What does ‘heritage’ mean in the twenty-first century? Traditional ideas of heritage involve places where objects, landscapes, people and ideas are venerated and reproduced over time as an inheritance for future generations. To speak of heritage is to speak of a relationship between the past, the present and the future. However, it is a past recreated for economic gain, hence sectors such as culinary tourism, ecotourism, cultural tourism and film tourism have employed the heritage label to attract visitors.

This interdisciplinary book furthers understanding on how heritage is socially constructed, interpreted and experienced within different geographic and cultural contexts, in both Western and non-Western settings. Subjects discussed include Welsh linguistic heritage, tango, mushroom tourism, Turkish coffee, literary tourism and the techniques employed to construct tourist accommodation. By focusing upon heritage creation in the context of tourism, the book moves beyond traditional debates about ‘authentic heritage’ to focus on how something becomes heritage for use in the present.

This timely volume will be of interest to students and researchers in tourism, heritage studies, geography, museum studies and cultural studies.

Catherine Palmer, PhD, is an anthropologist, University of Brighton, UK, and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Her research focuses on identity, heritage and materiality; post-conflict/memorial landscapes; embodiment, tourism; and the coast/seaside. She is the joint book series editor for ‘Routledge Advances in Tourism Anthropology’ (with Jo-Anne Lester), and the author of the 2018 Routledge monograph Being and Dwelling Through Tourism: An Anthropological Perspective. She is the editor of Tourism Research Methods: Integrating Theory and Practice (with Pete Burns and Brent Ritchie) and Tourism and Visual Culture: Volume 1 Theories and Concepts (with Pete Burns and Jo-Anne Lester).

Jacqueline Tivers, PhD, is an honorary research associate in geography at Oxford Brookes University, UK, and a previous Chair of the Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society–Institute of British Geographers. She has published several books, contributions to edited collections, and journal articles during her long career as a lecturer and researcher in geography. She is joint editor (with Tijana Rakic) of Narratives of Travel and Tourism, a previously published book within the ‘Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group (GLTRG)’ series.