Heritage Sites: Economic Incentives, Impacts, and Commercialization

Introduction

Particularly as tourism has grown into the world’s largest service industry, heritage sites increasingly have been recognized as potential sources of revenue for government agencies, of economic development for communities, and of profit for private enterprises. The organization and exploitation of these opportunities, known as commercialization, takes myriad forms. The motivations for commercialization range from providing funding for preservation of heritage to the creation of jobs and profit from investments in commercial heritage. However, there is considerable debate about the consequences of commercialization for heritage sites themselves and for the people who live and work around them. Whether commercialization has constructive or destructive consequences for any particular heritage site depends on the distribution of the economic and noneconomic benefits and costs of commercialization, its impact, and on how stakeholders respond to the incentivescreated by these...