ABSTRACT
Cataloguing represents the first small step in the road to successful product development: it helps to narrow the selection as not all cultural assets have the potential to become products. As a case in point, Sakharchuk et al. (2013) indicated that Moscow alone has more than 400 museums, 200 galleries and exhibition halls, 129 theatres, 60 architectural and park ensembles, 14 theme parks, and more than 300 objects of cultural interest and, when extended to the region in its immediate environs, there are more than 6,400 sites of cultural and historical heritage, including 2,600 monuments, 1,400 churches, chapels and monasteries, 341 homesteads, and 350 monuments of military glory. They suggest this volume of cultural assets results in significant potential for the development of cultural tourism. But such a conclusion is naive for, in reality, few of these assets likely have much real tourism potential. Documenting helps, but documenting without a goal in mind accomplishes little other than building impressive lists. The question now becomes what to do with this information? A systematic evaluation protocol is needed to distinguish potential tourism products from the vast array of cultural assets. (See Plate 12.1). This chapter presents a two-step evaluation model. The first step assesses whether assets satisfy a progressive set of criteria that are necessary to be considered as products. Failure at any one stage precludes progression to the next stage unless and until the cause of the failure can be resolved. The second step then evaluates this information in a more holistic manner to identify if and where candidate assets fit into the tourism product hierarchy, and offer insights into the level of appropriate use for tourism, while also helping to identify management actions.
