What is success in cultural heritage tourism

Much of the literature on cultural heritage tourism is focused on the inherent tensions between conservation and tourism. Highlighted conflicts include the restrictions and high costs imposed by conservation and the potentially damaging impacts of visitors on heritage sites. These tensions are perceived and portrayed as an underlying factor in the potential failure of many cultural heritage tourism businesses. A number of studies have been commissioned to address these concerns and ensure the success of the Australian cultural heritage tourism sector. However, this paper suggests that these studies, too, are characterised by an entrenched business - conservation dichotomy. Consequently the suggestions and guidelines offered to cultural heritage tourism operators and managers fail to develop new insights that might assist in more effective outcomes for cultural heritage tourism. I suggest that a more complex understanding of what success means within cultural heritage tourism might benefit the sector by recognising it as a unique enterprise with its own particularities and needs.