In June 2015, the Cultural Heritage Administration (hereafter, the CHA) announced it was considering a new programme promoting the utilization of heritage for experiential tourism. Entitled “palace stay,” the programme entailed an overnight lodging experience at the Naksŏnjae Hall of Ch’angdŏkkung Palace and targeted a narrow social niche of foreign diplomats and company executives. It took inspiration from the success of other CHA-led heritage lodging programmes and from the adaptation of European aristocratic castles to hotels. The announcement spurred a public debate about the practical use of cultural heritage as a touristic resource and its preservation. An examination of CHA statements and administrative documents, media reports and televised public debates highlights the discrepancies between expert approaches to heritage and the public’s expectations about the preservation of cultural properties. This chapter demonstrates that the media and citizens rejected the utilization of heritage as a cultural practice only when it became entangled with divisive issues such as social class, accessibility, and representations of national identity. The perceived threat of commodification of Korean identity in elitist forms for limited, exclusive consumption changed the public’s understanding of the “palace utilization programme” and reinforced the meaning of heritage as a community resource that needs to be strictly preserved in widely accessible forms. Although the CHA ultimately aborted the “palace stay” programme during the planning stage, this case compellingly illustrates the cultural and social factors that influence heritage management practices when conflicts arise between preservation and the utilization of heritage.