THE CULTURAL SIDE OF LIFE MATTERS?

The evolution of tourism through the centuries met ‘Cultural tour- ism’ as one of the trends, some years ago this approach was many times merged with the idea to spend vacations in historical towns, arts cities, enjoying monuments, museums, art galleries and sometimes adding operas, concerts and, why not, food and drinks if typical in that area. Tourists are constantly dealing with web sites and apps, platforms and navigation systems stimulating them thanks to push messages promoting ‘nearby’ points of interest, so become a ‘must’ for cul- tural institutions, hotels, restaurants, to be included in the POI15 lists of navigation systems as a first approach to new tourists’ trend. Dealing with ‘Culture Counts’16 let’s start quoting Andy C. Pratt, ‘Discussion 13 if the cultural economy can be differentiated by how the two terms are linked: as an adjective (‘cultural’ economy) or as a compound noun (‘cul- tural economy’). The notion of a ‘cultural’ economy refers to the cul- tural dimensions of economic activity (the design or marketing of any product or service; or, simply, the social dimensions of the organisation of production). The term ‘cultural economy’ is indicative of a particular subsection of economic activity which is concerned with cultural prod- ucts and activities (such as music, film, and fine art) as opposed to say transportation or mining’17. We all know that ‘La culture, ce n’est pas une marchandise comme les autres’18, and that those that work in the field of culture usually try to shield it as much as possible from the ‘world’ of money and business. Very often cultural heritage, tangible heritage especially, is perceived as a pure cost – something we are committed to investing in without any actual or future return on investment (ROI). This happens because those that earn money from cultural heritage are often not the same people that are willing to invest in and preserve cultural heritage. Depending on the country, most of the revenue from cultural heritage is usually shared among travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, merchandise suppli- ers, and more. Direct revenue, such as entrance fees, usually represents a minor or even insignificant part of the revenues.