Enhancing Competences For Co-Creating Appealing and Meaningful Cultural Heritage Experiences in Tourism

Abstract

Co-creation in tourism is a powerful way of developing involving and meaningful experiences of services, places, and cultures that tourists have contact with when traveling. Cultural heritage should thus not only attract the passive “tourist gaze” but rather stimulate the curious visitor to engage creatively with this heritage in ways that cultural heritage providers may creatively imagine. This is easier to say than do. This article discusses the role of higher education in improving students’ competences regarding the development of co-creation opportunities with cultural heritage. Results of a survey and additional interviews directed at those involved in cultural heritage management and training identified challenges for improving higher education curricula in tourism and heritage management. Additional research and respective teaching and management efforts need to overcome not only national borders in cultural heritage provision for tourists but also borders between teachers and students, academia and practitioners, heritage and tourism, and global and local themes and experiences.