Tourism is a social and economical phenomenon in everyday life for people all around the world. It involves free time activities, sports, travelling, and leisure time.
“Tourists-are people who travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four (24) hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.”
This Project contains a discussion about heritage tourism and its opportunities in Latvia. Why particularly Latvia can be interesting to tourists? Each country has their own cultural resources and cultural heritage owned by state and private persons. But in Latvia private owners ( main stress put on privately owned heritage sites as the state and local authorities owned are in comparatively good condition and renewed) got their ex- owned historical heritage sites back only 20 years ago and many of them were in very bad condition as during the soviet period nobody took care of them. They were all state owned and the attitude towards history was quite different or better to say indifferent. The denationalization took place and the legatees of ex- owners got them back. No compensation was offered. So most of them were destroyed and irreversibly damaged. The rest were kept in conservation condition. Getting them back the owners tried to renew them and keep in condition. Opening them to the public could be good for both owners as the means of earning some money for restoration and keeping sites in condition, but for the tourism in Latvia it is a good way of attracting tourists. Latvia has also remains from the so-called soviet heritage (military heritage) that can also be of great interest. …
