Archaeotourism, Archaeological Site Preservation, and Local Communities

Abstract

As the popularity of heritage tourism and archaeotourism grows, archaeologists and site managers have to consider the behavior and needs of tourists and tour operators when making decisions about how a site should be preserved and presented. As tourism and archaeology draw closer together, several issues need to be considered. These include assessing how tourism will impact the archaeological site and affect research decisions, determining who controls the development of the site for tourism and who will benefit from the results, and, of critical importance, the issue of how local communities will be engaged with the process. The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) has been involved with this issue on several fronts. In 2009, the AIA in collaboration with the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) created a set of guidelines both for people interested in organizing tours to archaeological sites and for those interested in visiting sites. The ATTA, a membership organization for companies in the travel trade industry, makes the guidelines available to its more than 1000 members, and the AIA requires all participants in AIA tours to receive a copy of the guidelines. In addition to creating the guidelines, the AIA through its Site Preservation Program works with organizations and projects around the world that are considering opening archaeological sites to tourism, training local community members as site stewards and tour guides, and providing education and outreach to both local communities and visitors. In this chapter, the authors discuss the issues and ideas that have emerged from these efforts and present a series of models and practices that are being employed at archaeological sites around the world.