[Special Contribution] “Tourism × Museums” — The Potential of Museums to Foster Tourism Rooted in Local Natural and Cultural Heritage

1. The Potential of Museums for Tourism: Japan’s Initiatives in the Middle East and Jordan

What exactly is the potential of museums for tourism? When people think of museums and tourism, many likely first imagine museums that have become tourist attractions or visitor destinations—such as the British Museum or the Louvre—which display famous works of art and attract large numbers of tourists.However, this article focuses on the tourism potential of so-called regional museums (*1) (museums that focus on a specific region, collecting, researching, and preserving its natural and cultural heritage, exhibiting these assets, and conveying their value through educational outreach activities) (*2).

As an example, I would like to examine the Petra Museum in Jordan, in the Middle East, where support is currently being provided through JICA’s “Project for the Formulation of a Master Plan for Tourism Development in Petra” (*3)—a project that Japan has long supported and which is currently being commissioned by JTB Tourism Research & Consulting, and in which I have also been involved.

In Jordan, a country in the Middle East where archaeological sites reflecting diverse historical and cultural heritage remain as a crossroads of civilizations, the tourism industry, which utilizes natural and cultural heritage, has become a major industry supporting the national economy and local communities.In supporting Jordan’s tourism sector—which is vital to the country’s socio-economy—as part of Japan’s development assistance, one approach that has been pursued involves supporting tourism through museums. This involves surveying, researching, and preserving the natural and cultural heritage of regions that serve as tourism resources, while introducing them to tourists through exhibitions, thereby making museums the gateway to regional tourism.Since the early 2000s, efforts have focused on the “Jordan Museum,” newly established in the capital Amman to showcase the country’s history and culture, as well as the “Sarth Historical and Folklore Museum,” located in the Old City of Sarth—a site inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2021—where many traditional stone buildings remain.the “Sart History and Folklore Museum”—housed in a renovated historic mansion in the Old City of Sart (*4), which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2021 and showcases the modern and contemporary history and folklore of the Old City—as well as the “Sart Ecomuseum,” which treats the entire town as a museum with this museum at its core and networks local cultural heritage sites;Additionally, the "Karak Archaeological Museum," a regional museum in the historic fortress city of Karak in southern Jordan—a site of fierce battles between the Crusaders and Islam—and the "Dead Sea Museum," which introduces the natural and cultural heritage of the Dead Sea region, are among several museums that have been newly established or renovated with Japanese support through JICA, with the aim of promoting tourism rooted in natural and cultural heritage (*5).Building on these museum and tourism initiatives, the Petra Museum construction project was also launched in 2013 through a grant aid program for cultural cooperation (*6).

2. The Regional Story Told by the Petra Museum: Focusing on the History and Culture of the Nabataean Kingdom (*7)

The ruins of the ancient city of Petra are located in southern Jordan, approximately 240 kilometers from Amman. As Jordan’s premier cultural heritage site and tourist destination, Petra attracts over one million visitors annually (*8).Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, the site is also famous for the appearance of the “Treasury (Al-Khazneh)”—part of the ruins—in the film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” The Petra Museum is a newly constructed museum located at the entrance to the Petra Archaeological Park, which opened in 2019.The museum, which primarily displays archaeological artifacts excavated from the Petra ruins and the surrounding area, serves not only as a site museum attached to the Petra Archaeological Park but also as a regional museum covering the history and culture of the entire Petra region. Its permanent exhibition spans tens of thousands of years, from the dawn of history in the Petra region to the present day; however, its core focus is the history and culture of the Nabataean Kingdom, which built the ancient city of Petra approximately two thousand years ago.

Originally a nomadic people, the Nabataeans prospered by engaging in the trade of fragrances such as frankincense and myrrh, as well as bitumen from the Dead Sea, via the caravan routes stretching from the southern Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean, and thus established the Nabataean Kingdom. The ancient city of Petra, located at a key point along these trade routes and known to the Nabataeans as “Rakhm,” served as the capital of this kingdom, which reached its peak between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE.

The narrative of regional history presented in the permanent exhibition at the Petra Museum begins by unraveling the relationship between water and the people of Petra—a city that was a direct product of the Nabataeans’ exceptional hydraulic engineering. The Nabataeans supported the prosperity of Petra through a network of waterways stretching several kilometers, consisting of countless earthenware pipes that channeled water from springs scattered around Petra into the city; flood control measures such as dams and diversion tunnels; and the use of reservoirs to store rainwater. The story of the Nabataeans in Petra, which begins with water, explores the Nabataean religious culture—a fusion of the ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian worlds with the belief systems of the Arabian Peninsula—as well as their views on life and death as seen in rock-cut tombs, the royal authority of the Nabataean Kingdom, trade routes and goods that stretched from India to the Mediterranean world ,the Nabataean script—the origin of the Arabic language—as well as the Nabataeans’ living spaces and lifestyles, and Nabataean pottery crafted with sophisticated techniques.  The exhibition is structured by combining archaeological materials excavated from sites in the Petra region corresponding to each story with explanations via touch panels and graphic displays, videos featuring 3D computer-generated reconstructions of the sites’ past appearances, and life-size models depicting ancient funeral rites and residences.

While the permanent exhibition centers on Petra in the Nabataean Kingdom, it also traces back thousands of years before the Nabataean Kingdom and Petra were established,including Neolithic settlements near Petra where traces of humanity’s transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture—through the domestication of wheat and goats—can be seen, as well as the Kingdom of Edom, which flourished in the region around Petra approximately 3,000 years ago and is mentioned in the Old Testament. It also depicts the history following the Nabataean Kingdom, tracing how Petra gradually transformed from a global hub of trade into a local rural settlement as it underwent the annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom by the Roman Empire in the first half of the 2nd century, followed by the Byzantine Empire, the arrival of Islam, and the Crusades. Furthermore, the exhibition discusses the folk culture of the Petra region, which has inherited part of the Nabataean cultural heritage and has been designated as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage site under the name “The Cultural Space of the Bedouin of Petra and Wadi Rum” (*9). The exhibition as a whole tells the complete history of the formation and development of the regional ecosystem, shaped by the interaction between the people who lived in the Petra region and the local natural environment, with various stories unfolding within that framework.

While Petra is visually familiar to many people due to the magnificent appearance of the Treasury, the reality is that its history and culture are not widely known. It is also difficult to say that the ancient Nabataean Kingdom, which built the city of Petra, is widely known to the general public; even in museum exhibitions in Europe and the United States, it is rarely featured compared to ancient Egypt or ancient Mesopotamia. The Petra Museum sheds light on these lesser-known aspects of Petra.

3. Museum Exhibits That Convey the Diverse Stories of Regional Tourism

It is often said that exhibitions are the face of a museum. However, what regional museums represent through their exhibitions is the unique face of the region’s history and culture—a face shaped by the long-standing interaction between the local people and the natural environment. This is not a face with a single expression, but rather a multifaceted face with diverse expressions. Conveying these diverse facets of the region’s unique history and culture through exhibitions is believed to lead to the diversification of regional tourism narratives.

At the Petra Museum, exhibits convey a variety of stories, including the Nabataeans’ exceptional water management, the trade that sustained their kingdom, the Nabataean script that gave rise to the Arabic language, the Neolithic era preceding the Nabataeans, the kingdoms mentioned in the Bible, and the Roman Empire and Crusades that followed the Nabataeans. Furthermore, there are cultural heritage sites—such as the ruins scattered throughout the Petra region corresponding to each story and the artifacts displayed in the museum—that support these narratives. It is believed that the museum’s efforts to convey these diverse stories of the Petra region’s history and culture through its exhibitions will contribute to the diversification of tourism in the area.

One of the major challenges currently facing Petra Archaeological Park is the excessive concentration of tourists in certain parts of the site—such as the walkway from the “Wadi” (the canyon that serves as the site’s main approach) to the Treasury, made famous by the movie—raising concerns about the strain this places on the site. Currently, only certain parts of the site, such as the Treasury, are visually familiar to many people, leading to a concentration of tourists at these famous attractions. However, if tourists become aware of the diverse stories within the region’s history and culture, they will begin to visit not only the Petra ruins but also the tourist sites scattered throughout the surrounding area. This would not only alleviate the burden on the ruins but also help distribute the benefits of tourism across the region. This is one of the goals currently being considered for the future of tourism in Petra. It is expected that the Petra Museum’s exhibits, by presenting the region’s diverse stories, will contribute to steering tourism in this direction.

4. Museums as the Core of Regional Tourism: Networking with Local Natural and Cultural Heritage

In promoting tourism based on the diverse stories of the region’s history and culture, it is important to network the region’s natural and cultural heritage sites with the museum based on these stories. This shift moves away from treating the museum and individual heritage sites as isolated “points” of interest and instead develops tourism that encompasses the entire region as a “network.” A representative example of this approach to creating a networked region, as has been attempted in Japan and around the world, is the “Ecomuseum.”In an ecomuseum, where the entire region—organically linked through its history and culture—is regarded as a “museum,” the key elements include: the museum serving as the “core” for researching, preserving, and exhibiting local resources; natural and cultural heritage sites scattered throughout the region acting as “satellites”; and “discovery trails” that connect the core and satellites according to specific themes, forming actual tourist routes (*10).Similarly, the “Japan Heritage” initiative, which has been expanding across Japan in recent years under the leadership of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, employs a similar approach (*11). In the Japan Heritage program, a narrative related to history and culture is established, and various heritage sites both within and outside the region that are connected to this shared narrative are networked as constituent elements. There are cases where museum collections are incorporated as part of these constituent elements (*12), as well as cases where museums function as core centers within the Japan Heritage network (*13).

In Jordan, at museums supported by Japan, efforts have been made to use the ecomuseum approach, with the museum serving as the nucleus, to network surrounding cultural heritage sites via trails, aiming to create tourism that encompasses an “area.”For example, in the Old City of Sarat, a “Whole-Town Museum” (Sarat Ecomuseum) plan was proposed as part of tourism development. With the Sarat History and Folklore Museum—housed in a renovated historic building in the heart of the old town—as the core, trails were established to connect scattered cultural heritage sites, such as traditional architectural complexes, and guided tours led by local guides were introduced.

The Petra Museum, drawing inspiration from ecomuseums and Japan Heritage initiatives, is considering an approach that uses the museum as a hub to connect cultural heritage sites—including the archaeological ruins scattered throughout the surrounding area—into trails based on various narratives, as illustrated in Figure 1.For example, under the theme “The Nabataeans and Water,” the plan involves linking the museum’s exhibits on Petra and water with the remains of Nabataean-era reservoirs and waterways found within and around the Petra ruins, as well as the springs that served as water sources and the cultural landscapes of traditional farmland irrigated by spring water. We are also considering a trail based on the story of “Nabatean Trade,” which would link the museum’s exhibits and artifacts related to trade with the ruins that served as caravan trading hubs, as well as sections of the ancient trade routes that passed through Petra. Through these trails, we envision the Petra Museum and the region’s heritage being linked by the various stories presented at the museum, thereby fostering a holistic approach to tourism.

5. Conclusion

This paper has provided an overview of the author’s thoughts on the relationship between museums and tourism, developed through trial and error in connection with the Petra Museum. For a museum to serve as the core of tourism, its role extends beyond simply introducing the region’s natural and cultural heritage. The museum’s central role is first and foremost the research, study, and preservation of natural and cultural heritage, which serves as the foundation for constructing narratives related to the region’s history and culture. To achieve this, curators and an operational structure that supports curatorial work are essential. Furthermore, it will be important to strengthen ties with the local community through educational outreach and other activities; to raise awareness of local history and culture among residents, particularly the younger generation who will shape the future of society; and to build partnerships between tourism stakeholders and museums. As I reflect on the relationship between museums and tourism, I am coming to recognize these points anew.
 

<Reference>

*1 The potential of regional museums has been discussed previously in columns by JTB Tourism Research & Consulting.
Mayuko Kono, 2014, “Reconsidering the Value of Regional Museums: From ‘Resident Participation’ to the Next Step,” JTB Tourism Research & Consulting Column (accessed March 10, 2023)

*2 In considering the potential of museums and tourism, the following sources were consulted:
Hiroshi Nakamura and Yutaka Aoki (eds.), 2016, *Museums as Tourism Resources*, Fuyo Shobo Publishing; Yutaka Aoki, Hiroshi Nakamura, Kimihide Maekawa, and Tomoko Ochiai (eds.), 2018, *Museums and Tourism: A Theory of Museums as Social Resources*, Yuzankaku

*3 “Project to Formulate a Master Plan for Tourism Development in Petra” (JICA ODA Visualization Site, accessed March 10, 2023)

*4 UNESCO World Heritage Site “Sart: A Place of Tolerance and Urban Hospitality” (accessed March 10, 2023)

*5 Koji Oyama, 2008, “Support Activities for the Establishment of Museums in Jordan,” in Shingo Hidaka and Naoko Sonoda (eds.), *Challenges in Museum Development: What Was Achieved and to What Extent*, Miyoshi Kikaku

*6 Petra Museum Construction Project (JICA ODA Visualization Site, accessed March 10, 2023)

*7 For information on the Petra Museum, I referred to the “Petra Museum Guidebook: Japanese Edition” (supervised by the author; JICA, Petra Development and Tourism Authority, Petra Museum, 2021), as well as the official Petra Museum website (accessed March 10, 2023).

*8 According to statistical data released by the Petra Tourism Development Authority (see the link below to the “Visit Petra” website, accessed March 10, 2023), 1,135,300 people visited Petra Archaeological Park annually in 2019, before tourist numbers declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

*9 Inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008 (accessed March 10, 2023)

*10 “About Ecomuseums” on the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology website (accessed March 10, 2023)

*11 “About Japan Heritage” on the Agency for Cultural Affairs website (accessed March 10, 2023)

*12 For example, in the Japan Heritage site “‘What on Earth Is This?’ Flame-shaped Pottery of the Shinano River Basin and the Culture of the Snow Country,” Jomon pottery materials held by the Tokamachi City Museum are included among the constituent cultural properties.
Japan Heritage “‘What on Earth Is This?’ Flame-shaped Pottery of the Shinano River Basin and the Culture of the Snow Country” website (accessed March 10, 2023)

*13 Examples include the “Kuwato Japan Heritage Center: Hachioji Museum” in the Japan Heritage “Spirit-Filled Mount Takao: The Story of Kuwato Woven by People’s Prayers.” Kuwato Japan Heritage Center: Hachioji Museum (Japan Heritage Portal Site, accessed March 10, 2023)