Dissonant heritage in tourism promotion : certified tourism products in Poland

Purpose. The aim of this article is to present how different attractions, after having been certified as 'The Best Tourism Product' by the Polish Tourist Organization, become, to some extent, accepted as heritage. In other words, the paper examines how the system of certification supports the process of heritage commodification. Method. Qualitative research. Multimodal analysis was applied to investigate verbal and visual sources: descriptions, photographs and other graphic elements of the catalogues published by the Polish Tourist Organization, as well as websites presenting in detail tourism products which have received awards. Findings. Analysis of the gathered research material reveals the methods of (re)interpreting heritage in tourism promotion. Research and conclusions limitations. The research is a typical case study, which sheds light on cultural phenomenon, but cannot provide any general theory on heritage interpretation. We have limited the focus of the study to the Polish context. Furthermore, the heritage commodification is a very dynamic process, therefore it needs further exploration which would take new tourism products appearing in the region into consideration. Practical implications. The analysis provides potential avenues of enquiry adopting the perspective that heritage must be investigated in a performative context. It opens a discussion on how the Polish heritage is shaped and which stakeholders participate in this process. The awareness of the fact that discourse authorized by institutions shapes a preferred interpretation in which the values considered important for a given section of society are displayed, may be helpful for the different stakeholders who participate in the process of heritage commodification. Originality. The article adopts the concept of dissonance in heritage interpretation to the Polish context. The case study highlights the thesis that practice definitely overtakes theory when we weigh up the issues concerning the creation of heritage. Type of paper. The paper is based on the empirical research