Cultural Tourism and Regional Museums as a Means for Self-Discovery

Abstract

“Tourism” originating from the Latin word “tornare” is derived from the Hebrew word "torah", implying a traveler's intention and action to discover something about a place (Ramabraham, 2016). The traveler here includes residents living in a specific place and individuals experiencing that place temporarily. People, existing as travelers in the contemporary world, need to discover and assess their own society and its place in the world, both historically and geographically. This requirement also supports the contemporary tourism approach. In this framework, tourism exhibits a structure enabling opportunities for discovering and learning information about people, their society, and the places being the products of social structure. The sustainability of these opportunities also necessitates preserving the unique environmental, cultural, and historical assets and the active participation of these assets in social life. At this point, for tourism with a referral from ICOM (2007) museums come into prominence as “non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment” institutions. Regional museums, one of the museum types while realizing these basic purposes of museums in general, it realizes its actions towards a specific region and the intangible and tangible values of that region. These museums are symbols of local identity and are one of the best ways to convey the essence of a place. The study considered, by this aspect, aims to examine Baksı Museum awarded for the “CoE Prize” Baksı museum is significant with its efforts to revitalize the region through artistic production, with its efforts to protect and sustain tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Baksı Museum will be examined and assessed with its approaches to cultural tourism, contributing to the sustainability of the cultural memory in the region and aims to revitalize life in the region.