TOUR2103 Global Product Development

Introduction

The report illustrates the niche tourism products for the cultural explorers. There are various types of tourists such as cultural explorers, free spirits, authentic experiencers, personal history explorers, virtual travellers, gentle explorers, cultural history buffs, rejuvenators, no hassle travellers, etc. Among the types of travellers, cultural explorers are chosen. Stakeholders of the cultural tourism along with the types of niche products associated with the tourism. Apart from that challenges of the tourism are explained. On the other hand, recommendations are also provided while mitigating the identified hindrances for the development of cultural tourism.

Different stakeholders

The stakeholders of cultural tourism are responsible for development of strategies while promoting the cultural tourism among the cultural explorers. The stakeholders of the tourism include

• government of the countries,
• non-government organizations that promotes the cultural tourism, tourism industry, the domestic travellers, the international travellers, etc. They are categorised under both direct stakeholders and indirect stakeholders (Smith & Richards, 2013).

The stakeholders are responsible for formulating strategies while promoting the cultural tourism in order to attract more tourists while increasing the revenue comes from the cultural tourism. The stakeholders like the head of cultural tourism of a certain country have the responsibility while developing the areas of cultural tourism while contributing the economy of that country.

Participation of customers and their motivations

• In the perspective of explorers, cultural explorers always seek opportunities in embracing or discovering or immersing themselves in search of the cultural experience in the places and the setting they are visiting. The cultural tourism includes places of historical interest that have the essence of modern day culture of the particular place.
• The cultural explorers are characterized by self-motivated, positive, creative, flexible, risk taker, energetic, easy going, curious, open-minded, etc (Ismagilova, Safiullin & Bagautdinova, 2014).
• Apart from that, the essence of the place, the local festivals, off beat path that leads to local culture of the places of cultural tourismalso acts as a motivation for the cultural explorers.

Critique of different products

The different types of products that the cultural explorers can avail in the places promoting cultural tourism are

• cultural events,
• festivals,
• museums,
• heritage sites,
• monasteries,
• monuments,
• B&Bs, etc.

Countries like France, England, etc. have many historical sites, museums, monasteries that forms the attractions of the cultural tourism. The promoters of the cultural tourism usually promote the above-mentioned niche products of cultural tourism in order to attract cultural explorers to the places. The cultural tourism of the different countries is an important aspect that contributes a substantial amount to the tourism industry (Liu, 2014).

Potential impacts of development of tourism

Positive impacts

Development of cultural tourism both has positive and negative impacts. Positive impacts of the developmental strategies adopted by the stakeholder of the cultural tourism areas include attracting more travellers to the places. It also includes development of the places in a modern fashion so that it can attract more travellers.

Negative impacts

Negative impacts include the dissatisfaction of some people who wants the old fashioned places and the old monuments. This dissatisfaction can lead to negative word of promotion. The countries promoting cultural tourism must consider the negative aspects like the change of the actual culture of the historical monasteries and monuments while developing the places of cultural tourism.

Developmental strategies

Developmental strategies also consist of development of new restaurants, hotels and other new tourist spots, or developing an old cultural tourist spot that can portray a hint of local culture (Du Cros & McKercher, 2015).

Future challenges

• Future challenges of cultural tourism can include the destruction of the historical and the old monuments and structure that portrays an ethnic culture or a particular form of historic culture.
• If reconstruction is not done properly, then the construction of those elegant monuments portraying the culture will be destroyed.
• However, modern engineers are not capable of doing the exact designs of the buildings because the materials used in those constructions are not available in this modern age.
• Change in the patterns of the cultural local festivals also hurt the sentiments of the cultural explorers or visitors of the place (McCormick, 2016).

Recommendations for the growth of tourism

• The products of cultural tourismmust be highlighted in a way so that they can increase the number of visitors of those niche products.
• A theme can be selected in order to promote those places to the cultural explorer.
• The marketing campaigns and promotional campaigns of the niche products of the cultural tourism must be done in a global basis. Both digital media and legacy media are used to promote the elements of the tourist places (Timothy, 2014).
• The local people and the travellers can be included in the promotional campaigns especially in the digital campaigns of the promotion of the places so that more cultural explorers are attracted to the areas of cultural heritage.

Conclusion

The report illustrates the nature of the cultural explorers along with the factors of motivation for visiting areas of cultural heritage. Many cultural and historical sites are promoting the culture and face many challenges. These challenges are discusses in a detailed way along with recommendations of development of tourism.

References

Du Cros, H., & McKercher, B. (2015). Cultural tourism (Vol. 2). New York, NY: Routledge.

Ismagilova, G. N., Safiullin, L. N., & Bagautdinova, N. G. (2014). Tourism development in region based on historical heritage. Life Science Journal, 11(6s), 363-367.

Liu, Y. D. (2014). Cultural events and cultural tourism development: Lessons from the European Capitals of Culture. European Planning Studies, 22(3), 498-514.

McCormick, R. R. (2016). Marketing Cultural and Heritage Tourism: A World of Opportunity. Routledge.

Smith, M., & Richards, G. (2013). The Routledge handbook of cultural tourism. Routledge.

Timothy, D. J. (2014). Contemporary cultural heritage and tourism: Development issues and emerging trends. Public Archaeology, 13(1-3), 30-47.