Ninth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

Today’s university-aged students have signaled a paradigm-shifting interest in experiential-based learning versus a passive engagement with the world. Heritage tourism in general must react to this movement away from conventional learning practices towards immersive experience. Similar shifts are afoot in the larger worlds of major-league sports and the fine arts, where data demonstrate that the end user is increasingly driven by a yen for experience as opposed to passive consuming, say, a ballet or the wares on display in a museum. In addition to citing current research, this paper draws upon existing tourism practices in Liverpool in order to demonstrate the ways in which heritage tourism can take advantage of this paradigm shift, thereby developing new means of providing heightened intellectual experience and “edutainment” in the delivery of a future-oriented, experiential tourism.