Management Of Heritage Sites Research Articles

Carbon footprints of travel to World Heritage Sites: communicating climate to potential tourists through a consumption-based life-cycle assessment

ABSTRACT In this study, an input-output-based hybrid life cycle assessment method is used to calculate the carbon footprint of a tourist’s travel to sixteen United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites (WHS) including direct and indirect emissions. The carbon footprint of three trip styles (budget, mid-range expenses, and high-end) is calculated for each WHS, reflecting options available to heritage tourists. This study is part of a more extensive study that created a climate communication recognition scheme (CCRS) for UNESCO WHS to communicate information about climate change to potential tourists and heritage site managers, elaborating and extending upon communication tools such as environmental product information schemes, certifications, and ecolabels. The results are intended for educational purposes and contribute to a holistic approach to carbon management in heritage tourism. The results are available online as an ArcGIS StoryMap titled Climate Footprints of Heritage Tourism.

The Adaptive Evolution of Cultural Ecosystems along the Silk Road and Cultural Tourism Heritage: A Case Study of 22 Cultural Sites on the Chinese Section of the Silk Road World Heritage

The adaptive evolution of cultural ecosystems is a distinctive process along the Silk Road in China, involving the transitional interaction of nature and culture. This study aims to provide theoretical recommendations for the management of cultural heritage sites along the Silk Road to assess the values and keep the balance between tourism development and cultural heritage protection. The paper focuses on 22 cultural sites in western China to study the adaptive evolution pattern of cultural landscapes along the Silk Road with landscape changes and the transmission patterns of modern cultural tourism. Based on relevant literature reviews, historical maps, and geomorphological maps, the factors influencing the evolution of the cultural ecosystem are explored. We present both the theoretical and managerial implications: the cultural heritage of the urban areas can vigorously develop the cultural tourism with a high degree of industrialization, suburban areas can boost up traditional tourism product routes. We also assume that the degree of development of cultural tourism depends on the cultural ecosystem service and the environmental status of the cultural landscape.

Threat Perception and Adaptive Capacity of Natural World Heritage Site Management

This study offers new insights into the largest threats to natural and mixed World Heritage sites in developed countries as considered by their management. In addition to this, the capacity of the management to deal with threats is examined. An Ordered Probit model is used that distinguishes three groups of threats and four categories of adaptive capacity of the management. Data originate from the 2014 UNESCO Periodic Report II for sites in economically advanced countries (Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea) linked to the World Heritage Site database. Estimation results reveal that the probability of a major threat to World Heritage sites is perceived to be highest in the category of climate change and extreme weather events, followed by local conditions affecting the physical structure (temperature, rain, dust). Sites in tropical climates are perceived as significantly more threatened, as are those earlier listed as in danger. The likelihood of perceiving a major threat is highest in Turkey, Italy, Norway and North America. Threats related to climate change are those the management has the lowest capacity to deal with when other important aspects are controlled for. Large and natural areas have a higher perceived administrative capacity to deal with threats than others.

A post-pandemic look at short-term tourist accommodations and World Heritage Site management

ABSTRACT Overtourism is a novel and complicated phenomenon that has hastened the rapid expansion of short-term tourist accommodations (STTA) in many European art cities. This study aims to establish a link between the rapid growth of the STTA and the likely dissemination of novel COVID-19 variations in World Heritage Sites (WHS). Using a comparative case study method, we assert that the atypical evolution of STTA renders WHS more vulnerable to novel COVID-19 variations. The findings highlight that until there are no feasible multi-sectoral and multi-level approaches to management, policy agreements on what overtourism means, and measuring tools for the proper number of visitors, the STTA issue persists, which makes WHS more vulnerable to novel COVID-19 variations in the post-pandemic time.

The mechanism for managing cultural heritage objects, taking into account the possibilities of the digital environment

The article highlights the problems of exploitation of cultural heritage objects, which characterizes the subject area of the study. The classification of objects of cultural heritage and features of their definition in different countries are presented. The analysis of statistical data on cultural heritage sites in the Russian Federation, including those included in UNESCO, was carried out. The features of management, as well as the problems of monitoring the state of cultural heritage objects are considered. A separate and fundamental issue of management of cultural heritage sites is security activities, which are based on unique models formed by different countries based on their experience. A mechanism for managing cultural heritage objects in a digital environment and a universal conceptual model for introducing digital technologies into the system of real estate operation are proposed.

Heritage management and sustainability of heritage sites. The case of ancient Greek theatre of Dodoni, Epirus, Greece

Heritage is composed of tangible and intangible assets, as well as cultural and natural sites threatened by the effects of climate change. The sustainability of heritage is significant for its transmission to the next generations, future progress, cultural development and diversity. Thus, this paper is focused on the protection and management of heritage, presenting as case study the ancient Greek Theatre of Dodoni, located in Epirus. Stakeholders are related to scientists for climate change, heritage managers, society (including educational organizations), local community as well as the visitors. The interaction of these groups offers a management plan focused on the needs of the place. Moreover, the research of the local identity of the landscape should be combined with climatic data showing the course of the climate change and its effects on the site of study. This information of climate indices is retrieved by meteorological stations in North-Western Greece. In particular, we analyze climatological data of temperature, humidity and precipitation, collected by the meteorological station of Ioannina (Hellenic National Meteorological Service) for the period 1956-2022. Therefore, the assessment of measurements and extremities can be combined with the vulnerability approach and the risk assessment for the structure of heritage management and the dissemination.

Vår felles fortid: Bærekraftig kulturarv og Fotefar mot nord

The project “Fotefar mot nord” is comprised of 103 cultural heritage sites in Namdal and Northern Norway. The project started in the 1990's to attract local visitors as well as tourists and thus promote awareness and protection of the sites. Some sites were routinely cared for in the decades that followed, others were not, and the project is currently being regenerated and updated. Sustainability is represented in the project through, for example, sites used as social hotspots and the potential for active visitor management of several heritage sites. However, I conclude that the project contains several lessons on sustainability, summarized as follows: 1) Public outreach is a long-term commitment relying on thorough and detailed planning of the start as well as the continuous operation of the project. 2) Democracy and inclusion are both important and time-consuming. Allocate much time to the processes, include the local community in a range of project contexts, and explore heritage sites as local meeting points. 3) Remember the overarching structure of the project, as familiarity with the project can generate increased interest in it. 4) Resource efficiency and sustainability also applies to skills, knowledge and involvement.

Satisfaction of Tourism Communities in World Heritage Sites Based on Residents’ Perceptions—Study Area of Mount Sanqingshan National Park, PRC

Tourist communities have enjoyed the benefits of tourist development in various regions and have paid the associated costs, resulting in different attitudes towards tourism development in World Heritage Sites. On this basis, this study takes the Mount Sanqingshan National Park, a World Natural Heritage site, collects 330 examples of perceptions of residents of tourism communities, relies on social exchange theory and community participation theory, uses structural equation modeling as a technical methodology, and constructs a conceptual model, including perceived benefits and costs, community satisfaction, and place attachment as mediating variables from the view of tourism’s social, economic, environmental, and heritage protection impacts. The study shows that: first, the perceptions of benefits have a significant positive influence on place attachment and community satisfaction; second, the perceived cost has a significant negative influence on place attachment, and a negative influence on community satisfaction does not hold true; third, place attachment has a full mediating effect on tourist cost perception and satisfaction, a partial mediating effect on tourist benefit perception and satisfaction, and a significant positive effect on community satisfaction. Finally, we propose the ‘SHE-ABC’ framework of WHS tourist community satisfaction based on the perspectives of heritage tourism impact perception and place attachment. The results of the study have theoretical value and practical guidance to sustainable development, tourist industry, and community management of World Heritage Sites.

Automatic Recognition and Digital Documentation of Cultural Heritage Hemispherical Domes using Images

Recent advancements in optical metrology have enabled continuous documentation of dense 3-dimensional (3D) point clouds of construction projects, including cultural heritage preservation projects. These point clouds must then be further processed to generate semantic digital models, which is integral to the lifecycle management of heritage sites. For large-scale and continuous digital documentation, processing of dense 3D point clouds is computationally cumbersome, and consequentially requires additional hardware for data management and analysis, increasing the time, cost, and complexity of the project. Fast and reliable solutions for generating the geometric digital models is, hence, eminently desirable. This article presents an original approach to generate reliable semantic digital models of heritage hemispherical domes using only two images. New closed formulations were derived to establish the relationships between a sphere and its projected ellipse onto an image. These formulations were then utilised to create new methods for: (i) selecting the best pair of images from an image network; (ii) detecting ellipses corresponding to projection of spheres in images; (iii) matching of the detected ellipses between images; and (iv) generating the sphere's geometric digital models. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated under both laboratory and real-world datasets. Laboratory experiments revealed that the proposed process using the best pair of images provided results as accurate as that achieved using eight randomly selected images, while improving computation time by a factor of 50. The results of the two real-world datasets showed that the digital model of a hemispherical dome was generated with 6.2 mm accuracy, while improving the total computation time of current best practice by a factor of 7. Real-world experimentation also showed that the proposed method can provide metric-scale definition for photogrammetric point clouds with 3 mm accuracy using spherical targets. The results suggest that the proposed method was successful in automatically generating fast and accurate geometric digital models of hemispherical domes.

What attracts tourists to press the shutter in cultural heritage tourism? An analysis of visitor-employed photography and visual attributes: a case study on Japan’s Kairakuen Garden

ABSTRACT Tourism behaviour in cultural heritage gardens presents opportunities and challenges for sustainable management. Understanding visitor perceptions and assessments of visual resources in cultural heritage gardens are of great interest to heritage site managers. Using a case study of the Kairakuen Garden in Japan, we collected images (N = 430) and geographic data of tourist photos in the heritage garden through visitor-employed photography technology to analyse what hotspots attract tourists to take photos. We also evaluated the visual attributes of photo hotspots using a questionnaire. The results reveal that the most common elements in tourist images were plant landscapes and human-made structures and that the 12 photo hotspots of the Kairakuen Garden were placed along the officially recommended tour routes, indicating that tourists identify the officially approved scenery. Furthermore, there are four main hotspot areas; they received significant different visual attributes assessments in ‘scenic beauty’, ‘complexity’, ‘mystery’, and ‘diversity’. Based on these findings, it is possible to understand tourists’ visual perceptions and preferences and to make recommendations for the management of the Kairakuen Garden and other cultural heritage gardens.

The preception of the community in Gentan Village Bulu Sukoharjo towards the existence of its site as a cultural heritage asset

The perception of Gentan Villager that is unaware and unprogressively oriented on developing the existence of the potential site as cultural heritage site and a natural tourism village (geoheritage) is a concern. The low capacity of Gentan Village human resources is a factor causing their inability to manage and optimize the existence of the site as an asset that has added economic value. The purpose of this paper is to describe the natural potential of Gentan Village, analyze the opportunities, challenges, strengths and threats in an effort to organize and develop Gentan Village as a nature-based tourism village. This paper uses a qualitative descriptive method that relies on observational data, qustionnaires and interviews with three different social classes of people in Gentan Village. The purposive technique was chosen in taking samples of three informants consisting of community leaders, tourists and local residents. The results of this study indicate that the low index of human resources of the Gentan Villager has influenced their perception on the conservation, management and utilization of cultural heritage sites. Changing the perception of Gentan Villager into a society that is aware on developing cultural heritage into a natural tourism village (geoheritage) requires the participation of many stakeholders. The conclusion of this research was the perception of Sukoharjo Gentan villager doesn’t reflect as a community who has attention to its cultural heritage and doesn’t oriented to make its village to be natural tourism destination.

World Heritage Discourses and the Potential of Conceptualizing Water

Conceptualizing water and heritage together is a key challenge. Only in recent years has heritage management started to embrace sustainable development in the context of heritage preservation. The UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach and policy recommendations for sustainable development integration exemplify this recent development. This contribution examines World Heritage discourses through the lenses of water and heritage as a system. It specifically explores the relation between World Heritage management and water management of World Heritage sites. In doing so, it aims to reinforce the role of water and water management in the World Heritage framework, both in terms of theory and process. It concludes with a call for a stronger acknowledgment of water management as part of good practices for World Heritage sites and their management.

RAZUMIJEVANJE SLOŽENOSTI PROCJENE EKONOMSKOG UTJECAJA KULTURNE BAŠTINE NA EKONOMSKU ODRŽIVOST TURISTIČKE DESTINACIJE: SLUČAJ SPLITA, HRVATSKA

The purpose of this conceptual study is to define the possibilities and constraints of assessing the economic impact of tangible cultural heritage on the economic sustainability of a tourism destination. To achieve this goal, the following were critically analysed: (1) strengths and limitations of previously used assessment approaches and techniques; and (2) sustainable development indicators for urban tourism destinations that contain world-class cultural heritage sites. The case study used in this research is an urban cultural heritage site listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, namely the Historical Complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian, Croatia, and the associated tourism destination setting. Observational and case study methods were used. Despite all previous efforts to prevent miscalculations and develop a technique that would best suit the tangible cultural heritage valuation process, findings suggest that each cultural heritage site has unique characteristics and requires its own approach to assessing its value and impact. Moreover, such findings have further implications for the UNESCO World Heritage List and the management of World Heritage sites.

A Netnography Study on Memorable Cultural Tourism Experiences: Insights from Asian Cultural Heritage Site Tourists

Cultural tourism is a rapidly growing industry across the globe. This study aims to contribute to the existing knowledge of tourist experiences at cultural destinations. To this end, the study explores the factors that contribute to memorable cultural tourism experiences at cultural heritage sites, specifically museums. Using WebHarvy, a total of 502 online reviews were collected from a popular tourism website, namely TripAdvisor. The collected reviews concern 14 heritage museums in 10 Asian countries. Netnography was employed as a content analysis technique. The results revealed five contributing factors of memorable cultural tourism experiences: authenticity, engagement, culinary attraction, atmospherics, and quality of service. Theoretically, this study adds to our understanding of memorable cultural tourism experiences by identifying a novel dimension, namely atmospherics. In other words, this research highlights the importance of ambiance and environment in tourism experiences at cultural heritage sites. Thus, the study provides insights for heritage site managers on how to make the tourism experience memorable.

“We are not in Geneva on the Human Rights Council”: Indigenous peoples’ experiences with the World Heritage Convention

AbstractThis article examines Indigenous peoples’ experiences with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage Convention against the backdrop of their rights as recognized in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and reviews the efforts of Indigenous peoples and human rights mechanisms to ensure respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, cultures, and values in World Heritage sites. Although the Convention’s governing bodies have adopted policy and operational guidelines “encouraging” states parties to respect Indigenous peoples’ rights, many nomination, management, and protection processes of World Heritage sites continue to be marked by an exclusion of Indigenous peoples from decision making, a lack of respect for their relationship to the land, and disregard for their traditional livelihoods and cultural heritage. Human rights violations against Indigenous peoples continue to occur unabated in many sites and are in many ways enabled, and sometimes even driven, by decision making under the Convention. This article argues that there is an unacceptable disconnect between this Convention and the UN human rights system, with significant implications for the Convention’s and UNESCO’s credibility, and that a concerted effort should be made to align this UN Convention with the UNDRIP and the human rights purposes of the UN Charter and the UNESCO Constitution.

Geotourism Perception by Ouro Preto (Brazil) World Heritage Site Managers

Geotourism Perception by Ouro Preto (Brazil) World Heritage Site Managers

Practices and challenges of cultural heritage conservation in historical and religious heritage sites: evidence from North Shoa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Cultural heritage treasures are precious communal assets that show the past human legacy. It depicts present and future way of life as well as cultural values of a society, and enhances solidarity and social integration of communities. This study is designed to investigate the practices and challenges of cultural heritage conservations in North Shoa Zone, Central Ethiopia. The research employed a mixed research approach and cross-sectional descriptive and explanatory research design. The researchers applied multiple data gathering instruments including questionnaire survey, interview, focus group discussion and observation. Concerning sampling techniques, systematic random sampling technique was applied to select samples from local communities, and purposive sampling was designed to choose interviewees from government authorities, and culture and tourism office experts of North Shoa Zone and respective districts. The actual and valid sample size of the study is 236. The findings of the study revealed that the cultural heritage properties in North Shoa are not safeguarded from being damaged and found in a poor status of conservation. The major conclusion sketched from the study is that the principal factors affecting heritage conservation are lack of proper management, monitoring and evaluation, lack of funds and stakeholder involvement, urbanization, settlement programs and agricultural practice, poor government concern and professional commitment, poor attitude towards cultural heritage and low level of community concern, vandalism and illicit trafficking, low promotions of cultural heritage, and natural catastrophes such as invasive intervention, climate change (humidity and frost, excessive rainfall and flood, heat from the sun). The study implied that the sustainability of cultural heritage in the study area are endanger unless conservation practice is supported by conservation guidelines, heritage site management plans and research outputs, stakeholders’ integration, and community involvement. Most importantly, the study recommends the integration of heritage conservation and sustainable development, and the promotion of conservation is a way of achieving economic and social sustainability.

Who Owns the Heritage? Power and Politics of Heritage Site Management in Tourism, Hampi, India

Who Owns the Heritage? Power and Politics of Heritage Site Management in Tourism, Hampi, India

‘Beneath the storyline’: analysing the role and importance of film in the preservation and development of Scottish heritage sites

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the increasing role and importance of popular culture for the management of cultural heritage sites in Scotland. In particular, it examines how heritage professionals deal with the growing number of location filming requests and new film tourist flows in the wake of these popular film and television productions. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with fifteen heritage professionals from different management levels and diverse sites across Scotland, we identify three main approaches, each with their own consequences, for presenting and preserving Scottish heritage: the utilitarian approach, the critical-representational approach, and the integrative approach. We conclude that the Scottish heritage sector is increasingly aware of the impact of popular culture, and willing to utilise those associations to increase the attractiveness of their heritage sites. Moreover, associations with popular culture offer ways to improve the inclusive character of contemporary heritage management.

Understanding local community and the cultural heritage values at a World Heritage City: a grounded theory approach

The nomination of a World Heritage site generally focuses on the tangible heritage assets, and intangible heritage is given less attention in the site management. There is also a lack of awareness of the complicated relationship between tangible and intangible heritage assets, the meanings and values of the site to its local community, and the complexity of space in the World Heritage Site in the management of cultural heritage sites. This paper discusses grounded theory to investigate the relationship between local communities and their cultural heritage in George Town World Heritage Site, Malaysia. The methodology employed an ethnographic approach for the observational work and semi-structured interviews. The findings demonstrate a deep and rich knowledge of the links between the World Heritage designation and its local communities, including how local people interact and contribute meaning to the site. This study may encourage other researchers to apply grounded theory to understand social phenomena on other World Heritage Sites of similar context for heritage management purposes.