Cultural heritage and tourism at Angkor, Cambodia : developing a theoretical dialogue

This paper explores cultural heritage and tourism as interconnected socio-cultural industries. It addresses a concern that cultural heritage and tourism are often regarded as separate worlds, and certainly separate realms of enquiry. This conceptual separation means that tourism policies often focus on statistics, infrastructureor tourist facilities. While these areas undoubtedly require careful consideration, this article suggests that an understanding of tourism in relation to cultural heritage needs to move far beyond such material, logistical issues. Accordingly, the paper offers five analytical themes, which together explore the interconnections between tourism and cultural heritage. Far from exhaustive, the five sections presented here highlight a number of reasons why it is vital to theoretically examine tourism and cultural heritage as mutually constitutive socio-cultural industries.