Heritage Tourism Economics

National Trust defines heritage as the travelling to experience places, artifacts, and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present.It includes cultural, natural and historic resources. Naturally, this movement brings to the mind as to what can be the benefits of heritage tourism to the host population.It can be argued that heritage tourism is a niche segment that leads to development of the infrastructure of the destination area. This has an added importance for the hosts as it brings to them the facilities that may not be available at the other destinations that have other types of tourism potential. The specialized developmental techniques in collaboration with the international agencies adds to the image of the destination area.Heritage tourism products have the tendency to be viewed as high end attractions .Commodification is the term usually associated with the tourism products but when seen in the light of heritage tourism it has to be refined. No doubt tourism is the representative of the   change from the routine and accepted norms take the back seat. It involves the short term stay of the visitors at the destination but a rule can be associated with it. That is short stay ,maximum spending. It is a reality that strangeness and familiarity affects the product delivery and shapes the paradigm of economics. Strangeness develops curiosity and this leads to influx to witness this peculiarity. Economic viability can be seen in the backdrop of the tourism and arts industries play a considerable role in shaping the tourism product and give ample opportunities to the locals to  make it a game changer.The presence of heritage both tangible and intangible make it incumbent upon the policy makers to seek the opportunities to establish the co operative units to manufacture the handicrafts with the involvement of the local Panchayats to make the living heritage sustainable.Rural historic sites have an added advantage as they pose an opportunity to engage the hosts in its interpretation. Establishment of interpretation centers for heritage with the active involvement of the panchayats and village bodies can be a game changer. Global experience reveals that national trusts work towards the heritage preservation and heritage tourism activities by active support of locals and the administration .Heritage tourism planning has to be in tune with the economic benefits. The issues pertaining to monitoring and evaluation are becoming important in terns of heritage conservation and these need to be visualized in terms of conservation issues. In the light of these issues it is important to go for Heritage Impact Assessment. Wide range of impacts need to be underlined for the effects to be understood in totality. It must be said that tourism in general has been seen as the harbinger of good economy in terms of multiplier effect. Job creation has been seen as the direct outcome of the whole tourism business and heritage tourism being the niche are of the new tourism can be said to have immense probability for that.It may also be argued that employment is created as a result of entrepreneurial activity as well as community involvement in terms of training, co operatives, development boards, and other allied initiatives that are directly associated with the tourism activity. Measuring the economic impact and employment opportunities generated from heritage tourism can be done in an integrated way. It can be done by considering the direct and indirect employment creation besides evaluating the overall well being of economic well being of the host community achieved through heritage tourism. Employment multipliers,  input –output analysis and the measurement of direct and indirect impacts.