.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of cultural and heritage tourism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the many complexities that heritage sites and tourist attractions face. The MENA region has long been regarded as the cradle of Western and Arab civilisation and is the home of many of the world’s major religions. Because of this, the region is rich in heritage sites that serve as major tourist attractions and as icons of national, cultural and religious identity. However, as this book examines, heritage in the region is simultaneously highly contested and has even become a target for terrorism creating a situation that brought major challenges for heritage management and sustainable tourism development. Many of the region’s innumerable cultural sites are threatened, in some cases by overuse, in others by neglect and, in many, simply by the pressures of economic development. This book is therefore of interest not only to heritage managers and policy makers but those academics who seek to address the delicate balance between tourism development, communities and the tourists who visit such sites in a turbulent but highly significant region of the world.

Cultural heritage is one of the most important tourism resources in the world. This book provides a comprehensive theoretical overview and applied knowledge of the issues, practices, current debates, concepts and management concerns associated with cultural heritage-based tourism. The second edition has been updated to include timely and emerging topics such as geopolitics, conflict, solidarity tourism, overtourism and climate change. It also expands on important areas such as environmental change, technology, social media, heritage economics, Indigenous knowledge and co-created experiences. This edition includes up-to-date data, statistics, references, case material, figures and pedagogical tools. It remains an important and accessible text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of cultural and heritage tourism, cultural resource management, and museum management.

This volume provides an accessible overview of cultural tourism in southern Africa. It examines the utilisation of culture in southern African tourism and the related impacts, possibilities and challenges from deep and wide-ranging perspectives. The chapters use case studies to showcase some of the cultural tourism which occurs in the region and link to concepts such as authenticity, commodification, the tourist gaze and ‘Otherness’, heritage, sustainability and sustainable livelihoods. The authors scrutinise both positive and negative impacts of cultural tourism throughout the book and explore issues including the definition of community, ethical considerations, empowerment, gender, participation and inequality. The book will be a useful resource for students and researchers of tourism, geography, anthropology and cultural studies.

This book provides a comprehensive and readable overview of the critical debates and controversies around tourism in Africa, and the major factors that are affecting tourism development now and in the future. Drawing upon research emerging from collaborations between a growing number of African academics and practitioners based in the continent and in the African diaspora as well as international colleagues, the Handbook offers key critical insights into the issues, challenges and trends that Africa and African tourism is facing. Part I covers continent-wide issues such as climate change, ICT, heritage and development. The remaining parts are organised along geographic lines, with each chapter covering the development of tourism, current trends and discussion of critical issues such as community participation, gender, backpacking, urban tourism, wildlife tourism and conservation. Combining an overview of key theories, concepts, contemporary issues and debates, this book will be a valuable resource for students, academics and practitioners investigating the role of tourism in Africa.

For a long time, resource conservationists have viewed environmental conservation as synonymous with wilderness and wildlife resources only, oblivious to the contributions made by cultural and heritage resources. However, cultural heritage resources in many parts of the developing world are gradually becoming key in social (e.g. communities’ identities and museums), economic (heritage tourism and eco-tourism), educational (curriculum development), civic (intergenerational awareness), and international resources management (e.g. UNESCO). In universities, African cultural heritage resources are facing a challenge of being brought into various academic discourses and syllabi in a rather reactive and/or haphazard approach, resulting in failure to fully address and research these resources’ conservation needs to ensure that their use in multiple platforms and by various stakeholders is sustainable. This book seeks to place African cultural heritage studies and conservation practices within an international and modern world discourse of conservation by presenting its varied themes and topics that are important for the development of the wider field of cultural heritage studies and management.

Stressing the interconnectedness of tourism and culture, this valuable handbook explores what tourism industry professionals need to know to succeed. Globalization, landmark attractions, and cultural heritage are among the topics discussed from both international and local perspectives. Each chapter also concludes with a comprehensive series of self-assessment questions and a proposed task that professionals and students can do to enrich their cultural learning experience.

Urban regeneration is often regarded as the process of renewal or redevelopment of spaces and places. There is a need to look at tourism and urban regeneration with a particular focus on cultural heritage. Cultural heritage consists of tangible heritage (such as historic buildings) and intangible heritage (such as events). The wider need and impact for such work is that places plan for change to keep up with the shifts in demand in the global economy in order for places to maintain a competitive advantage. Moreover, places need to keep up with the pace of global change or they risk stagnation and decline as increased competition is resulting in increased opportunities and choice for consumers. Each chapter in this book explores a specific form of cultural heritage that is driving change in urban spaces. Intended for a wide readership, the book will appeal to students of urban studies, human geography, heritage studies and international tourism management, as well as experts conducting research in and across these areas.