The original publication of The Tourist-Historic City in 1990 reflected the growing importance of heritage to cities, and cities to the creation and marketing of heritage products, not least within tourism. In response to the continuing rapid growth of interest in this field, the concepts and models it introduced have subsequently been applied by urban planners and tourism managers in many different contexts throughout the world. This extensively rewritten and restructured account of the tourist-historic city takes into consideration the importance of these applications in reformulating and modifying theoretical concepts, developing practical methods of analysis and policy formulation, as well as extending the geographical scope worldwide. Changes in the last decade include not only the growing importance of heritage and associated heritage industries serving many social, political and economic users, but also the expanding role of cultural products within tourism. In addition, the opening up of central and eastern Europe and the export of heritage ideas from western cities to a wider world have emphasised the tension between a globalisation and a localisation of heritage and its expression in the tourist-historic city.
In addition to detailed reworking of conceptual and case material, this book reviews theoretical developments triggered by or otherwise related to the original, extends the arguments into the post-Communist world, and more generally develops them with respect to countries most affected by the 1990s political transformations. The result is a review of the state of urban heritage tourism at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the light of theextraordinary developments during the preceding decade, and of its prospects for the years to come.

From museums and the preservation of old buildings to broader questions of community and identity, heritage is now a political issue. This book explores what heritage means now heritage is big business and how it is used to encourage people to identify with particular places and 'traditions', now it is entangled with capitalism. Examining a range of questions, including the way contemporary societies use heritage in the creation and management of collective identities, and how heritage is involved with the complexities of multicultural societies. As resources are poured into heritage and questions of identity enter into public discourse, this book shows how the heritage industry is used politically and commercially to shape the ways people represent themselves, and are represented, in diverse and hybrid societies.