Cultural tourism forms an important components of international tourism in our world today. It represents movements of people motivated by cultural intents such as a study tours, performing, festivals, cultural events, visit to site and monuments as well as travel for pilgrimage. Cultural tourism is also about immersion in and enjoyment of the life-style, of the local people, the local area and what constitutes it is identity and character. International tourism arrivals are forecast to top one billion in 2010 and over 1.6 billion in 2020. Among the segments o f tourism, cultural tourism stand owing to its growth in popularity, which is faster than most others segments and certainly, faster than the fate of growth of tourism world wide.

Cultural tourism is one of the oldest forms of travel and still continues to be a main stay of the tourism industry in most parts of the world. According to the OECD, cultural tourism accounted for around 40 % of all international tourism or 360 million arrivals in 2007. Although it is often difficult to distinguish these cultural motivated tourism from other travelers because of the growing tendency towards mixted holiday motives, they are particulary desirable for destinations seeking to attract high quality tourism and high value tourists.

As cultural tourist began to arrive in growing numbers and spend relatively large amounts of money, the early research focus was on the economic impact of cultural tourism. In recent years, however, this tourist having increasingly aroused research interest because of the social and cultural dimensions of cultural tourism. Attracting cultural tourist has become a common strategy for countrys and regions seeking the conserve traditional cultures, to develop new cultural resources and to create a cultural image.