How tourists decide which heritage site to visit

The relationship between the tourists and the heritage presented has already been identified as important for the understanding of tourist behaviour at the level of a specific heritage site. This study seeks to clarify whether tourists' perception of various spaces in relation to their own heritage could give an insight into tourists' decision which heritage site to visit. The findings of the study are based on a survey that examined tourists' visitation patterns to different heritage sites in Israel located within a relatively short distance of each other. The findings support the idea that the perception of the site in relation to the tourists' own heritage lies at the heart of an understanding of tourists' visitation patterns. The contribution to the management and theoretical understanding of heritage tourism is discussed.