Abstract:
Heritage and cultural tourism (HCT) is currently one of the fastest growing fields in the
tourism domain. Tourism as a composite field of study has traditionally been located
within the economic and business management sector. However, due to the range of
social, political and ethical issues pertaining to heritage and cultural tourism, it can be
argued that it should be also located within a humanities context. After elucidating
certain key concepts, the paper will consider the interdisciplinary nature of tourism with
specific reference to the groundbreaking work of the leading international tourism
theorist John Tribe. The relevance of tourism and its relationship with the humanities
cluster of established disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, art, literature, history
and heritage will be discussed. It will become apparent that heritage and cultural tourism
is also locating itself within the domain of the humanities, despite efforts to dislocate it.
