The core of heritage tourism

The paper challenges the idea that heritage tourism is simply represented by tourists at heritage attractions and suggests rather that perceptions more properly lie at its core. Relationships among four groups of variables (personal characteristics, site attributes, awareness, perceptions) and behavior (before, during, and after) are investigated. The results indicate that the perception of a place as part of personal heritage is associated with the visitation patterns. In particular those who view a place as bound up with their own heritage are likely to behave significantly differently from others. Understanding this is useful for the study of tourists' behavior and for the management of sites.