Interpretation and tourism

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Heritage interpretation plays a bigger and more important part in many heritage-related businesses and initiatives than many people think.

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We are especially interested in automated lighthouses as tourism businesses at the moment. This means that even when on holiday in a faraway area in the extreme south west of Scotland, a community-run lighthouse attraction that radiates success stops us in our TellTale tracks.   We spent a large part of the last year working on interpretation strategies and […]

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 At first, working with remembrance, with its focus on memorials, felt so familiar I couldn’t distinguish it from heritage interpretation. Both interpretation and remembrance can about remembering and keeping a story alive. They both speak to us of what happened, who was involved and what that means for who we are now. A year ago […]

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Interpretation often is aimed at visitors.  It can be designed for local people but that’s a different game. Often it is aimed at people who are ‘not from round here’.  Interpretation can play a significant role in helping them understand the place they are visiting. This post follows on from my recent one where I […]

Why interpretation is part of sustainable cultural tourism

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Cultural tourism is a big international industry that is made up of many small, often tiny, micro-businesses.  I find that rather appealing. I like the fact that my work in heritage interpretation is a cog in the mighty wheel of cultural tourism and, at the same time, involves working with dedicated small businesses, and helping […]

Heritage interpretation lessons from Stockholm (2)

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I set out yesterday in search of Swedish artists – about whom I was impressively ignorant – and of five interpretation pointers I could write about here (see yesterday’s post). It turns out that are not five pointers today. Just one big five times over – Take time to enjoy the things you love. Inspire, delight and  and educate […]

A great start to a visit experience

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We talk a lot about the first five minutes in our visitor experience training. Our arrival in Stockholm yesterday reminded me of just how important it is. Travelling is fun but it is tricky too. There’s a lot of stuff that has to put in place. There’s the timetable to be be developed and adhered to, an inventory […]

Being there: 61 reasons why places matter to people

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People go to wild and old places for loads of reasons ( and that’s excluding work reasons). Those of us who work to make their visits more enjoyable, satisfying and meaningful need to understand as many of those reasons as possible. (If you want to read more on this see here, here, here and, for […]

How can heritage attractions become ‘places where people talk …’ a CitizenM masterclass

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If museums want to become social spaces, they need to look about them. Just now I am looking at the Citizen M hotel in Glasgow.  It’s a master class in creating a vibrant, welcoming, stimulating, cosmopolitan social space. “Zoos are places people go to talk about animals.” Ten years ago I heard the inspirational and much-missed […]

‘Well, ‘It’s cold up there in Buxton’ the importance of first impressions.

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TellTale is hosting Slovenian interpreter, Janja Sivec. Here, as our guest blogger, she writes about her first impressions of Buxton and its interpretation. When we think of first impressions, we usually think of people we have met. But this time I had an opportunity to explore and think about first impressions that places leave on […]