What is cultural tourism? As McKercher and Du Cros (2002:3) observe: ’this seeminglysimple question is actually very difficult to answer because there are almost as manydefinitions.... of cultural tourism as there are cultural tourists’. The reason for thiscomplex situation is relatively simple, however - the definition of culture itself is sodifficult. ’Culture’ was labelled by Raymond Williams (1983) as one of the mostcomplicated words in the English language, and it has just as much variation ininterpretation in most other languages as well. When the discussion spreads acrossnational (or linguistic) boundaries, the question becomes still more complex. Considerfor a moment whether the Dutch word ’erfgoed’ means the same as the English’heritage’. In principle these cover the same concept of things inherited from the past,but the English usage of the term is far broader, and also applies to intangible aspectsof culture, such as customs or national identity. This difference explains why ’culturaltourism’ has in the past been largely associated with history (cultuurhistorisch toerisme)in the Netherlands