Millions of people create itineraries and tours to be able to take in scenes of everyday life and work - the incentive, concern and desire is to be travellers rather than tourists. The scenery, monuments and testimonies to everyday life, together with intangible heritage or the heritage associated with business activity, such as industrial villages and social events, also arouse curiosity and interest.

The first major building with a metal structure (Crystal Palace) was created by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. The 19th century Paris Universal Exhibitions signalled the beginning of mass, industrial tourism. In the 20th century the proliferation of on-site museums, eco-museums, the organisation of heritage conferences, the democratisation of access to monuments, to cultural works, but also to companies, who are opening their doors more frequently – Ironbridge, Le Creusot, Fourmies-Trélon, Berslagen, for instance – have all boosted industrial tourism. In Germany, Belgium, France, the USA and the United Kingdom, several experiences have been successful, like the German Ruhr with the “Industriekultur” tour or the locations developed by British Waterways across the UK’s network of historic, industrial canals. The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH), founded in 2001, is a network that links together and publicises former industrial enclaves. The network was developed by partners in regions in Great Britain, the Low Countries, the Saarland and North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany; its extension to Spain is being studied in collaboration with TICCIH and other public and private institutions. Catalonia, Asturias, Almadén, Riotinto and the Basque Country have interesting initiatives in this area.

Since 1990, the Council of Europe has been promoting “routes” or “cultural tours”, such as the silk route or the wool route, as well as northern Italy; the former mining zones of Wallonia, Hainaut and other places in Belgium. In the Pyrenees, the “Iron Route” has been set up through the Interreg programme. Five regions - Andorra, Catalonia, the Basque Country and the French regions of Aquitaine and Ariège - and a total of more than 14 institutions are taking part. These routes receive support from museums linked by an easily recognisable identity.

In America, interest in industrial facilities and their restoration has been aroused. The Silver Route and the Monterrey Foundry in Mexico; the transnational mercury route proposed as a world heritage project to UNESCO; in Argentina an industrial heritage route has been set up in the north east of the country: Tucumán, Salta, Jujuy, restoring sugar plantation villages, wine cellars, railway stations, iron and steel works. In Brazil, Cuba, Chile, the USA, and Uruguay, new sugar plantation village routes are emerging, as is the so-called “slave route”, with a mixture of cultural and historical values in its relationship with technology and industrial museums. Resources such as old factories and heavy industry plants, cold stores and barns, disused railway lines and other elements of industrial heritage are being incorporated. In Asia there is increasing interest in industrial heritage tourism and interest in company visits in Japan, and similar things are just getting underway in China.

Although elitist in origin, tourism has been democratised as the activity has spread during the contemporary age. Industrial and landscape heritage tourism, technology, science and industrial museums, and company visits are becoming an attractive and profitable activity these days.