Is «cultural tourism» actually «cultural»?

Abstract

The epithet of cultural has been used as an adulterated attraction for a kind of leisure activity dressed up in all its finery: the type of tourism that is linked to the historic heritage. The tourism client sets off for an apparent happiness by means of a manipulated, abridged or smoothen by-product of a civilisation’s real historic essence, without paying any attention to –or passively assumin– the mercantilist machinery that it is part of. The label of «cultural» is often distorted by the superficial made of it.

Should other forms of tourism that do not involve heritage –such as beach holi- days, rural tourism or mountain holidays– be considered as ‘a-cultural’? Can anybody acquire any culture just by travelling or culture is something that must be carried on by the traveller so as to properly value what he sees?

Surveys on cultural tourism so far have concentrated on boosting its efficiency from a business point of view –which is a wrong approach– instead of analysing the phenomenon from a humanistic perspective.