The Role of ICT on Cultural Heritage Tourism: a Case Study
The purpose of this study is to discuss the role of ICT in cultural heritage tourism through a case study of the Hiraizumi world heritage site in Japan that was registered in 2011. As it promotes tourism through the world heritage registration, Hiraizumi is operating on the major premise that it will safeguard its cultural heritage while also placing importance on developing systems for accepting a diverse range of tourists using the universal design perspective. When doing so there are limits to facility refurbishment and infrastructure development so the town focused its attention on support for information aspects, or in other words support using ICT. Going forward as individual travel becomes more mainstream the ways in which new value is created in Hiraizumi tourism are likely to include (1) transmission of the value of the cultural heritage in collaboration with researchers and (2) development of tourist areas in which excursions on foot are possible. We discuss the possibilities for utilization of ICT in these measures and the utility of the participatory design approach.