The classification of heritage tourists: a case of Hue City, Vietnam

Abstract

Heritage, especially with World Heritage status, is increasingly becoming the main attraction of many tourist destinations. Heritage tourism is also the major tourism product in Hue city, Vietnam. Hitherto, there are almost no official statistics and research pertaining to heritage tourism as well as heritage tourists in Hue. This study aims at providing a preliminary profile of heritage tourists to Hue city and identifying different categories of heritage tourists, with a special focus on package tourists. The international heritage tourists' profile seems to be similar to official statistics of international arrivals, indicating almost no difference in socio-demographic profile between heritage tourists and general tourists in the context of Hue. Various significant differences were found between international and domestic tourists in terms of tourist characteristics, trip profile and the perception of Hue. Adopting McKercher's [(2002) Towards a classification of cultural tourists. International Journal of Tourism Research, 4, 29–38] cultural tourist classification, five categories of heritage tourists were identified, including purposeful heritage tourists, sightseeing heritage tourists, casual heritage tourists, incidental heritage tourists and serendipitous heritage tourists. Among these, sightseeing heritage tourists and purposeful heritage tourists were dominant.

Keywords:

• cultural heritage
• heritage tourism
• heritage tourist
• tourist classification
• Hue
• Vietnam

Notes on contributors

Thi Hong Hai Nguyen is a Ph.D. candidate of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Catherine Cheung is an assistant professor of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Notes

Author's master thesis.