It is commonly assumed that the development of tourist attractions, the formulation of tourism policies and the marketing of destination areas are dictated by the needs and interests of foreign visitors. What is ignored is the role that local factors and agencies bring to bear upon the process. This thesis is devoted to exploring the ways that local and non-local factors are responsible for shaping the form and function of tourism development. Drawing upon the case of Singapore, the thesis examines the country's heritage tourism phenomena as the outcome of 'local' and 'global' forces. This argument is elaborated along four lines of enquiry. They include a study of government policies on tourism, a look at entrepreneurs involved in heritage projects, an exploration of marketing and promotional strategies, and the examination of a particular urban landscape the Little India Historic District. To conceptualize the global-local nexus, the thesis adopts two bodies of theory. They are the 'locality concept' advanced by industrial geographers in the 1980s and writings on 'globalism-localism' by cultural/economic geographers in the 1990s. Both theoretical discussions reinforce the argument that place uniqueness is not necessarily sacrificed as a result of globalization. They also provide a way of viewing tourism geographies as the product of global and local forces.

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