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Gettysburg Battle Site Revamps To Attract TouristsWriting by Darrin Dickey (Check me out!) on Thursday, 3 of July , 2008 at 2:12 pm
In the July/August 2008 issue of Fast Company is a good article on the new visitor’s center at the Gettysburg National Military Park. Setting aside personal feelings you may have about the new center (some I know don’t like it), the article does a great job of explaining why designers of the center went with the choices they did. • Basically, the goals were to:
• Increase tourism revenue for the town
• Increase average trouist stay in town
• Engage younger visitors
• Better inform visitors about the battle and the soldiers who fought it
• Increase revenues
The article correctly states that historic sites are having an increasingly difficult time vying for the attention of our increasingly attention-deficit citizens. Americans are used to microwave cooking, fast food, 30 minute entertainment shows and 5 minute thrill rides. Taking day-long tours of sites where something happened decades or even centuries before they were born is almost too much to bear.
“While a movie studio can roll out Indiana Jones sequels, there will never be a Gettysburg 2: Robert E. Lee’s Revenge. The best they (historic sites) can do is to modernize their presentations.” (from the article)
“Most people aren’t visiting to learn. They want to have an experience, to be immersed in something.” Elliott Gruber, vice president, Gettysburg Foundation
I can understand the need to invest the money to make historical sites more attractive to people. I know many people don’t the commericialization but hopefully it encourage more people to get excited about history!
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I agree. Sometimes you must play to the lowest common denominator in order to attract the most people. It’s not a tactic I always agree with, but in our case we have so many history illiterate and attention deficit Americans that it almost seems necessary.
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You’re right, todays society is a fast food nation, not many people want to take the time to learn about history because it takes too long, they want everything fast, they want to travel the world in three days, not take the time to stop and really take in the sites and find out what happened or how many people suffered and why we should remember them and our historic places. I really like your site and I would love to add you onto my blog list if you don’t mind.
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