Culture is the totality of an individual, or group of persons’ way of life. This includes dressing, language, religion, religious ceremonies, governance, arts, craft, technology, etc. Every culture on the face of the earth is unique, and people react differently to the environment around them.
Culture derives its significance from people’s belief, literature, customs, knowledge, values, and codes, among others.
Tourism, on the other hand, is the travel for recreation, leisure, religions, family reunion, business purpose, etc., usually for a limited duration of time. It can also be viewed as an activity done by an individual or group of persons, which leads to a movement from one place to another. It could be a move from a country to another for the performance of a specific task, or a visit to the particular place/places for the purpose of entertainment, which leads to an awareness of other civilisations, and culture, thereby increasing the knowledge of countries, cultures and history for and by the tourist. Tourism is an art, science and business of attracting and serving visitors.
Culture-tourism, therefore, is a combination of both culture and tourism. That is, what culture of a people/place can offer and the ability of tourisms to patronise the tourism product available. Cultural tourism relates to the visit by tourist to a place for the purpose of admiring the beauty of the available cultural resources and national heritage. It reflects the diversity and character of a nation, which calls for the need to conserve and maintain the value of the cultural heritage of that nation.
Suffice it to say here that one of the principal gateways to achieve this laudable intention is the Museum. The museum is charged with the conservation, preservation and presentation of our cultural heritage-tangible and intangible.
The conservation of cultural heritage by the museum creates access to the heritage of the people, giving rise to cultural tourism.
In 2000, the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) addressed the issue of culture and its relationship with tourism development, and extensively discussed the impact of tourism on the preservation and conservation of cultural heritage policies and guidelines for cultural tourism and development and its marketing techniques. Tourism is essentially a service industry, which yields an attractive form of economic development.
Cultural heritage tourism is a tool of economic development that achieves economic growth through attracting visitors from outside a host community who are motivated wholly or in part by interest in the historical, artistic, scientific or lifestyle, heritage, offering of a community, religion, group or institution (Silberberg, 1995). Such travels are focused up on experiencing cultural environment, including landscape, the visual and the performing art, special lifestyle, value, tradition and events.
Linking tourism with cultural heritage can do more for local economies than promoting them separately. The core ideas in cultural heritage tourism are “save your heritage and culture, share it with visitors, and reap the economic benefits of tourism”. The mission of the preservation community is to preserve and protect historic, cultural and natural resources. The cultural community is looking for ways to attract new audience.
Tourism brings individuals/human communities into contact, and through them, cultures and civilisation has an important role to play in facilitating dialogue amongst cultures. It enables people to live better together and contributes to the construction of peace in the minds of those that co-exist together.
Culture has been identified as the centre piece of a nation’s tourism, and cultural heritage is an attraction for tourism. The community is the incubators of culture, and culture the world over, controls human development.
The greatest influence in human endeavour is culture, which is created by man that came together as a group to form community, nation, state, country, etc. The government should give due attention to culture and tourism; provide all needed machineries (fund, manpower, level playing ground, etc.) to develop the industry and place it within the key sectors of the economy. This will generate sustainable development of cultural tourism that will result to community empowerment, which eventually will minimise the poverty of the people, where too much rely upon the government is the major reason for the poverty state of its citizens.
Cultural and natural heritage that attracts so much tourism is a resource for development. It provides opportunity for raising awareness, educating, training, and involves communities in the process of conserving and enhancing their heritage. It is the involvement of all that will enable the heritage of humanity to be better preserved, living condition to be improved and poverty reduced.
Preserving cultural and natural heritage, in order to bring it within reach of all, making culture and civilisation better known, improving daily living condition and reducing poverty is what gives meaning to the sustainability of tourism development.
Tourism is a powerful economic development tool that creates jobs, provides new business opportunities and strengthens local economies. Cultural heritage tourism can have tremendous economic impact on local economies etc. new businesses, job creation, higher property values, etc. It adds less tangible but equally important pay offs. A well-managed tourism programme improves the quality of life, as resident take advantage of services and attractions tourism adds. It promotes community pride, which grows as people work together to develop a thriving tourism industry.
An area that develops its potentials for cultural heritage, tourism creates new opportunities for tourists to gain an understanding of an unfamiliar place or time. The influx of people/visitors comes with new opportunities for preservation and conservation and increase diversified economies, while holding on to the characteristics that make communities special.
Tourism is widely recognised for its tangible outcomes (job creation, tax revenues) as well as its intangible outcome (quality of life). It may build upon a wide variety of attractions, including “agri-courism”, destination tourism, fairs events conferences, sports teams, recreation and more. Tourism is an important industry that depends on culture and science. It has a direct impact on national revenue as it creates work opportunities, industries and several investments to serve and raise a nation’s performance culture distributes its history, civilisation and tradition.
The impact of cultural tourism cannot be over-emphasised as the world is fast becoming a global village and people the world over are interested and curious about discovering new places, culture and civilisation.
The museum being one of the major catalyst within which cultural-tourism can flourish, is the custodian of the nation’s heritage potentials. The preservation, conservation and presentation of the nation’s cultural heritage by the museum creates access to the heritage of the people, which culminates to cultural tourism. Cultural tourism empowers the community and provides opportunity for the people to acquire skills and experience that transform their perceptions. For instance, instead of over depending on the government, people will become self-employed through craft production, works of art, serving tourists with local products, etc. Some are empowered to acquire apprenticeship on the production of arts/crafts which will yield better input and community services satisfaction.
Nigeria, in its diversity, is blessed with abundant tourism sites and cultural attraction which are scattered across the 36 states of the federation. The proliferation of this cultural tourism has contributed immensely to the gross domestic product of the nation.
People’s curiosity over discovering of new tourist sites has helped Nigeria, coupled with the festivals.
An example of the New Yam festival in the East, Osun Osogbo grove in the Southwest, the colourful Carnival Calabar in the South and the colourful horse riding event known as Durbar in the north, particularly Kano and Katsina states have attracted millions of tourist thereby affecting the economy of Nigeria positively.
Our hand crafts, which are aspects of our material culture like bronzes, leather works, shoes, bags, pottery are not left out. Such items are produced as sourvenirs to our tourists to take back to their various destinations making our crafts men and women reap back with profit their efforts. Not only these, our materials of global craft are being exported globally for both commercial and image making purposes. This has been able to gainfully employ and populace as well as portray our rich cultural heritage, the value of our local inhabitants, generating markets and investors.
The economic fortunes attached to our hospitality industry cannot be easily qualified. The tourism industry yields its revenue through the foreign exchange earnings. The mass inflow, especially of international tourist, enhances exchange of foreign currencies.
Expenditure takes place from the first entry point of the country, as well as other direct and indirect charges on goods and services. This in turn contributes directly or otherwise to the current account of the balance of payments, thus creating business turnover, increase in household income, employment and revenue generation. A portion of the revenue or money is re-spent within the destination economy, thereby further rounds or re-circling of economic activities is created.
Cultural heritage, are great potential for tourism, if well-maintained, attracts visitors. They are preservation by the museum helps to maintain the appealing value of the historical or natural sites resulting in pleasurable visits, desirable again and again by the tourists, due to experiences which are worthwhile, satisfactory and enjoyable.
- Ezinwanyi works with National Museum, Abuja.
