Evaluating the Sustainability of Heritage Tourism and Historic Preservation in New Bern, North Carolina

Abstract

After nearly a half century of suburbanization, economic development specialists and urban planners have begun to appreciate the unique aesthetic and heritage landscapes of underutilized downtown areas as potential geographic spaces for economic growth. Consequently, fostering heritage tourism and recreation industries that take advantage of these unique spaces has become a cornerstone of many downtown redevelopment plans. A growing pool of literature on the subject of sustainable tourism has noted that heritage tourism is ideologically and institutionally different from other forms of the industry, as concepts of long term planning, cultural awareness and resource conservation are important to both tourism sustainability and heritage management. While there is an increasingly diverse collection of literature available on the subject of sustainable urban heritage tourism, there is greater need for more studies of this unique type of tourism in a market environment, and to assess the degree to which heritage tourism and historic preservation are sustainable as a viable industry according to information gathered through chiefly qualitative methods. This thesis focuses specifically on the socio-cultural sustainability of heritage tourism and historic preservation in the area of downtown New Bern, North Carolina. Interpretation and presentation of preservation and heritage are applied selectively, and there is dissonance and disagreement amongst certain groups concerning the role of tourism in New Bern. Nevertheless, qualitative research shows that community support, economic diversity, long term management, and conservation of the built and natural environment qualify New Bern's urban heritage tourism industry as more sustainable than tourism industries elsewhere.