Strategic marketing planning for heritage tourism planning: An insight into community participation in Northern Ireland

The marketing of heritage tourism is unavoidably linked with a range of stakeholders, including local communities, businesses and government. The effective marketing of heritage tourism must take a strategic approach, which is underpinned by effective stakeholder engagement, including appropriate methods of community participation. This research investigates levels of community participation in two heritage based regions in Northern Ireland, taking a case study approach and using the in-depth interview for data collection. Key findings suggest that community participation is not effective, for several reasons. As a result, tourism providers engage in independent collaborations, because the approach taken to strategic marketing planning consistently fails, in terms of achieving implementation.