Marketing Heritage Tourism in Less Developed Countries: Problems and Challenges1

Dr. Lina Anastassova Assoc. Prof. in Tourism Marketing Burgas Free University Deputy Dean of the Centre for Business Studies Bourgas 8000, Bulgaria anastassova@bfu.bg

Key words: heritage tourism, marketing problems, destination marketing, effective partnership Introduction Tourism is a form of modern cross- cultural communications and relations and one of the reasons for traveling is heritage and heritage sites. The concept of heritage as the main carrier of historical values from the past means that it is seen as part of the cultural identification of society. As Dahles noted (1996, p. 59), in its essence the relationship between heritage and tourism parallels the debate that takes place within a societys culture between tradition and modernity. This combination of tourism and experienced heritage sites leads to heritage tourism which is one of the fastestgrowing segments of the travel and tourism industry that can bring many benefits to tourists- and economic benefits to local communities. When referring to cultural and heritage tourism, there are no clear and agreed-upon definitions. A working definition of heritage tourism developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (discussed in Richards, 1997) is traveling to historic and cultural attractions to learn about the past in an interesting and enjoyable way. The World Tourism Organisation (1992) defined tourism as an immersion in the natural history, human heritage, arts, philosophy and institutions in another region or country. More than 10 authors and researchers have made attempts to define the essence of heritage tourism in different studies. According to Walle (1996) and Stewart, Hayward and Devlin (1998) heritage tourism can be used to refer to historic sites and buildings and the experiences which people seek to have in them. Zeppel and Hall (1992, p. 78) stress on the belief that heritage tourism is a broad field of speciality travel based on nostalgia for the past and the desire to experience diverse cultural landscapes and forms. Christou suggests that the term heritage and cultural tourism refers to that segment of the tourism industry which places special emphasis on heritage and cultural attractions (Christou, E. 2006). According to the ATLAS definition cultural tourism is the
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The paper was presented on the 2nd International Conference on Tourism and Hospitality, 30 Julty-1 August,, 2007, Marriott Putrajaya, Malaysia (Key note paper);

movement of people to cultural attractions away from their normal place of residence, with the intention to gather new information and experiences to satisfy their cultural needs (Richards, 2000). As far as heritage destinations are concerned, it has been argued that heritage destinations are individual buildings or monuments, the heritage itself is the whole environment that these buildings or monuments are part of. In order to become true tourist products, the historical and heritage destinations of places and cities need to be integrated in tourist packages where components are related as nearly as possible to tourist motivations. These tourist packages have to contain the core heritage and cultural attractions of the visited sites, and in addition, must include the active participation of the resident population and the most appropriate utilization of communication tools such as tour guides, video and audio promotional materials, tourist posters, city maps, programs and schedules of all spectacles and other complimentary tourist information designed to emphasize and enhance the cultural value of the tourist package (Treserras, J. 2001). Ralston and Kelly (discussed in Laws, E. and G.Wen Pan, 2004) identified five objectives of heritage and cultural destinations: - focus on authenticity and quality; - preservation of resources; - make sites come alive; - find the fit between community and heritage tourism; - collaborate with tourism managers; If we have to summarize the suggested definitions for the purposes of the paper, cultural heritage tourism can be conceptualized as movement of people to historic sites, buildings and cultural attractions away from their normal place of residence in order to gather information and gain new experiences. The aim of the present paper is to discuss contemporary marketing of heritage destinations in Bulgaria and in other less developed countries on the Balkan Peninsula and to identify the main problems t different levels- local, regional and national and challenges of marketing heritage tourism. Heritage Tourism Potential and Challenges for Bulgaria As already noted, cultural and heritage tourism is growing at international level: in an era characterized by increasing globalization of markets and technological innovation, culture is one of the main differentiation factors of tourism destinations. In the Bulgarian context, as well in the context of other less developed countries on the Balkan Peninsula, cultural tourism is often identified and pointed as a future growth industry, not least in areas where few other opportunities for economic development seem present. Heritage destinations development and promotion is very important for Bulgaria and Romania as brand new members of the European Union because the European Commission has emphasized the challenge to improve the quality of life in the regions and cities of the Community by achieving a high competitiveness and guaranteeing and promoting sustainable development. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty acknowledged for the first time the role of tourism in promoting economic and social cohesion, thus reducing regional disparities.

It is not accidental that an increasing number of visitors from EU, USA and the Far East have been coming to Bulgaria to get to know the culture and historical monuments of one of the most ancient states in Europe. Until a few years ago Bulgaria was perceived as a mass tourism destination in the main, thanks to the relatively inexpensive seaside and winter resorts. But all studies during the last two decades revealed that tourists who engage in historic and cultural activities spend more and do more than the traditional tourist from the recreational mass market (Stokes, K. 2006). As it was mentioned earlier there are excellent conditions in Bulgaria for the development of heritage tourism. Almost 40 000 historic monuments of culture from various epochs have been found on its territory. More than 500 000 valuable items adorn the halls of 330 museums. There are 36 cultural reserves, 160 monasteries and nearly 400 art galleries that offer opportunities for visits. The country has 9 monuments under UNESCO protection: churches, monasteries, tombs etc. These tourist attractions are scattered over the country favoring the development of the cultural heritage tourism out of the traditional tourist regions. At the same time the Bulgarian tourist product is still dominated by the cheap summer package tours and secondary by the winter skiing packages. The product constantly develops and improves. During the last few years the alternative (specialized) tourism including all types of tourism other than the mass tourism like cultural heritage, rural, adventure, green tourism etc. develop successfully. The specialized tourism has a great importance for the development of mountain and rural regions that do not have other alternatives. This business is mainly small and medium sized and needs serious support with regard to building the infrastructure i.e. family hotels, attractions, preservation of the cultural monuments etc. Important funding sources for this types of tourism are the PHARE and other EU programs, UNDP as well as many other bilateral and national programs. The PHARE program of EU has supported 19 projects in Bulgaria for the development of cultural tourism (Annual report, 2004). Despite of the huge potential for heritage tourism in the country, the analysis points out that the Bulgarian heritage tourism product is less developed when compared to the offering of Greece, Croatia and Turkey which have long established and well known heritage destinations. The negative side of the Bulgarian tourism product as a whole includes the following factors: difficult access to a number of sites, roads and part of the other infrastructure in bad condition and lack of sufficient airports in some regions. In addition according to the World Report of ICOMOS during the last 10 years Bulgaria and Romania have similar problems concerning the heritage preservation and conservation: lack of necessary funds for the elimination of physical risks and proper management which requires decentralization and thus without denying State, local initiatives should be activated for efficient control and care about the monuments (ICOMOS World Report, 2002-3). Other less developed countries on the Balkan Peninsula- Serbia and Montenegro have even bigger problems in terms of cultural heritage preservation and conservation because of the economic crises and the political instability during the last 15 years. Cultural heritage tourism in Bulgaria has all chances to turn into one of the most modern sectors of economy, generating significant income, a plenty of jobs and

becoming an engine for development of other related sectors1. In order to achieve the above a number of marketing and other problems should be identified and solved including the specific marketing problems which will be further discussed. To position a small and less developed country on the international market as an attractive heritage destination is a big challenge and has become a very important task for the government, the local authorities and non- government institutions related to heritage tourism in the country. The most significant factor that will generally facilitate the future development of tourism in Bulgaria is the recognition by EU of the tourism industry as a priority for the country in the Operational Program for regional development for the next few years. The improvement of the road infrastructure is one of the priorities of the utilization of EU funds which will definitely support the tourist sector development. Other challenge for Bulgaria is to participate successfully in the initiative Cultural corridors of South- East Europe. On the second regional forum in 2006 with 7 presidents of the participating countries a strategy for discovering, preservation, utilization and popularization of the cultural corridors was agreed which is now to be implemented. As mentioned already, similar to Bulgaria, the other new EU member - Romania has potential for heritage tourism offering. Both countries have the potential to attract a number of totally different market segments with regards to the type of the tourist and per capita expenditure because the cultural tourist is a different kind of visitor compared to the traditional tourist of sun, sea and sand as he wants to discover and get aquainted with historical cities, their churches, palaces and museums. At the same time this type of tourist shows an interest in landscapes, popular celebrations, gastronomy, typical folklore and other cultural representations. The successful achievement of the objective to position the country as an attractive heritage destination on the international market is very important for the Bulgarian authorities and the tourism sector because cultural tourism as a specific leisure activity offers excellent opportunities to the less developed countries on the Balkan Peninsula for: - sufficient and adequate utilization of the tourist resources and facilities for sustainable economic development; - preservation, popularization and socialization of the cultural heritage; - opening of new economic opportunities and new jobs in areas and places with lower living standard and economic development; Research Methods The main study methods and instruments in this paper are content and in-depth analysis of written documents, cases, marketing plans and promotional materials of heritage destinations in Bulgaria, Romania and other less developed counties in the region. Part of the data are qualitative data gathered through personal semi-structured interviews with 15 heritage tourism and marketing experts and practitioners which are carried out in the spring of 2007. The empirical section of the paper is based upon two different types of analysis:
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The evaluation of the tourist activities in the survey of tourism sector organizations determines for the future high potential for the cultural tourism as stated in the EU PHARE project Technical assistance to the Bulgarian State Tourism Agency;

1. Analysis of primary data from personal semi- structured interviews with 16 tourism and marketing experts and practitioners about the marketing problems and challenges of heritage destinations in Bulgaria and other less developed countries; 2. Content analysis of written documents, marketing plans and promotional materials of heritage destinations in Bulgaria and Romania; 3. Importance- performance analysis of primary data from a survey with 30 tourism and marketing experts about the effectiveness of websites of heritage destinations in Bulgaria and Romania. The experts had to investigate and evaluate 22 websites. The importance and performance of the websites effectiveness were evaluated on a 6-point Likert scale basis (1- not at all important/ poor and 6- very important/excellent), according to 7 specific features: content of the site (usefulness, balance of text and pictures), ease of navigation, attractive design and interactivity, accessibility, targeted messages and key words, provoking a desire for a next visit to the website and provoking a desire for a destination visit. Discussion of the research results The interviews conducted with tourism and marketing experts revealed that in most of the heritage destinations there is a weak co-ordination between the marketing activities of the municipalities and the regional administrations concerning the product offering and the investigation and analyses of competition. One of the main reasons for this lack of interaction and co-ordination is the political system in Bulgaria as well as in some other less developed countries: the major and the local/municipal council are elected directly by the population and in many cases it is dominated by political party- different from the one which governs at the moment. At the same time the regional government is appointed by the national government and this causes problems in the activities related to the local and regional development. Although all municipalities in Bulgaria have strategies for economic development which include small section for tourism development, the interviewed marketing and tourism experts state that these sections do not include in-depth competitor analysis. Besides a lot of towns and cities- heritage destinations have short-term marketing plan or strategy for 3 years period but according to the majority of experts only a small number of regional governments support actively the municipal tourism strategies for their successful implementation. In order to objectively assess the situation it is necessary to point out that not only the lack of financial resources is the main reason for poor implementation of the strategies. As far as the problem about the co-ordination between the government institutions- especially the State Tourism Agency and the organizations of the entrepreneurs-Tourism Chamber, Hotel Association, Association of the Tour- Operators is concerned, the majority of the experts share the opinion that the partnership between these bodies is on unsatisfactory level. One of the reasons is that there were a lot of changes in the Agency top management during the last 8-10 years and on the other side the entrepreneurs organizations try to dominate each other and do not have good partnership between them selves. Up to now the Bulgarian profit and non-profit organizations in the tourism sector did not use the potential of the strategic alliances that are defined as inter- organizational cooperative strategies to ensure the

pooling of skills and resources by the alliance partners to achieve specific goals (Varadarajan, 1995). In this case the goal is successful marketing of the tourism regions and the country itself. For these reasons till 2006 Bulgaria did not have a national strategy for tourism development discussed and accepted by all partners and the country still does not have agreed and accepted by the government institutions strategy for cultural tourism development. As far as networks are concerned, nearly 40% of the tourism and marketing experts consider that there is an urgent need for establishing a network of heritage destinations for joint promotional activities. As Hall noted in the new global order networks are seen as a key competitive strategy (Hall, M. 2004). Networking between the heritage destinations can facilitate the promotion of their cultural tourism product. The lack of such networks is a problem of another country on the Balkans- Serbia where historic cities have even more problems in the process of becoming a heritage destination (Tomka, D. 2004). The majority of the interviewed experts are on the opinion that there is insufficient promotion of the national heritage on the international markets as part of the tourism product. Except for the last 2 years the average annual budget for international promotion of Bulgaria as a tourism destination was about 1 mill. Euro with 10-15 times bigger budgets in the nabouring countries which are competitors of Bulgaria- Greece and Turkey. On the international tourism fairs in Berlin, London, Madrid until 5 years ago Bulgaria was launched mainly as a tourism destination for mass recreational summer tourism and for skiing holidays. The content analysis of written documents and promotional materials- 38 broshures and leaflets of heritage destinations in Bulgaria and Romania reveals that big part of the investigated brochures and other advertising materials have attractive design and a good balance between text and pictures. Nearly 40% of them have some kind of slogan but the reader does not feel who is the target segment as it is not clear defined. The weakest point of these advertising materials is the lack of targeted and attractive messages which could contribute to the destination branding. The majority of the printed promotional materials are produced not by the municipal tourism department of the destination but by different tourist agencies or local tourism associations. There are only a few examples of successful co- operation for heritage destination promotion between the local authorities, the local tourism associations and the National Chamber branches: broshures and leaflets for Ethno Center Bozhenci, Veliko Turnovo Old Town, Open-air Museum Etura, Trojan town and Rila Monastery. Nearly one third of the printed promotional materials have a poor design and in some case the translation of the text sections was not satisfactory. In fact, this is another challenge for the Bulgarian heritage destinations, namely: to design and produce modern printed advertising materials, which serve the strategic aim: to build strong, competitive and trusted brand image. As far as the Internet marketing of the Bulgarian and Romanian heritage destinations is concerned, the survey reveals that the majority of the experts consider the websites of these destinations to be on relatively good level. According to the processed data from the importance-performance analysis based on the assessment of the web sites of 22 cultural heritage destinations, all evaluations given were toward the positive end of the scales. Based on the ratings of the marketing and tourism experts, the elements that

can be criticized and need improvement are those that received higher scores in the importance scale but lower scores on the performance scale. According to the survey data there are two web site features which performance scores are by more than 0.5 lower than the importance scores: accessibility ( importance 5.1performance 4.0) and attractive design and interactivity (importance 4.3- performance 3.8). Table 1 : IMPORTANCE- PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS Based on evaluation of 22 websites of heritage destinations in Bulgaria and Romania Website characteristics Importance scale Performance (1 to 6) scale (1 to 6) Ease of navigation (easy movement through 3.8 3.7 a web sites pages) Content of the site (useful information and 4.6 4.3 good balance between text and picture) 4.3 3.8 Attractive design and interactivity 5.1 4.1 Accessibility 3.4 3.1 Targeted messages and key words Provoking a desire for next visit to the 3.2 3.5 web site Provoking a desire for a destination visit 3.4 3.9 Importance scale: 1= not at all important; 6- extremely important Performance scale: 1= poor; 6= excellent; The biggest score gap between importance and performance (1,0) is for the site characteristic accessibility due to the fact that 4 of all sites could not be opened, The average performance scores are in the interval 3.4- 3.8 and the highest performance scores received the following 2 characteristics: content of the web site4.3 and accessibility- 4.1. The overall performance score of the web sites is 3.7 which reveals higher than the average scale grade. It is a good sign for the web marketing of the Bulgarian and Rumanian heritage destinations that one of the highest performance scores from the expert panel received the web site characteristic provoking a desire for a destination visit- 3.9 compared to importance score 3.4. Similar is the situation with the feature provoking a desire for another web site visit- performance score 3.5 compared to importance score 3.2. The overall conclusion is that the web sites of the heritage destinations in Bulgaria and Romania contribute to a great extend to the web marketing of the heritage tourism but most of them have to improve some of their

features: firstly, their accessibility, secondly, their design and interactivity and on third place their positioning messages which help building image and the navigation. The content analysis of the open-ended question points out that nearly half of the experts and tourists share the opinion that the websites do not contribute much for building a strong destination brand. Almost 70% of the sites do not have a slogan and positioning statement focusing on the main destination attributes for instance: ease accessibility, rich variety of museums and sightseeing opportunities, nice lifestyle, high service quality, beautiful landscape etc. Nearly 90% of the experts could not remember key words for the destination although they had enough time for investigating it 2. The destination marketer should consider that marketing messages based on experiences and feelings will have a greater importance in travel decisions- what can you do at the destination and what will the personal benefits be?(European Travel Commission, 2006). The data from the open-ended questions point out that the web pages are not targeted to defined segments which are motivated to visit them. They broadcast broad messages to the whole market. Except that some experts underline that the majority of the web sites of heritage destinations present in English only free city/town guide and a lot of other sections of the sites are only in Bulgarian. The typology of the problems based on the collected research data reveals that there are in Bulgaria and some other less developed countries on the Balkan Peninsula 3 types of problems on the various levels: problems related to the external for the heritage destinations environment-legal, institutional and political, internal strategic problems and internal marketing- mix problems (see Table 2): : Table 2: Typology of the marketing problems of heritage destinations in less developed counties on the Balkan peninsula
Problems from the external environment for the destinations: political, legal, institutional etc.
Need for improvement of the law for tourism; Need for establishment of Ministry of Tourism with two separate departments: tourism development and planning department and department for culture and heritage; Lack of coordination between the municipal administrations and the regional authorities;

Strategic (internal)

problems

Marketing- mix problems (internal)

National level

Regional Level

A national strategy for tourism development which was not approved by the professional organizations in the tourist sector. Need for better interaction and co- ordination between the government bodies and the National Institute for Cultural Heritage Monuments; No long-term regional tourism strategies; No strategic alliances/ partnerships for successful

No national identification;

product

Insufficient qualified staff in cultural tourism sector as part of the product; No national promotion of the heritage tourism product; No established brands of regions; Insufficient regional promotion activities;

The same conclusion was made from the survey research on the web marketing of the Bulgarian tourism destinations on the Black Sea Coast ( Anastassova, L. 2006)

regional marketing;

Local level

Lack of financial independence of the local authorities from the national government (need for decentralization with a new low for the local government);

Lack of marketing strategy of many heritage destinations; Lack of experts in cultural tourism management in the municipal administration of heritage destinations;

Lack of tourist information offices in many cities, townsheritage destinations; Lack of strong and well known brands of heritage destinations;

Conclusion In order to facilitate the process of positioning the country as a successful heritage destination on the international market, the government bodies and the organizations from the cultural and heritage tourism sector need to have in mind that the main issues and challenges of marketing heritage tourism at this moment in Bulgaria and other less developed countries in the region are: Establishment of strategic alliances or at least an effective partnerships between the government agencies and the private sector through its organizations The national Tourism Chamber and its branches, Associations of the tourism businesses on national and local level. As there is a lack of strategic approach in the heritage destination marketing and management there is an urgent need for establishment of destination marketing organizations or at least partnerships between the key stakeholder of the destination in order to develop destination marketing strategy for sustainable development. Establishment of a strong interaction and co-ordination between the marketing activities of the regional and local authorities in the countries; The municipality authorities of Bulgaria and Romania can play an important role in this development because they are the main beneficiaries of EU structural funds. Creation of network of heritage destinations on national level for joint promotional activities and successful implementation of the strategy for discovering, preservation, utilization and popularization of the cultural corridors in South- East Europe. Need for establishment of Ministry of Tourism with two separate departments : tourism development and planning department and heritage promotion and development and cultural events promotion. This Ministry should have much bigger budget for international tourism promotion during the period 2008-2013. The heritage destinations in Bulgaria and other less developed counties need to build strong destination brands in order to gain a competitive advantage on the international market. As far as the web marketing concerns there is a need for improvement of the interactivity, design and accessibility of the destinations websites. he destination marketing organizations should place on the destination websites targeted messages with tourists opinion based on positive experiences and feelings.

 The heritage destinations need to conduct regularly market research and to implement destination marketing strategies including a balance between cultural and commercial activities. Comprehending what tourists seek as cultural/heritage attractions will help tourism marketers better understand their customer. It is necessary for the heritage destinations to identify which attributes satisfy the tourist who visit cultural/heritage destinations which will help tourism planers and marketers develop appropriate strategies to attract and retain customers and serve them effectively. Some of the countries including Bulgaria need to improve their Law for tourism and the legal regulations of the heritage sites preservation and management; If the government agencies, the regional and local authorities and the cultural tourism sector in Bulgaria meet the identified problems and challenges by implementing successful marketing strategies with the appropriate high qualified human resources, they will turn cultural tourism sector in one of the most competitive sectors of the national economy and will launch Bulgaria as a strong and well- known cultural tourism brand. REFERENCES Anastassova, L. (2006). Web marketing of the Bulgarian destinations, 24th EuroChrie Congress, Proceedings, Thessaloniki Christou, E. (2006). Heritage tourism and visitor satisfaction: a marketing approach, International Symposium of Cultural and Heritage Tourism, Thessaloniki, Greeece Dahles, H. (1998). Redefining Amsterdam as a tourist destination, Annals of Tourism Research, 25 (1), pp. 55-69 Hall, M. (2004). Postsovereign Governance and Networks in a Globalizing World: implications for tourism, ATLAS conference, Naples, Vol. 1, p. 28 Jansson, K.J. (2007). Disabled access to the heritage destinations. Retrieved May 25th,2007, from Web site: http://cometravel.lincoln.ac.uk/papers/submissions.php Laws, E. (2003). Quality Management in Heritage Destinations. Retrieved April 29 th 2007, from Web site: http://ertr.tamu.edu/conferenceabstracts.cfm?abstractid=472 Laws, E. and G. Wen Pan (2004). Heritage sites as tourism assets for Asian pacific destinations: insights from ancient European tourism, in: Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 9 (3), pp. 267-280 Richards, G. (1997). Cultural Tourism in Europe.CAB International, Wallingford, p. 48 Richards, G. (2000) Cultural Tourism in Europe, CAB International, Wallingford, p. 24

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Stewart, E. J. Hayward, B.M. and Devlin, P.J. (1998). The Place of Interpretation: A new Approach to the Evaluation of interpretation, Tourism Management, 19 (3), pp. 257-66 Stokes, K. (2006). Heritage and Cultural Tourism as a Strategy to Lead Newport County Tourism, Retrieved April 20th, from Web site: http://www.newportchamber.com/readreview1.asp?ID=23 Tomka, D. (2004). How to overcome the lack of the network of cultural destinations on the tourist map of Serbia, in: Proceedings, ATLAS Annual conference, Naples, pp. 608-611 Treserras, J. (2001). Patrimonio, turismo y desarollo local: situacion y perspectives modelos de Gestion Cultural: Cuidad, PAtrimonio Cultural y Turismo,Federacion Espanola de Municipios y Provincias, Pamplona Varadarajan, P.R. and Cunningham, M.H. (2005). Strategic Alliances: a synthesis of conceptual foundations, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 23, No 4, pp. 282-296 Walle, A.H. (1996). Habits of thought and cultural tourism, Annals of Tourism Research, 23 (4, pp. 874-90) Zeppel, H. and Hall, C. (1992). Arts and heritage tourism, in Weiler, B. and Hall C. (eds), Special interest Tourism, London: Belhaven Annual report on the conditions and development of SMEs in Bulgaria. 2004 ICOMOS World Report 2002-3 on Monuments and Sites in Danger: Romania, Retrieved April 25th,2007, from Web site: http://www.international.icomos.org/risk/2002/index.html Tourism Trends for Europe, European Travel Commission, September, 2006

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