Singapore's heritage tourism : a study of an identity crisis when heritage sites meet tourism (1970-2000)

Abstract

The conservation and preservation efforts of Singapore’s built heritage was not always significant or prevalent as it is now. Initially, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) followed a philosophy of demolishing old buildings, regardless of its historic or cultural significance, and then rebuilding new ones. It was not until the late 1970s when Singapore embarked on conservation and preservation of built heritage on a national scale. This sudden switch of priorities started during the same period where Singapore experienced a decrease in its tourist arrival rates. Believing the lack of tangible heritage sites as a cause of reduced tourist arrival rates, tourism planning authorities thus embarked on efforts to selectively conserve some of the remaining heritage sites. This paper aims to show that tourism policies of the late 1970s onwards, was the main driving force for conservation of Singapore’s built heritage but in doing so, it deteriorated locals’ identification or involvement with the sites due to bolstering newly constructed images that differed from locals’ experiences.