Heritage Tourism Demand in Northern Ireland...!!!!!

HERITAGE TOURISM DEMAND

HERITAGE DEMAND

Introduction to heritage demand The demand for tourism has grown notably

during the past two decades, and few places exist in the world today. That has not been affected by it in one way or another. Just as demand for tourism has grown, so has demand specifically for heritage-related experiences. In common with ecotourism and other types of special interest travel, heritage tourism is one of the fastest growing segments within the global phenomenon of tourism.

Table1 Total visitation to US National Park properties by property type

Property Type

1980 1990 2000

National Battlefield 2,563,644 2,647,631 2,428,383National Battlefield Park

7,795,027 3,599,427 12,413,897

National Historic Site

7,545,290 12,745,422 10,470,921

National Park 21,666,675 33,778,243 41,890,838National Lakeshore 2,726,470 4,191,104 3,727,563National Memorial 11,648,225 14,945,327 27,755,746National Military Park

19,718,364 16,576,322 19,476,141

National Monument

13,943,457 22,911,027 26,722,727

:

Park (Other) 30,598,733 29,364,115 44,687,810Total 286,345,784 334,894,737 429,856,123Source : Complied from US National Park Service (2011)

Define the table 1

Table 1 demonstrates that, despite some fluctuations in visitations from year to year, overall visitation to US National Parks natural and cultural heritage sites has increased dramatically during the past 20 years, totaling some 430 million visits in 2000.

Heritage Demand Explanation Demand can also be viewed from the perspective of

demand source.

* The most significant source, perhaps, in the realm of tourism. They are the tourist consumers to whom managers direct their marketing efforts and interpretation programmed.

* A second source is various levels of government, which is commonly equated with ‘’society’’ or ‘’the public’’ at large. It is assumed that because governments are in theory set up to represent the wishes of society they do so.

* The third and final group is heritage guardians, such as national trusts, civic groups, preservation societies and the workers who assist in protecting the resource.

HERITAGE VISITOR CHARACTERISTICS

How to divide the market ?

The common way to divided the heritage visitors are based on their demographic, geographic and psychographic characteristics

Demographic, geographic and socio-economic factors•Employment•Education•Income•Home location•Family size•Age

Previous travel patterns•Place•Type of transportation•Number of people•Length of stay•Expenditure patterns•Heritage sties visited•Type of accommodation•Activity patterns

Characteristic visitor lifestyles•Motivations•Expectations•Preferred heritage experiences•Philosophy and approach to heritage and travel•Desired personal benefits•Reaction to different kinds of heritage experiences

Preferences and attitudes

towards a particular destination, site or product•Likelihood of future travel to a destination•Attitudes towards a destination/ product/ site•Activity preferences•Location preferences•Images

Objective

Measures

Inferred

Measures

General Situation Specific

Demographic characteristics High level of education

Heritage tourists are more educated than the general public

Economic term Heritage tourists are high level of income

Gender The evidence show that more women than men

visit historic site Age & family

Age & family have an effect on attraction

Geographic characteristics

Heritage visitors can divided into several types based on their places of origin and residents Local residents; who live near the

attraction and make the same day visit Domestic tourists; who visit the site and

stay overnight in some form of accommodation

International tourists; who travel from the outside the country and spend time at heritage site in local accommodation

Psychographic Characteristics In this study, Plog said that tourists could fall

between 2 extreme poles on a psychographic spectrum. There are :

* Psychocentrics who display tendencies towards nearness, comforts of home, and familiarity in their surrounding.

* Allocentrics who seek out the distant, unusal and challenging experiences.

In a similar way, psychographic thinking can be applied to heritage tourism.

Other visitor patterns

Church Youth: Church group are inclined to visit churches and site of Historical importance to their denomination.

Senior centre grouping: To war memorials. Boy and Girl scout troops: To science

centre, ruins of indigenous peoples and forts and castle.

Hobby Associations: Place related to their pastime such as Aircraft museum, Stamp and Coin exhibits and Industrial locations.

MOTIVATIONS

Motivations

In this study of motivation, he found that heritage visitors are driven by two motives: there are

* The pursuits of knowledge * Personal benefits

According to some observers, the learning dimension and the perception of a greater willingness to learn on the part of the tourist are one of the most critical defining distinctions between heritage tourist and other types.

Motivations

The pursuit of knowledge , in their pursuit of knowledge, he respondents claimed that learning about culture and natures, as well as generally enriching person knowledge, were their primary motivations.

The personal benefits, includes a wide range of intentions. He found that people desire to visit heritage sties because of perceived health benefits, relaxation, gaining some kind of spiritual reward, recreation activities and enjoying sightseeing.

So, both the education and other personal reasons for visiting heritage sties come together to create various levels of demand for various heritage products.

LATENT DEMAND / NON- USE OF HERITAGE

One of the most important types of demand is unmet, or latent, which means the difference between the potential number of people who could utilize a heritage resource and the number who presently do.

Latent demand can be viewed as people who have never visited and never think about visiting, people who used to visit but no longer do, and people who infrequently visit.

Although non-visitors are more difficult to enumerate and research, it is important for managers to understand them in order to figure out how to attract new visitors and bring back those who seldom or no longer visit.

A fairly wide range of constrain can be identified why people do not participate in leisure activities and tourism. Structural barriers are factors that block people's intentions from becoming actions. Intra personal constrain exist when people fail to develop leisure preferences because of problems or misconceptions associated with personality needs, prior socialization, personal abilities and perceptions barrier result from social interactions with other people.

The following sections examine some of these constraints.

Inaccessibility Two types of accessibility exist in the realm of

tourism-physical and market. Physical access means physically being able to get to a place. Physical inaccessibility might be caused by harsh weather, topographic barriers, lack of infrastructure and transportation, and a lack of handicap access. In term of market access, two of the most popular and obvious reasons people give for not visiting heritage sites and museums are lack of time and money, due largely to work and domestic responsibilities and low amounts of disposable income.


Lack of educational preparation While generally an interpersonal

constraint on the part of the latent visitors, a perceived lack of educational preparation keeps many people from visiting. Related to this is a lack of visitation during childhood, which may be viewed as informal education. Research shows that people who visited heritage sites during childhood are more inclined to do so during adulthood as well.


Disabilities

One critical common among large segments of society who choose not to visit heritage sites is physical disabilities. Outline three types of barrier that exist for people with disabilities who do not participate in leisure activities, including visits to heritage attractions.

Intrinsic barriers are those that result from an individual's personal limitations involving physical, psychological or cognitive disabilities, including several situations that may inhibit desires to go heritage destinations and attractions.


Psychological constraintsFor many people it is the nature of the site

itself and its subject that is unappealing, not necessarily the presentation.Perhaps the most common psychological reason people give for not visiting heritage attractions is a lack of interest or desire. Some people simply have no desire at all to visit historic sites and museum. Some people have little interest in undertaking recreational activities outside the home, and more still have no desire to travel away from their home environment.

One of the most important reasons people give for visiting museums is the social interaction.


Other constraints‘Museum fatigue’ is another reason

why some people do not visit historical sites. As a result, the longer they are in a museum the faster they move towards the exit, and the longer they spend in the galleries the less attention they pay to the exhibits.

CASE STUDY : HERITAGE TOURISM DEMAND IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Background

In most cases travelers search for safe and interesting places. The absence of safety within a destination region often overrides the quality of experience and attractions on offer and so an alternative destination is sought.

Image is important for any tourism destination. It is often the image an area conveys which attracts visitors or which causes them to select an alternative destination. It is not surprising to see then how images of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Protestant Parliamentary activity and the devastation that sustained bombing campaigns inflicted on the region’s infrastructure, masked the wealth and diversity of tourism attractions the region could offer.

Importance of culture and heritage Northern Ireland as a holiday destination not

only has had to address a negative image, but it also has had to accept that its geographic position on the periphery of Europe and its cold-water resorts do not set it out as an obvious holiday destination. Visitors come to Northern Ireland because they have reason to visit as opposed to Northern Ireland are designed to provide visitors with a cultural and heritage experience, with heritage fundamentally tied to the product base of people, Landscape, culture and activities.

Heritage attractions in Northern Ireland can subdivided into several distinct categories :

Historical (elements within the built landscape, e.g.

houses, castles, monuments ) Industrial (links to products indicative of the region’s

past, e.g. linen, pottery, whiskey) Cultural (links to past societies, lifestyle, customs ,

e.g. early Irish settlement) Natural (elements of the nature landscape, e.g.

causeway, country and forest parks) Educational (link to attractions where the ultimate

purpose is dissemination of information for the purpose of learning, e.g. museum, libraries)

Table 2 The top 20 tourist attraction visited between 1994 and 2000 in Northern IrelandAttractio

n1994 Ran

k1996 Rank 1998 Rank 2000 Rank

Giant’s Cause way.

330,000 1 395,000 1 407,806 1 395,247 1

Ulster mu. 256,020 2 240,859 2 235,594 3 217,811 3

Pickie Pa* 230,000 3 100,000 12 300,000 2 350,000 2

Exploris* 211,129 4 137,023 8 127,000 9 124,500 9

Belfast zo. 188,946 5 177,984 4 183,273 4 204,458 4

Ulster Pa. 186,656 6 198,211 3 168,623 6 155,847 7

Belleek Po.

148,386 7 161,000 5 171,757 5 193,672 5

Murlough Na.

128,000 8 160,000 6 129,000 8 - -

:

Navan Cen.

60,000 20 - - - - - -

* Denotes those attractions that have no association with heritage.

Source: Boyed and Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

Define the table 2

A view of the top tourist attractions Irish in Table 2 shows that heritage is key to the visitor experience offered in Northern Island. While there is some fluctuation in the position individual attractions held from year to year, the overall picture from the table is that heritage attractions have strong and consistent attendance, and that Northern Ireland has a reliable brand related to heritage, which it should continue to promote.

Key Markets

According to the Northern Ireland has contended with being a peripheral location and being a cold-water destination, so many visitors still travel to Northern Ireland because of visiting friends and relatives (VFR) which is the principal reason.

Table 3 Purpose of visit to Northern Ireland, 1995 - 2000

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Trip* % Trip % Trip % Trip % Trip % Trip %

VFR 564 36 590 41 577 41 617 42 684 41 743 44

Hoil-days

461 30 297 21 263 19 277 19 305 18 306 18

Business

402 26 409 28 419 29 434 29 501 30 464 28

Other 130 8 140 10 156 11 149 10 165 10 159 10

Total 1,557

1,436

1,415

1,477 1,655

1,672

•Trip are numbered in thousands.

Source : Northern Ireland Tourist Board

The world Tourism Organization recently stated that around 37 percents of all tourism trip have a cultural and heritage component to them. Many visitors are interested in visiting places to learn about culture , as well as willing to be educated while on holiday. So, culture and heritage lie at the heart of the Northern Ireland Experience.

When market regions are considered in term of total number of trips taken, the two key markets remain Great Britain and the Republic Ireland.

Demand for industrial heritage attractions and products Table 4 Visits to Heritage attractions by type, which

received over 5,000 visitors between 1994 – 1997

Types No. 1994 1995 % 1996 % 1997 %

Historical 14 276,896 326,820 +15 304,744 -7 239,578 -4

Cultural 8 549,586 599,325 +8 506,861 -18

525,595 +4

Industrial 4 236,979 384,879 +38 351,353 -9 383,564 +8

Educational

6 210,651 273,747 +23 215,047 -27

219,000 +2

Natural 21 1,598,047

1,984,564 +19 1,854,678

-7 1,853,017

0

Total 53 2,872,159

3,569,335 +20 3,232,683

-10

3,274,754

+1

Source : Boyed

Summary

In recent time, the industrial heritage products in Northern Ireland is mixed and includes :

Linen Shipbuilding Distilling Steam and waterways Pottery and glassmaking/ crystal Etc.

Group Members

Ms.Dollaya Khemnil ID.52623433005 Ms.Tipaporn Ngorsakul ID.52623433007 Ms.Pansasi Chewasunthon ID.52623433012 Mr.Apisit Namkhod ID.52623433017 Ms.Oranuch Thomphai ID.52623433018 Ms.Wanida Phoothongkan ID.52623433019 Mr.Sukrit Payapwattanawong ID.52623433020 Ms.Khanaporn Limpanitch ID.52623433022

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