Apr 1, 2014 - Mar 31, 2015

A new self-funding approach towards heritage conservation: marketing cultural values with a focus on gastronomy

Cultural values have large non-use values such as bequest value and existence value. On the other hand, use values of culture should be utilized for economic benefits such as tourism and industrial production. In order to maintain cultural values, a new approach including those economic activities should be applied. Here we consider the case of cultural landscape.

Cultural landscape is a new concept introduced in 2004, defined as values formed through the interaction between natural environment and people’s lives or work, such as rice terraces, coppice woodlands, and riversides. Thus cultural landscape is an appropriate framework for examining the relation between cultural values and people’s work.

Many cultural landscapes are agricultural production sites, which have been developed by agriculture-related tangible and intangible elements: festivals, rituals, and building structures. In order to maintain these elements, public support is indispensable, but, at the same time, agricultural production and daily life in the community also should be continued. However due to the decline of agricultural production, depopulation, and aging of the community, it often becomes increasingly difficult to maintain daily lives and work. Recently volunteers and NPOs are working towards protection of cultural landscapes, and new approaches are being attempted in some areas to market agricultural products and establish them as brands.

We will investigate possible sustainable measures and necessary conditions for maintaining cultural values by sustaining agricultural production using marketing and branding.

We will conduct our research as follows: reviews of previous studies, interviewing specialists, data analysis, interviews of local government staff, studying best practices and identifying barriers to comprehensive and sustainable measures.　The research results will be published in journals and shared by stakeholders. Also through this project, we will establish an international research network in this field.