RALEIGH – I am a prime candidate to be wooed by the purveyors of “heritage tourism.” That is, I am a history nut, I prefer the countryside to the cityscape, and I dislike crowds.

That last statement is not a set-up for the joke about the great restaurant that never has a line. I don’t mean that I like to visit only desolate places. I’ve frequented many of the well-traveled sites for historical recreation, be they faraway (Philadelphia, Boston, San Antonio, etc.), within the region (Williamsburg and Charleston), or closer to home (NC historic sites and battlefields from Asheville to Wilmington). But the truth is that I don’t like to wait in line, and in a distressingly large number of cases I don’t have to when I visit often-touted heritage-tourism attractions.

I went online recently to check into the attendance trends – and came away frustrated. Most guides and databases on heritage tourism are marketing pieces, not serious attempts to gauge whether American tourists’ preferences have changed in a fundamental way. As has been evident in the past, you have to read carefully and critically whenever tourism is the subject, particularly if the source is a government agency trying to justify its continued existence.

More broadly, some analysts predict confidently that attendance at traditional theme parks will level off and decline as tourists age, lose interest in Disney-fried entertainment, and try to fit in a large number of smaller day-trips into their busy schedules. Maybe, though theme parks appear to be doing a bit better. Whatever softness remains could be the lingering effects of 9/11 on travel. It could also reflect the growing availability of in-home choices for recreation and entertainment, choices that are presenting stiff competition for dollars not only to theme parks but also to movie chains, sports franchises, and other out-of-home options such as heritage tourism itself.

It is disquieting to juxtapose the fact that North Carolina taxpayers are being compelled to shell out millions of dollars to create or expand heritage-tourism sites across the state with the fact that Old Salem, that venerable and compelling attraction located within a large metro and next to an interstate, appears to be having money problems. The president of Old Salem Inc., Paul Reber, has just resigned. The account of his problematic tenure in the Winston-Salem Journal is telling:

”We do a lot of academic things,” Reber said in a 2003 interview. “That’s what separates us from Disney World.”

Disney World is increasingly what tourists want. Reber’s task, as he said he saw it, was to lead Old Salem into the jazzy world of heritage tourism with its emphasis on interactive exhibits and technology, without alienating Old Salem’s base of tradition-minded history buffs – who didn’t mind dust or footnotes.

Attendance at historical sites nationwide has been on a slide since the Bicentennial. Competition for tourists is also keener than it was 30 years ago.

So, what’s actually going on here? One wouldn’t want to draw a sweeping conclusion from a single case. Perhaps Old Salem hasn’t changed enough with the times to maintain its competitive position. But perhaps there is also too much marketing hype mixed up with wishful thinking in many heritage-tourism initiatives in North Carolina. I won’t pretend to know what the answer is, except that the taxpayers of the state shouldn’t be forced to bet their money one way or the other. Let museums, parks, and sites raise money and compete for paying tourists.

I’ll be one of them, lonely or not.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.