The past is a feline country? Cuteification-Value Nexus and World Heritage visitor engagement

Chin Ee Ong

doi:10.1108/trc-08-2021-0015

Abstract

Purpose This paper responds to the lack of visitor engagement in many culture-based World Heritage sites and conceptualises a “Cuteification-Value Nexus” for the discussion of the communication of heritage values through “cute” or aesthetically pleasing popular culture elements. It reflects on observations in Macao to argue for a greater engagement of culture-based World Heritage sites through a combination of popular culture inspired motifs and truthful heritage messages. Specifically, it identifies a form of “cuteified heritage” – a hyperreal cultural zone that happens away from the actual heritage sites, but which articulates the heritage significances of those sites. This draws on concepts on themed spaces and insights from postmodernistic hyperreality and tourism to examine how the “completely real” becomes identified with the “completely fake” in the staging, consumption and negotiation of experiences with World Heritage and their utility in the management of World Heritage tourism sites.

Highlights

From shopping malls to purpose-built cultural attractions, themed spaces play an important role in displaying and projecting culture (Dicks, 2003; Erb and Ong, 2018; Lukas, 2007; Luo, 2021)
“Cuteified heritage” peaks for both cutefication and heritage values and is one where there is a strong alignment between the promotion of accurate heritage values and doing it in ways which are accessible and appealing for a broad spectrum of visitors. An example of this is the Hello Kitty-themed World Heritage exhibition which happened in Macao in 2006
Macao lies on the west side of the Pearl River estuary on a peninsula of the Chinese district of Foshan in the Guangdong province

Summary

Introduction

From shopping malls to purpose-built cultural attractions, themed spaces play an important role in displaying and projecting culture (Dicks, 2003; Erb and Ong, 2018; Lukas, 2007; Luo, 2021). Higher on cuteification but retaining a lack of accurate heritage values communication is “theme park” This is a site that uses popular culture and provides for entertainment but does little to promote proper understandings of the heritage of a place. “Cuteified heritage” peaks for both cutefication and heritage values and is one where there is a strong alignment between the promotion of accurate heritage values and doing it in ways which are accessible and appealing for a broad spectrum of visitors An example of this is the Hello Kitty-themed World Heritage exhibition which happened in Macao in 2006.

Contextualising Macao and Macao world heritage

Findings