Open Forum

Americans especially find heritage travel important since so many including myself are descended from immigrants from all over the world. Americans who are interested in taking heritage trip to their roots are most likely to go abroad to do so. Some destinations are already promoting themselves as heritage travel destinations. Germany, for instance knows that an estimated 40 million  Americans consider themselves of German descent and it's created a microsite just for people to learn about the country's heritage travel. Another example is the initiative set by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to set first heritage cell in India within an Urban Local Body. Many Indian cities are replicating Ahmedabad model to conserve their heritage and promote heritage tourism. These initiatives have lead to inscription of Historic City of Ahmedabad on the World Heritage City list by UNESCO in July, 2017. Ahmedabad World Heritage City Trust has set up an Expert Committee comprising of heritage and museum experts. Has anyone from our AAM published an article on how museums can boost heritage tourism?

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NANDAN SHASTRI
Curator
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Heritage tourism has been a very large-scale endeavor in the United States for many decades, and museums have been an integral part of that effort. A cursory search should point you to the wide variety of National Park sites, National Heritage Corridors, historic districts, etc., etc. that have been created to both explore/preserve the past and drive tourism to economically disadvantaged places. Often, there is a museum at the (social/physical/financial) center of these places. Check out the National Park Service website and the blog of the National Council for Public History as a starting point.

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Kristin Morris
Cisco Archivist
Computer History Museum
Mountain View CA
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