Using tourist resources as tools for teaching and creating, awareness of heritage in a local community

This chapter presents a preliminary description of two different pieces of research, the first in Curitiba in Brazil and the other in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The first was designed to test the efficiency of guided cultural routes as tools for teaching high school students to value their built heritage. The second is a much more ambitious project, which examines the role of intangible heritage and its potential use as a tool in schools, museums, and cultural institutions, aimed at making the local community revalue its identity. This should also stimulate greater participation in the formulation of cultural tourism policies directed at promoting sustainable, community-based development.