Heritage tourism: authenticity vs sustainability in living museums

The research explores the coping mechanisms and adaptation strategies of Intangible Cultural Heritage sites i.e. living museums in Delhi, India to sustain themselves in contemporary times and provide distinctive value to their clients, and patrons. Qualitative case study approach has been adopted in the form of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders across five categories. A total of 45 interviews were conducted till the theoretical saturation was reached. The research discovers that improvisation is a key dimension for sustainability of living museums in addition to the four other characteristics namely: scenography, narrative, collective experience and characterization. The analysis also reveals that living museums display adaptability and resilience to survive in present times which creates conflict with the idea of authenticity that they are supposed to showcase through the performances and artifacts. The study is one of the first attempts to understand and document the conflict between maintaining authenticity and sustaining in the context of living museums. The overtourism has led to compromise with the authenticity, however, it has allowed the intangible cultural heritage to survive and grow over three centuries.