Evaluating the Sustainability of Heritage Tourism and Historic Preservation in New Bern North Carolina

ECU Author/Contributor (non-ECU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Matthew Joseph Watterson (Creator)
Institution
East Carolina University (ECU )
Web Site: http://www.ecu.edu/lib/
Advisor
Derek H. Alderman

Abstract: After nearly a half century of suburbanization economic development specialists and urban planners have begun to appreciate the unique aesthetic and heritage landscapes of underutilized downtown areas as potential geographic spaces for economic growth. Consequently fostering heritage tourism and recreation industries that take advantage of these unique spaces has become a cornerstone of many downtown redevelopment plans. A growing pool of literature on the subject of sustainable tourism has noted that heritage tourism is ideologically and institutionally different from other forms of the industry as concepts of long term planning cultural awareness and resource conservation are important to both tourism sustainability and heritage management. While there is an increasingly diverse collection of literature available on the subject of sustainable urban heritage tourism there is greater need for more studies of this unique type of tourism in a market environment and to assess the degree to which heritage tourism and historic preservation are sustainable as a viable industry according to information gathered through chiefly qualitative methods. This thesis focuses specifically on the socio-cultural sustainability of heritage tourism and historic preservation in the area of downtown New Bern North Carolina. Interpretation and presentation of preservation and heritage are applied selectively and there is dissonance and disagreement amongst certain groups concerning the role of tourism in New Bern. Nevertheless qualitative research shows that community support economic diversity long term management and conservation of the built and natural environment qualify New Bern's urban heritage tourism industry as more sustainable than tourism industries elsewhere. 

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Date: 2011
Keywords
Geography, Urban and Regional Planning, Recreation
Subjects
Heritage tourism--North Carolina--New Bern
Historic preservation--North Carolina--New Bern
New Bern (N.C.)--Planning

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TitleLocation & LinkType of Relationship
Evaluating the Sustainability of Heritage Tourism and Historic Preservation in New Bern North Carolinahttp://hdl.handle.net/10342/2899The described resource references, cites, or otherwise points to the related resource.