![Sample our Museum and Heritage Studies journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5945/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Museum-Heritage-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
This study specifically examines the potential for heritage tourism development to promote cross-cultural dialog in the historic old city of Nazareth (Israel). The paper focuses on a case study of a small-scale heritage tourism venture that seeks to influence tourism development in Nazareth's old city. This is an exploratory case study that uses qualitative research methods including extensive participant observation and in-depth interviews with the venture's senior management group and selected employees. Study findings indicate a model of the relationship between community-based tourism development, heritage, and peace-building in a city that has experienced a wide range of cross-cultural conflicts. This model represents an alternative view to the notion that heritage serves to enhance differences and dissonance between different cultural groups. In contrast, findings from this study suggest that heritage in the form of tourism can help create shared interests between different communities in settings characterized by cross-cultural conflict.
Funding
This study was supported, in part, by research funding from the European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR) at Mid Sweden University. The authors also acknowledge the Fauzi Azar Inn community for their participation in this research effort.
Notes on contributors
Alon Gelbman (Ph.D.) is a senior lecturer and Head of the Department of Tourism and Hotel Management at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel. He is a cultural geographer and his research interests include international tourism and geopolitical borders, tourism and peace, urban/rural tourism, hosts–guests relationships and wellness tourism. His research papers have been published in leading scientific journals. A major context of his research in the tourism area is the developing of a theoretical foundation for tourism-geopolitical border relations between countries around the world and developing global models and theories about it, with significant connections to the topic of tourism and peace. More information can be found at http://kinneret.academia.edu/AlonGelbman.
Daniel Laven (Ph.D.) is an associate professor in the Department of Tourism Studies and Geography at Mid Sweden University (MIUN). His research is conducted under the auspices of two research centers at MIUN: European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR) and Risk and Crisis Research Centre (RCR). Dr Laven's work focuses on the interaction between heritage and sustainability with an emphasis on exploring these issues in regions under stress. He is a contributing author to The future of heritage as climates change: Loss, adaptation and creativity (edited by David C. Harvey and Jim Perry, published by Routledge) and he is currently editing an anthology (with Diana Walters and Peter Davis) titled Heritage and peacebuilding, which is scheduled for publication in 2016 by Boydell and Brewer. Dr Laven's research has also been published in leading peer-reviewed journals and been presented at scientific conferences and policy-oriented workshops worldwide.