Cultural political economy and sustainable heritage tourism

While heritage tourism has long taken a critical consideration of the concept of sustainability, it remains wider conceptual development in management practices. Much relevant research focuses on the components of heritage tourism, but few of integrating, nor reducing the complexity of the relationships and within sustainable development. In spite of Agenda 21 has proposed a number of tangible strategies for heritage implementation, a balance across the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development is still challenged. Sustainable heritage tourism is rather recognised as a planned system, focusing on heritage preservation and supply-oriented consumption, but less of regulation or coordination with administrative agencies in cities.
This paper attempts two tasks as a response to the call for more integrated and theoretical-informed approach on sustainable heritage tourism. First, it explains a cultural political economy (CPE) perspective, here is to analyse the sense- and meaning-making features of heritage tourism, and to reflect its political and economic relationships in the contemporary social practices (Sum & Jessop, 2013). This key intention represents a direct response to criticisms of political economy sometimes being insufficiently concerned with culture and semiotics, and of cultural perspectives which pay insufficient attention to the economy, thus neglecting the materiality of social relations (Jessop & Oosterlynck, 2008). The account focused on the political significance of heritage tourism is examined systematically in co-constitution of social practices that considers storytelling and tourism mobility. The CPE perspective developed here offers just one view of sustainable heritage tourism, which is relatively new and thus more open to differing interpretations (Moran, 2014; Ribera-Fumaz, 2009; Staricco, 2016).
The paper’s second task is to examine sustainable heritage tourism in the city of Nanjing, China in order to consider a core idea behind the CPE perspective. Employed data triangulation of forty-two in-depth interviews, the case of “train-metro-historical walking trail” illustrated how city government framing heritage significance through storytelling, especially the role of sense- and meaning-making aspect of heritage experiences transformed tourists’ imagery and gazed them in a slow aspect of heritage experience. The case application is alongside economic and political relationships for specific heritage tourism practices and features in the city.