Breathing new life into a downtown with the use of heritage tourism

A senior landscape architecture studio which focused on heritage tourism provided officials in the town of Montague, Massachusetts, a toolkit to promote the process of economic revitalization. The toolkit included suggestions for a regional brochure, improvements to the town website, a redesigned walking tour with an emphasis on themes, and recommendations for signage. Through this studio the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts provided assistance to the planning and design process for the downtown area. Officials in the town of Montague had convened a working group of artists and public officials to advance the idea of redeveloping an abandoned downtown convenience store into a cultural center highlighting the arts and the theme of heritage landscapes. To date four studios have assisted with the project, providing unique assistance to advance ideas for the center. The focus of this paper is on the senior level heritage tourism studio questioning how heritage tourism could breathe new life into the downtown, as well as suggest a direction for this proposed center with a particular tourism emphasis. This paper will highlight the design process used and its resulting successes.