Author(s)

G. Swensen

Abstract

Cultural heritage is today considered to be an asset well-suited to opening up new possibilities in marginal rural areas in need of additional business sectors, of which tourism is one of the most flourishing. This article discusses some of the precautions that have to be taken if a relationship is to develop that is beneficial to all parties involved and in which both heritage management and tourism are going to be winners. Cultural heritage assets are often considered vulnerable resources, but at the same time they stimulate emotions and may represent experiences highly sought after by a particular niche of tourists. From a comparative study of two upper mountain areas in Norway where mountain summer farming still exists, the article discusses the particular type of adaptations found in these regions as part of the heritage tourism debate. Keywords: heritage tourism, cultural historic environments, cultural heritage protection, vernacular architecture. 1 Introduction Heritage tourism has been interpreted as an answer to the fact that vast areas of the western world had their livelihood dramatically changed as a result of economic restructuring processes taking place in the 1980s. Heritage tourism can be apprehended as a strategy to create new jobs as well as preserve cultural identities in many areas that in earlier times were based on primary industries (Franklin [1]). In the new situation there has been a need to exploit local natural resources including vernacular built heritage to attract new markets (Franklin [1], AlSayyad [2]). In this paper we look more closely at the relationship we find between the tourism sector and cultural heritage management. Do the expectations the

Keywords

heritage tourism, cultural historic environments, cultural heritage protection, vernacular architecture.