Hillbilly skits to Buford sticks : sustainable heritage tourism in Tennessee /

Abstract

This research frames the current Tennessee sustainable tourism initiative in the context of the increasingly overlapping fields of public history, folklore, and recreation. These fields often cover similar territory, but do not always engage in dialogue outside their disciplines. By delving into what each field has to offer, who can inform the development of the upcoming field of sustainable heritage tourism. Currently sustainable tourism is dominated by the "green" industry and ecological disciplines, but there is an increasing need for the insight that scholars of public history have to offer. Moving beyond an academic study, public historians need to move towards implementation and become a part of the larger discourse of best practices in tourism.

While there is a growing body of literature on the history of tourism and the history of specific heritage tourism projects, cross-disciplinary works that incorporate the fields of public history, folklore, and recreation into a discussion on sustainable tourism currently exist only in the gray literature. Just as this study will help to define sustainable tourism in terms of more than just environmental sustainability, it will provide insight into how a state-wide program can successfully support a diverse range of projects using specific examples from divergent geographic and demographic areas of Tennessee.