Heritage and tourism organisations in a disrupted world

The business environment for heritage and tourism organizations and the relationships between them has matured over the last two decades to see heritage become a major driving force for a globalized tourism industry. The complex interactions between these organizations has charted the equilibrium between the need for sustainable preservation of the historic environment, and utilization of that historic environment for developing tourism economies with diverse cultural experiences in a market where the key desire by visitors is to experience authenticity. In the past year however, typical forms of disruption and external challenge which have driven organizations in the field have been magnified by unprecedented external forces such as the global Covid19 pandemic, and also by wider social and political forces which have gained momentum - around cultural representation and diversity, environmentalism, and financial sustainability. This is rapidly requiring organizational paradigm shifts in how we think about heritage and tourism organizations themselves, and our ability to manage the heritage and tourism 'caring and sharing mission' into the future.