Lessons from the Field: Heritage Tourism and the Experience Economy in Kyoto

 Focusing on research from my recent book Kyoto Revisited, I will discuss how this city sought to market experiences of heritage—history and culture—to both domestic and international tourists from roughly 2012-2020 and how they have tried to continue the experiential turn in the face of Covid. In the end, heritage tourism in Kyoto today demonstrates how the past is mobilized in constructing the identity of the city itself, how that identity shapes understandings of contemporary Japan for domestic and international travelers, and how tourist desires and experiences in Kyoto speak to broader trends in our contemporary moment in which experiencing heritage can feel like an anchor in precarious times. I will end by thinking a bit about the unexpected ways this research about branding history and culture in the experience economy in Kyoto guides my thinking at Valpo today.