Cultural Heritage Tourism - Opportunities for Product Development: The Barcelona Case

A theoretical framework and a practical case is presented, which introduce a new methodology for the creation of tourism products based on cultural heritage. After discussing selected definitions of cultural tourism, a first approach towards classifying cultural heritage based tourism is defined. The author emphasizes that one of the most crucial component of tourism development is policy, which has been analysed in order to shed light on the most important issues related to it. Thus, a conceptual chart on the creation of tourism products is drafted, outlining the elements that have to be taken into consideration in order to successfully stimulate 'cultural consumption' or exchange between hosts and guests. A case study shows the opportunities to create new tourism products using cultural heritage resources: "Barcelona's Cultural Identity Itinerary", which is based on cultural centres and associations as the basic cultural resources, but also includes among others, museums, art galleries, historic sites and monuments within the itinerary.