"THE STORIES WE SELL": MARKETING HERITAGE TOURISM AT ASSISI ITALY (original) (raw)

For the summer semester of 2018 in the World Heritage Studies and Heritage Conservation and Site Management courses at Brandenburg University of Technology, we partook in a study project investigating how to market heritage sites as a tourism brand, with the World Heritage Property of Assisi, Italy, as the case study. Our project consisted of two phases, the first phase consisting of two parts - lectures based in Cottbus and preliminary research by a smaller group in their respective area of concentration, and then a week-long field trip to Assisi, where we attended stakeholder meetings, interviewed visitors and residents, and made observations. This field research was conducted jointly by all 15 students, with the aid of our two instructors. Each smaller group then summarized their work in a final written paper. The visitor analysis group - Carmen Jiang, Kenneth Mick, and Sylvia Biwerski - examined and analyzed the visitation data for Assisi. The results of our research are presented in this paper, authored by Jiang and Mick.