Edutainment heritage tourist attractions: a portrait of visitors’ experiences at Storyeum

Abstract

Abstract Edutainment heritage tourist attractions (EHTAs) are a hybrid form of attraction that seek to create a synergy between the educational value and the entertainment value of their heritage contents by using multimedia technologies. The edutainment nature of this relatively new form of tourist attraction obscures the differences between other forms of heritage attractions, such as museums of history and culture, heritage theme parks and living history museums, which often work with a similar mandate to combine educational and entertainment values. This study investigates visitors’ experiences at this emergent form of attraction. Interviews with tourists at Storyeum, an EHTA in Vancouver, Canada, potentially reveals that EHTAs may be important sources of historical information and that tourists actively and critically engage with heritage representations at these attractions.