Summer 2006
Tourism News

Partners in Tourism: Culture and Commerce is a coalition of cultural service organizations, the travel industry, and federal agencies that provides a forum for collaborative research, education, promotion and advocacy with the common goal of advancing the role of culture and heritage in the travel and tourism industry.

8th Cultural & Heritage Tourism Alliance Conference Set
November 8-11, 2006

Culture is the Spark is the theme of the 8th Cultural & Heritage Tourism Alliance Conference set for November 8-11 in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Cultural Heritage Tourism News is published by

© 2005 Partners in Tourism: Culture and Commerce

Editor: Carolyn Brackett

Assistant Editors: Kimber Craine, Verna Romero & Amy Webb

GOT NEWS? Send program updates, new initiatives and case studies to cht@nthp.org

“Doors Open” Opens Opportunities: Promoting Heritage Assets to Local Residents

By Suzanne Copping
National Park Service, National Heritage Areas Washington Office

What is Doors Open?

Local places, from art deco theatres to one-room school houses, hold special memories and have special meaning for many people.  Connecting or reconnecting with a familiar place can be a pleasant and unexpected experience.  But local places are often overlooked by residents who habitually travel to attractions outside their region during their free time.  For these residents, local places hold untapped opportunity as tourist destinations.

Now cities and regions across the United States are providing new opportunities for residents to connect with familiar places in new ways, as a tourist would.  Cities and regions are coordinating weekend events to provide the public with free access to numerous cultural, historic and natural sites.  These events feature costumed interpretation, special programming such as guided and self-guided walks, and opportunities to see sites and features usually closed to the public.  Sometimes called “Doors Open” or “Open Days” after those which have been occurring in cities and towns across Canada and Europe for years, the events are marketed primarily to local residents and feature both well-known and less familiar attractions. 

The Doors Open concept is catching on around the country for a number of reasons in addition to the obvious economic benefits.  Local organizers in cities, regions, and states from Denver to Maine are realizing that giving residents a chance to experience their local resources in new ways and to think of them as assets enables them to connect with those assets in ways that ensure their long-term viability. This makes residents more likely to become advocates or stewards for the preservation and conservation of these resources. Turning residents into tourists in their own backyards means that communities benefit from local money being spent in the local economy.  Residents’ close proximity to event sites means that they are able to easily return to sites with family and guests. Emotionally connecting with a place during a site visit can prompt them to join the supporting organization or volunteer at the site. Doors Open events showcase the economic and non-economic return investment that heritage resources provide to communities. 

Doors Open events can also connect local leaders with their region’s history. When governments, businesses, and non-profits collaborate to highlight their shared regional assets, the process increases awareness among the local leadership of the values of those assets, which contribute to quality of life as well as economic benefits. A successful partnership effort can also lead to better communication on other issues of shared concern. Doors Open events capitalize on the connections that shared experiences create between people and place to turn citizens and leaders into advocates for the protection and care of local cultural, historic and recreational resources. 

The Concept in Europe

The Doors Open concept is also called “Heritage Open Days” in Europe.  The first Doors Open event was held in Scotland in 1990.  A European program was formally established in 1993 by the Council of Europe to “bring people closer to their cultural heritage by throwing open the doors to historic monuments and buildings – preferably those which are usually either closed or are only partly accessible to the general public.”  The events are also intended to increase public awareness of heritage assets, with young people especially targeted.  Today, Doors Open events are held in 48 European countries, and the events have expanded to include cultural and natural sites and landscapes.  The program has expanded to Canada, Australia and South America as well.

Municipalities in many European countries benefit from planning and implementation support assistance at the national level.  For example, in England, the Civic Trust, supported by grants from English Heritage, the History Channel and others, provides marketing and planning on-line tools and technical assistance to Doors Open event coordinators.  Organizers first register to be official Heritage Open Days (HODs) sites with their acceptance based on a number of criteria including projected levels of participation and organizational capacity.   Such qualifications ensure that all HOD sites will provide a quality experience for participants.  Organizers can then take advantage of information on topics from health and safety to insurance, marketing and promotion guidelines and strategies.  On-line tools include downloadable HOD design templates and logos, press kits, visitor evaluation forms, and Heritage Open Days posters which organizers can tailor to their event.  The website also provides learning resources for schools and venues to engage kids in learning local history.  The Civic Trust provides a national event directory and runs a national press campaign which gives local events national coverage and further promotes the Heritage Open Days identity to the public. While a national clearinghouse provides communities with the planning tools to make their events a success, the web-based resources require little funding and maintenance relative to the hundreds of events that such assistance generates nationally.  Organization and leadership is largely locally driven by community, site, organization and municipal volunteers.

Assistance and coordination at the national level within and among countries outside the United States has given the Doors Open strategy high visibility internationally. National and international involvement has contributed to the strategy’s increasing popularity and success by providing more and better assistance to meet the growing demand.  As a result, during one weekend every fall thousands of cultural institutions, nature preserves, and historical sites across the world are opening their doors and giving all people, young and old, an equal opportunity to explore, enjoy and connect with their local resources and heritage--and each year site and visitor participation increases. 

Open Doors in the United States

Most of the Doors Open events in the United States currently occur in the

Northeast.  While events differ in complexity, theme, time of year, and numbers of venues and programming, they share many commonalities.  These events all provide free access, a comprehensive schedule of activities, and rare and unusual opportunities to experience cultural and natural attractions, and are marketed specifically to local people. 

In the absence of a national clearinghouse, some projects in the United States are coordinated and marketed through a regional partnership.  One event, Trails to Sails: A Weekend of Walks and Water, coordinated by the Essex National Heritage Commission (Essex) in Essex County, Massachusetts and co-sponsored by numerous local organizations and municipalities, offers access to over 50 sites through 120 events.  Trails to Sails highlights walks, boat rides and guided house tours throughout the 500-square-mile county.   Essex collects participant evaluations to better understand its target audiences and improve its events.  In 2004, 3,000 people participated in over 121 events, and 44 percent participated in two or more events.  72 percent were exposed to natural, cultural and historic resources of which they were not previously aware, and 89 percent of the participants who responded plan to return to those resources in the future.  249 volunteers staffed the weekend event, which, Essex estimates, generated $50,000.  These numbers reflect some interesting impacts of Trails to Sails which may occur at other Doors Open sites.  Almost half of participants take advantage of more than one event, and most choose activities in new places of which they were not previously aware.  Most participants enjoy the experience and would like to visit the site again. 

Walking Weekends, hosted during October by Quinebaug and Shetucket National Heritage Corridor in Massachusetts and Connecticut, is another regional-scale Doors Open event that encourages residents to explore and appreciate their historic, natural and cultural sites.  Planning and implementing Doors Open events in the Essex and Quinebaug heritage areas provides opportunities for leaders and residents to think about the thematic and interpretive linkages that unite these regions.  Several city-wide Doors Open events promote awareness of local attractions and civic pride.  Lowell, Massachusetts, formerly a center for textile manufacturing, is experiencing an architectural renaissance, and numerous historic buildings have been restored and adapted into offices and residences.  Each May, Lowell Doors Open celebrates the economic development and qualitative benefits which historic preservation has given to the city, by giving residents the opportunity to visit privately-owned historic lofts and banks and providing special events at the city’s museums and galleries.  Denver Doors Open, hosted by the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, highlights the city’s modern and historic architecture and design at over 80 sites connected thematically through both guided and self-guided tours.  New York City also hosts an annual Doors Open event.

Variations on the concept

Improving the Doors Open Strategy in the United States

Doors Open events create the opportunity for a local return investment through increased stewardship, repeat visitation, new memberships, and awareness of local assets in addition to the more commonly touted economic development benefits.  Even without a national organization in the United States to support the work of local and regional events and to link events together, existing Doors Open events can increase their long-term viability and visibility by measuring participation, partnership involvement, and the correlation between the event and increased stewardship and civic engagement.  Over time these statistics will help attract new visitors and local, regional, and even national partners.  Additionally, organizers can call on one another to share best practices and networking opportunities.

A national network or organization, such as the partnership in England among the Civic Trust, National Trust and History Channel, would improve event coordination, quality and consistency and provide organizers with best practices, technical assistance, and resources and a venue for increasing national awareness of this increasingly popular locally-driven tourism strategy.  Coordinating events during the same weekend would increase the visibility of the Doors Open strategy, as National Parks Week, National Trails Day and Earth Day have done for their respective causes.  Involving the national media will create additional marketing avenues and provide opportunities to highlight the universal challenges of conservation and sustainability, and encourage new audiences to participate in preserving heritage resources.  A regional pilot program in New England, where a number of Doors Open events are already taking place will test the effectiveness of linking nearby events and the American public’s readiness to embrace this new heritage tourism and education strategy. 

As Doors Open becomes an increasingly popular way to engage residents in local heritage tourism, improving coordination and communication among existing events and promoting the exchange of learning experiences will help strengthen the success of each event and spread public and national awareness of this unconventional but powerful way to promote and protect local cultural heritage.

“Doors Open” Initiatives around the world

In Heritage Areas and designated regions:

- Doors Open Niagara (October) http://www.doorsopenniagara.com

- Blackstone National Heritage Corridor’s Footsteps in History (October) http://www.footstepsinhistory.com

- Hudson River Valley Ramble (September) http://www.hudsonvalleyramble.com/mainpage.htm

- Maine Heritage Day (September) No website

- Maryland’s Montgomery County Heritage Days (June) http://www.montgomeryhistory.org/heritage.htm

- Quinebaug & Shetucket’s Walking WeekendS (October) http://www.quinebaugandshetucket.org

- Rhode Island’s Save Our Heritage (October) http://www.preservation.ri.gov

- Essex’s Trails & Sails: A Weekend of Walks and Water (September) http://www.essexheritage.org/

- Upper Housatonic Heritage Walks (September) http://www.upperhousatonicheritage.org/HeritageWalks2004.html

- Watershed Alliance of York, PA’s Watershed Weekend (September) http://www.watershedyork.org

In cities:

- Doors Open Brookings (April) http://www.downtownbrookings.com

- Doors Open Denver (April) http://www.denvergov.org/doorsopendenver/

- Doors Open Gettysburg (May) http://www.friendsofgettysburg.org/doors05.htm

- Doors Open Lowell (May) http://www.doorsopenlowell.org

- Open House New York (October) http://www.openhousenewyork.org/

International:

- Gateway to European Heritage Days: Council of Europe http://www.heritagedays.net/

- England: The Civic Trust http://www.heritageopendays.org/

- France: Patrimony Days (Journees du Patrimoine Patrimoine): http://www.journeesdupatrimoine.culture.fr/

- Canada: The Heritage Canada Foundation http://www.doorsopencanada.ca/