The Cultural Heritage Tourism Tourism Essay

Introduction

Growing interest in culture and heritage by tourists has led to such an increase in the number of visits to cultural heritage destinations in the world that cultural tourism has become one of the fastest-growing market segments in tourism. The preservation of cultural heritage through tourism receives more and more recognition and at the same time, collaboration and stakeholder involvement are increasingly used in the tourism development process (Aas, Ladkin and Fletcher, 1999, p. 29). Bramwell and Lane (2000) add that “collaboration and partnerships have come of age in the field of tourism”.

2.2 Heritage tourism

A review of approaches to defining heritage tourism shows that this concept extremely complex. Academic world has not yet found agreement over the issue of understanding the nature of Heritage tourism in a unified and specific way. Some studies have define Heritage tourism as leisure trip with the primary purpose of visiting historic, cultural, natural, recreational and scenic attractions to learn more about the past in an enjoyable way

Understanding of heritage can be all encompassing and features many viewpoints, such as visitor experience (Poria et al., 2001, 2003); supply and demand (Apostolopoulos and Gayle, 2002); and the perception of social, natural and cultural history (Christou, 2005). Some authors emphasize the importance of motivations of heritage tourists, who act in accordance with their perceptions of their own heritage (Poria et al., 2001). Heritage tourism is also described in terms of tangible objects and resources (Garrod and Fyall, 2001) and intangible experiences and elements of the culture of a social group or nation (Timothy and Boyd, 2002)

2.3 Cultural Heritage Tourism

During the 1990’s, cultural tourism was identified as one of the major future growth areas in tourism industry (Zeppel and Hall, 1992). This fast-growing segment of the industry attracts visitors who tend to stay longer, spend more, and travel in the off-season (Calhoun, 2000, p. 92). The growing proportion of cultural tourism within tourism, according to Richards (2001) is due to the fact that “more and more tourist attractions are now being defined as cultural”. Thus, it is hard to define the concepts of cultural tourism and cultural tourist since they have a broad sense.

Cultural Heritage tourism is commonly regarded as tourism with the main purpose of viewing tangible representations such as historic and cultural elements of the built environment (e.g. colonial architecture, monuments, houses of worship) and the physical landscape, but also includes intangible components including myths, folksongs and value systems, for example (Halewood & Hannam, 2001: 566; Prentice, 1993: 8; Smith, 1989: 5; Timothy & Boyd, 2003: 4).

The term of cultural tourism is so broad that it covers concepts such as heritage, arts, creativity, urban, culture, rural culture, indigenous culture and popular culture. Attention will be paid to the heritage aspect of cultural tourism. After investigating cultural tourism, the subject will be narrowed down to concentrate on built heritage. Given the large variety of forms that cultural tourism can have, it is unrealistic to provide only one definition, as broad as it could be.

However, Richards (2001, p. 7) suggests that cultural tourism covers “not only the consumption of the cultural products of the past, but also of contemporary culture or the way of life of a people or a region. Cultural tourism therefore covers “heritage tourism” (related to artefacts of the past)”. Heritage tourism is widely concerned with the representation of the past.

Table 2.2: The International Tourism Charter

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2.4 World Heritage Site

UNESCO adopted the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1972. The purpose of the convention is to ensure the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value. The outstanding universal value is translated into ten criteria for evaluating sites nominated for inscription on the World Heritage List. The Convention states that the World Heritage Committee (WHC) should coordinate the process of designating the sites through a system known as inscription, which includes an evaluation of the resources by experts against a set of known criteria. The aim of the inscription is to encourage conservation of the resources within designated sites and surrounding buffer zones on a local level and also to foster a sense of collective global responsibility via international 25 cooperation, exchange and support (Leask 2006). As of April 1, 2009, 186 countries are party to the Convention; 878 properties are inscribed on the list – 679 of which are cultural, 174 natural and 25 mixed (Engelhardt 2009).

Moreover, WHS are the testimony to the natural wealth of the earth and the cultural excellence of human kind. They represent the best and most important examples of our cultural and natural heritage. Hall and Piggin (2002: 402) stated that the bestowing of WHS status on a Heritage attraction is a ‘significant factor on the basis of the inherent qualities of the property’. Throughout the world there are natural and man-made heritage sites that are considered to have a very great importance to the humanity. By giving those sites an importance, we are protecting our most valuable heritage.

According to the operational guidelines for the implementation of the World heritage convention, WHS can be classified as natural or man-made.

2.4.1 Types of WHS

2.4.2 Natural Heritage site

2.4.3 Man-Made Heritage Site (cultural heritage)

2.5 Impact of tourism on WHS

Impact is a change (whether environmental, economic or social change) in a given state over time as the result of external stimulus (Hall and Lew 2009). Tourism impacts, according to Ritchie and Goeldner (1994) and Mason (2003), include economic, social, and environmental impacts. In tourism, the impact of tourism is experienced in all elements of “tourism system”. Tourism system refers to various sectors involved in facilitating travel to and from a destination, and the inter-relationships between these sectors (Hall 2008). There are several approaches to analyzing tourism system. Tourism system from a geographical point of view includes four elements, i.e. generating region (the source region of the tourists); transit region or route (the region the tourist must travel through to reach their destination); destination region (the region that the tourist chooses to visit and where the most obvious impact of tourism occur); and the environment (encompassing the overall travel flows and with which the tourist interacts) (Hall 2008). There are two more approaches to tourism systems, one focuses on the supply and demand dimension of tourism, whereas the other one emphasizes the system’s functioning for particular stakeholder groups (ibid.). This particular study focuses on tourism impact occurring in the destination region.

According to Frechtling (1994), studying the economic impact of tourism means analyzing travel’s activity impact on resident wealth or income in a defined area. Stynes (1997), on the other hand, said that economic impact analysis of tourism traces the flows of spending associated with tourism activity in a region to identify changes in sales, tax, revenues, income and jobs due to tourism activity. Frechtling (1994) acknowledged that many studies of tourism’s economic impact emphasize on travel spending, similar to Stynes’ view above. However, Frechtling stresses that travel expenditure studies tend to obscure the impact on residents’ income and wealth because tourists’ spending sometimes has little to do with resident earnings and employment. Therefore, travel expenditures are best viewed as merely the initial monetary activity that stimulates the production process and initiates economic impact (ibid.)

The focus in this section is to briefly note common socio-cultural impacts and to stress some general concepts.

Potential positive impacts include:

building community pride;

enhancing the sense of identity of a community or region;

promoting intercultural/international understanding;

encouraging revival or maintenance of traditional crafts;

enhancing external support for minority groups and preservation of their culture;

broadening community horizons;

providing funding for site preservation and management; and enhancing local and external appreciation and support for cultural heritage.

Potential negative impacts include:

commodification and cheapening of culture and traditions;

alienation and loss of cultural identity;

undermining of local traditions and ways of life;

displacement of traditional residents;

increased division between those who do and do not benefit from tourism;

conflict over (and at times loss of) land rights and access to resources (including the attractions

themselves); damage to attractions and facilities;

loss of authenticity and historical accuracy in interpretation; and selectivity in which heritage attractions are developed.

2.6 The Management strategies of WHS

The management of WHSs was first addressed as a specific field of interest in 1993 by Fielden and Jokilehto in the Management Guidelines for World Cultural Heritage Sites. Reference is made in the Management Guidelines to giving heritage a function in the life of the community, discussing objectives with local authorities and tourism boards and the need for a comprehensive tourism development strategy for individual sites (Fielden & Jokilehto, 1998). However, given that the primary aim of the World Heritage Convention is to ensure “. . . the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of cultural and natural heritage” (UNESCO, 1972, Article 4), it is not surprising that the emphasis of the Management Guidelines at that time was on the conservation of tangible heritage rather than the management of intangible heritage and visitor activity (Rodwell, 2002; Wilson & Boyle, 2006). This approach changed in 1997 when a standardised format for the nomination of sites for inscription on the World Heritage List was adopted. A management plan became a pre-requisite for all new nominations and sites inscribed before then were required to submit plans by 2005. Since 1997, the requirements for a formal planning approach and stakeholder participation have been further developed in the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (UNESCO, 2005). The Operational Guidelines suggesting an effective system of management should include a continuous cycle of planning, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and feedback, together with the active involvement of stakeholders in the planning process (UNESCO, 2005, Article 111). The expectation of a holistic and integrated approach to achieving “. . . an appropriate and equitable balance between conservation, sustainability and development”, and ensuring “. . . the active involvement of [. . . ] local communities” is further accentuated in the Budapest Declaration on World Heritage (World Heritage Committee, 2002). However,

in keeping with the preceding discussion, little guidance or advice is provided on how to

achieve this in practice (Wilson & Boyle, 2006).

2.7 Organisation involved in the management of WHS

2.7.1 UNESCO

2.7.2 Stakeholders

2.7.3 Local Community