Teaching Heritage Business and Marketing

Abstract

AbstractThis article discusses the effectiveness of Mexico’s national heritage business model within a context of economic growth, infrastructure development, and structural shifts that pose risks to the preservation of heritage resources. To meet these challenges, the future heritage professional requires a training profile that most archaeology departments in Mexico are unable to accommodate. Recognizing the importance of cultural resources management (CRM) and heritage business and marketing skills, the BA program in Development and Intercultural Management, offered at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, is exploring new ways to create business models to finance heritage preservation. In an emergent economy, many students lack the opportunity to pursue higher education degrees, joining the labor market at a very early stage in their careers, without much knowledge of how to make heritage a lever for economic growth. Thus, a goal of this article is to encourage the early teaching of business and marketing in programs around the world by demonstrating how such training opportunities are opening up unimaginable career avenues for the future heritage professional in Mexico.