**2.4. Significance of the interaction between cultural tourism and cultural heritage**

On the one hand, cultural tourism gives the background and meaning to the existing heritage institutions. On the other hand, it causes threat to their existence. In fact, the main task is to find the balance between heritage and cultural tourism.

Most often, the experts in the management of cultural tourism and cultural heritage act separately. The dialogue between them seems not to be taking place even when there are common interests. Instead of working together and producing really good products they collaborate too little.

The world tourism organisation claims that the specialists of cultural tourism and heritage might make an agreement useful to both sides. Thus, the objects of heritage would receive necessary financing for their restoration and become available for tourists, and cultural tourism would become fully meaningful: it would evoke the feeling of discovery, intercultural knowledge and initiate the spiritual richness of a personality.

The development of cultural tourism is one of the main reasons for heritage protection. The facts state that sooner or later some objects of heritage (for instance, Lithuanian mansions or parks), if they are not available for tourists and a wide society, get ruined. They are damaged by people and various natural phenomena. The heritage that does not bring any economic profit is not restored and looked after. In this case, the local community loses respect for the local cultural values and symbols. On the other hand, the objects of heritage that are applied for cultural tourism are restored and looked after. The managers of heritage take care that the objects are properly presented to the society. The means obtained from cultural tourism are used for their maintenance and repair. However, the main benefit received from cultural tourism is that it gives an opportunity to get acquainted with the history of a country and/or a particular locality, which most probably they would not ever come across. In such a way, the image of a locality or a state/country is constructed. R. Dapkus posits that cultural heritage is one of the essential elements of the image and development of the country or region [27]. Cultural tourism is also claimed to be an important factor for the protection of cultural traditions. More than that, cultural tourism may improve the quality of life. It should be stressed that visiting very important cultural, historical and natural places is strictly controlled: various restrictions have been determined, and the schemes of the locality management have been worked out.

## **2.5. Culture tourism industry**

In 1969, during a conference in Brussels, the declaration of cultural tourism was adopted [28]. This document encouraged to accept the Helsinki declaration (1996) on cultural heritage in Europe. These documents were the first to identify cultural tourism as a separate part of the tourism industry.

Nevertheless, the world has not agreed on a common and universally recognised definition. ICOMOS recommends that cultural tourism is defined by the importance of tourism, tourist motivation, experience and purpose so that we can see a full set of elements of cultural tourism, which will reveal how to interrelate tourism and heritage.

Cultural tourism is very much related to the specific needs of tourists because the desire to explore, try other authentic cultures, examine artefacts of extinct cultures, and aims to feel the "other" cultures is a very important reason. So, one can argue that cultural tourism is a purposeful journey during which the tourists get acquainted not only with the other party's cultural environment (heritage, lifestyle, traditions, customs, values, history, art, etc.), but also actively participate in various cultural events that provide new experiences and excitement [2]. Cultural tourists must travel through the land in order to have the opportunity to observe and understand the changes in human activities and natural resources over time and access nature in the region [28].

National or regional cultural tourism development has been driven by economic factors. The economic impact of cultural tourism relies on earned income. K. Meethan [29] argues that cultural tourism, unlike other forms of tourism and development tools, has one unique advantage – this form of business requires relatively low capital investment and generates much higher return – the local production increases because of tourism activities closely related to other economic branches.

Foreign tourists enjoy the supply created by local businesses, use natural resources and pay for utility services, etc. All of these have a positive effect on the local economy. Tourist spending increases domestic trading volumes, financial revenues, creating jobs, helping to collect more taxes and encouraging other economic activities. Foreign tourist expenditure-based economy can be regarded as a real proof that tourism has a significant impact on economic growth (**Figure 4**).

**Figure 4.** Tourism impact on economy growth. Source: reference 25.

As it can be seen, the basic elements of tourism supply are the capital investments, increasing labour productivity, efficient use of sites and innovative technologies. As a result, tourism is seen as highly capital-intensive economic activities. This causes the complex structure of tourism: tourism development cannot be separated from the overall national economic development because the investment in tourism is closely related to investments in other sectors of the economy [30]. So, tourism is becoming more economically important in promot‐ ing the development of structurally weaker regions. Therefore, cultural tourism development should be encouraged because of its specific advantages, especially in environment, transport, agriculture, local business, culture, education and scientific fields.
