Cultural Heritage Tourism and Outdoor Historical Drama: A Model for Cohesive Development

Outdoor historical drama is a unique form of theatre that focuses largely on attracting a tourist audience. Such dramas are integral to the tourism economies of some small towns, and can be a successful tourism offering if developed and managed thoughtfully. The purpose of this paper is to create a model for cohesively developing outdoor historical dramas as an offering for tourists, legitimizing the concept of outdoor historical drama as a form of tourism. Through a review of existing literature and data, a case study, and a model survey, the paper seeks to bring together disparate fields in an interdisciplinary approach to tourism planning that allows communities to share culturally relevant heritage stories with tourists. This paper is the first of its kind in the tourism and hospitality field, and research on outdoor historical drama is extremely limited. This innovative approach seeks to combine two distinctly American movements and unite them in an effort to create a practical tool for communities interested in developing outdoor historical dramas as a form of cultural heritage tourism. It also offers recommendation for further work in this field