The Role of Heritage Tourism in developing tourism demand in Alexandria : Case Study - The House of Sayed Darwish in Kom Al-Dikka Heritage Area

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Tourist Guidance - Faculty of Tourism and Hotels - Alexandria University

2 Department of Tourism Studies - Faculty of Tourism and Hotels - Alexandria University

Abstract

Heritage is everything inherited through generations, whether materialistic things (as sites and monuments), or moral things as (beliefs, traditions, morals, thoughts, or life styles). Through the last three centuries, heritage have been tightly related to tourism industry and regarded as an essential motive for heritage preservation. This, of course, reflected on the diversion of several heritage sources into traditional tourism products, and thus led to the appearance of a new kind of tourism called "Heritage Tourism". In fact, Alexandria includes a great number of traditional hereditary sources that can be consumed in the field of Heritage Tourism, nevertheless, the city suffers from an obvious decrease in its share in the total incoming international tourism demand, whether in its percentage of share in the number of tourists (2%) or in its percentage of share in tourism nights (0.9%), with regard to the statistics year 2006. Theoretically, the present study aims at getting acquainted with the descriptive side of the heritage in Alexandria and its role in the revival of cultural tourism in the city. It also aims at getting acquainted with the traditional hereditary life in Alexandria which will definitely participate in developing tourism request in the city. Practically, the study aims at studying one of the most important traditional hereditary districts in Alexandria (The House of The musician Sayyed Darweesh in Kom El-Dekka). The study aims at studying the elements of heritage tourism related to this district and the size of tourism request that it shares with in the total tourism demand in Alexandria 2001 -2006. The case study supports both the theoretical and the practical sides of the present study. Actually, the present study relied on the analysis of a number of implemented international tourism programs (category A), to point out the importance of Alexandria as a main tourist sight, and to give special importance to the district in concern. Finally, the study presents a number of applicable suggestions and recommendations to the formal institutes related to tourism industry in Egypt in order to achieve the extreme benefit from the case study that might reflect positively on the development of tourism demand in Alexandria.