Tourism and Rural Heritage: A Win-Win Relation? The Conditions of Heritage Making in Touristic Rural Regions

• Main Authors: Alain Bourdin, Tingting Wan, Philippe Delbos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2019-06-01
• Series: Built Heritage
• Subjects: heritagisation; rural heritage; local development; intangible heritage; cooperation; heritage legitimation
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/BF03545725

Abstract The relationship between heritage and rural development takes place within the heritage making process. It presents different characteristics of what exists in urban context, especially through the role that can play the built heritage in the reception of the tourists. The study of the case of a French department, the Gers, characterised by an important intangible heritage linked to gastronomy and agriculture, but away from the major flows of mass tourism, reveals three major criteria for success: the importance of organising an actor’s network that gathers the world of local economy, tourism and heritage, in conjunction with local authorities; the existence of a strong legitimation structure that justifies these links. In France it was developed from a scientific approach: that of rural ethnology; the inscription in a temporality which allows successive stages and which is as much that of the local development project as that of the patrimonial action itself.