Heritage Tourism, Education Challenges, and Representations of the Past: Insights from the United Arab Emirates

Commodifying the past is always grounded in both conceptual and explanatory simplifications. The former builds on preconceptions, while the latter function as an interface for the transmission of ideas. This interesting polarity can be explored in the scope of the UAE tourism sector, based on practical examples at the intersection of travel, hospitality, and academic research. Despite a few niche products, heritage tourism necessarily serves a broad spectrum, that is, it operates within the brackets of predictable visitor behavior. Interpretations of a consumable past are exposed at archaeological sites, museums, hotels, restaurants, and festivals, driven by marketing and promotion, and inducing a visitor experience in which time is no longer a purely chronological concept. This chapter examines several commercial and technological appropriations of the past, taking them as potentially beneficial to a contemporary leisure society. A second part of the text reflects on the purpose of education in constructing a consistent rendering of the past.