Number Of World Heritage Sites Research Articles

The 50 years of the World Heritage Convention in Spain: implementation, effects, and challenges

Due to the diversity of characteristics and the high number of World Heritage sites (49) inscribed by Spain, this country and its ICOMOS National Committee have a long experience in the application of the World Heritage Convention throughout these 50 years. The World Heritage Working Group of the Spanish National Committee of ICOMOS has therefore carried out an analysis of these sites, their history and evolution, typology, and state of conservation with the final goal of assessing their current heritage situation and the contribution of the Convention to the conservation of the Spanish natural and cultural heritage. We also aim to reflect on how Spain has contributed to the World Heritage Convention during these five decades and about the most important challenges that our country needs to confront in order to continue complying with the spirit of the Convention and the principles of its Operational Guidelines. To conduct this analysis, we first deal with the background of the ratification of the Convention in Spain, provide an overview of its application, and describe the evolution of the Spanish Tentative List. Second, we deepen on the Spanish nominations and the typologies of the Spanish properties inscribed on the World Heritage List. Thirdly, we focus on the preservation of the Spanish World Heritage sites basing on the State of Conservation Reports (SOCs) that affect them and the results of the first survey on these properties’ conservation, management and presentation carried out by the Heritage Observatory of ICOMOS Spain. This allows us to share some conclusions about the most positive effects of the Convention for the protection of Spanish cultural heritage and the most important challenges for its future development, many of which can be extended at least to the European context.

World heritage sites, international tourism demand and tourist specialization in Latin America and the Caribbean 1995-2019

The relationship between international tourism and the registration of a place as World Heritage, both tangible and intangible, has been newly studied. Nevertheless, little progress has been done with regard to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries. This paper aims to approach this problem. Furthermore, the analysis is differentiated according to the kind of destination. To do so, a specialization index is introduced indicating whether a country is specialized in tourism or not. The study is based on a panel data of 32 countries in LAC for the 1995-2019 period. Results show that there is a strong direct effect of the number of World Heritage Sites on international tourist demand and, that this relationship is much stronger for those countries that are tourism specialized. However, when differentiating between tangible and intangible heritages, tangible ones have an important significant effect on international tourist demand in not tourism specialized countries, but intangible elements not so much. Conversely, cultural intangible heritage is only significant for tourism specialized countries.

Assessment of the impact and interrelation of UNESCO World Heritage on the tourism attractiveness of the country

This work aims to investigate the impact of popular UNESCO World Heritage objects on the country’s tourist arrivals as a factor of attractiveness, to estimate the strong correlation between these phenomena, and to mathematically validate the assumption that the number of such sites has a direct impact on the country’s tourism competitiveness. We used data from the UNWTO’s open sources, UNESCO, the World Economic Forum expert reports on the competitiveness of travels and tourism of the world’s countries for 2017. The analysis is based on three rankings of countries in terms of World Heritage assets, international touristic arrivals and the country’s tourism and travel competitiveness index, and correlation analysis between these values. Also, to determine the influence and interdependencies between the studied concepts, the method of paired correlation analysis was chosen as a convenient way to demonstrate the influence of one variable on another. Determination of the correlation coefficient allowed to speak about the complexity of the relationship and the linearity of these phenomena. In particular, the increase in the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites leads to an increase in tourist arrivals and makes the country attractive for tourism development. As a result, we have obtained estimates of the unidirectional impact of the number of World Heritage sites on the territory of a particular country on the volume of international tourist arrivals. However, not always the overall attractiveness and competitiveness of the country in the field of tourism is linked to the World Heritage, and our study only confirms the thesis that among the many ways to increase the attractiveness of the country, an increase in World Heritage sites leads to an increase in tourist traffic. In current trends, choosing public policy to enhance and preserve UNESCO sites one obviously can expect the growth of tourist flows to the countries.

Conventions

In 1946, when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was created, who could have believed that whale research would ever be conducted from space? But today, as the IWC celebrates 75 years of cetacean science and conservation, electronic tagging and very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery are increasingly important ways to study whales. The information gathered is put to work in the development of conservation strategies and protection of healthy habitats around the globe, including in a number of World Heritage sites.

Tourism space reconstruction of a world heritage site based on actor network theory: A case study of the Shibing Karst of the South China Karst World Heritage Site

The number of world heritage sites is increasing daily, and China has become one of the countries with the largest number of world heritage sites. However, the study of complex geographic spatial processes before and after the successful inscription of heritage sites is relatively rare. The Shibing Karst component of the serial South China Karst World Natural Heritage Site was taken as a case study, and actor network theory and qualitative research methods were used to analyze the space reconstruction processes and mechanisms of the Shibing Karst. The findings indicated that (1) the Shibing Karst experienced two sequential space reconstruction processes, the normal tourism destination construction phase and the world heritage site construction phase; (2) in the tourism destination construction phase, there was a heterogeneous actor network in which the People's Government of Shibing County played a focal role in promoting the restructuring of production, living and ecological space and realizing a space for the production and consumption of tourism products and experiences; (3) in the world heritage site construction phase, foreign enterprises became new actors, and residents gradually gained more decision-making rights, with the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and the World Heritage Centre having supervisory rights, which promoted the transformation of the area into a world heritage production and consumption tourism space, indicating that the actor network had changed; and (4) the mechanisms of the actor network transformation were mainly changes in key actors' intentions, the adoption of the governance mechanism (changes in the means of enrollment), and changes in the actors' roles as part of the actor network transformation. Research on the process of space reconstruction showed that changes in the actor network and interest relations and adjustments of the power relations among actors, which can affect the sustainable development of tourism and the economy of heritage sites, occurred.

Prefacio II

Awareness of the importance of preserving and transmitting cultural heritage to future generations has been growing enormously over the last two decades. An indicator of this is the continuous growth in the number of cultural heritage sites and monuments inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage list, which passed from 551 in 1987 to 1054 in 2016. Furthermore, the gap that once divided Europe and Northern America from other countries in terms of protection policies, development of practices and procedures for the restoration has been reduced. However, in the last two decades the number of World Heritage sites in danger strongly increased, passing from 10 in 1987 to 37 in 2016.

Revisiting the Relationship between World Heritage Sites and Tourism

As the number of World Heritage Sites (WHSs) is time-invariant or rarely changing in the short run, the panel data model reaches inconsistent estimates of the real effect of WHSs on tourist arrivals. This study adopts two alternative techniques, the fixed-effect vector decomposition (FEVD) approach and the two-stage, double fixed-effect (TSDFE) model, to revisit the WHS–tourism nexus. Based on China's provincial-level panel data over the 2000–2005 period, estimates using the fixed-effect panel data model show an insignificant impact of WHSs on tourist arrivals. Crucially, the empirical results obtained from both FEVD and TSDFE confirm a positive relationship between WHSs and international tourists in China. Moreover, cultural WHSs tend to exhibit a stronger tourism-enhancing effect than the natural WHSs. This study also highlights the importance of dealing with the time-invariant and/or rarely changing attributes in examining tourism demand.

Destination Attributes and Chinese Outbound Tourism to Europe目的地特性和中国对欧洲的对外旅游

China is one of the fastest growing outbound tourism markets. Europe is an attractive destination for Chinese tourists. However, Europe still accounts for a small percentage of Chinese outbound tourism. If European countries want to benefit from this market, they should pay attention to Chinese tourists’ preferences. This article contributes to the understanding of Chinese outbound tourism by analyzing those destination attributes that can influence the number of Chinese tourists received. From a sample of 47 European countries, our findings suggest that a greater cultural distance from China, a large number of World Heritage Sites, a large ethnic Chinese population, and a large number of flight connections to China are associated with the amount of Chinese tourists visiting each country.

Heritage Tourism in Africa: Residents' Perceptions of African-American and White Tourists

The growing interest in heritage tourism in Africa is reflected in the Cairo Declaration of 1995, which was adopted under the auspices of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The objective was for African countries to identify, develop, and preserve a number of World Heritage Sites in cooperation with international agencies and special interest groups. Ultimately, it was expected that such development would enhance the promotion of cultural, thus heritage and ethnic tourism as part of the continent's economic development strategy. A number of forts and castles built by Europeans are currently being restored for heritage tourism in Ghana and the country also has several vital cultural resource sites that are critical components of the "Slave Route Project." Cape Coast and Elmina are two communities in Ghana currently receiving an increasing number of international visitors, including a significant number of African-Americans to the three World Heritage Sites located in the two towns. The purpose of the article is to examine how residents of Cape Coast and Elmina perceive African-American and White tourists. Data for the study were gathered in Cape Coast and Elmina through interviewer-administered surveys. Results indicate significant differences in residents' perceptions of Black and White visitors. The study concludes that considerable care must be exercised in the development and utilization of historically sensitive areas and properties for tourism.

World Heritage: Exploring the Tension Between the National and the ‘Universal’

The complex issues of conservation, politics, tourism management and ownership have emerged as critical issues within the World Heritage debate and specifically within heritage tourism research. Within this context, this paper focuses on issues of ownership and belonging and argues that there exists a link between the conceptual inconsistencies inherent in the World Heritage idea and the tensions between the national and the ‘universal’ evident at a number of World Heritage Sites. That is, heritage sites that are deemed to be of ‘outstanding universal value’ and are bestowed with the World Heritage accolade are consequently no longer expected to be perceived as symbols of particular national identities, but as heritage belonging to all humankind. This, of course, provokes a series of debates over the issues of ownership and belonging of such heritage, namely between the national and the ‘universal’ suggesting that it is possible to perceive World Heritage as synonymous with contested heritage. The paper explores these issues of ownership and focuses on the Acropolis, symbol of the World Heritage idea, as a case study utilising an exploratory semiotic analysis of the promotional material released by the Greek National Tourism Organisation over the last five years.

Advocacy, international development and World Heritage Sites in sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is under-represented numerically by the number of World Heritage Sites inscribed in that region yet a significant number of these sites are under threat from the combined and linked processes of poverty, war, environmental change and increasingly globalized economic and communication systems. Cultural resource management provision across the region's countries suffers from severe under-resourcing and a limited skills base. In order to redress this imbalance greater emphasis needs to be placed on examining more sustainable mechanisms for developing research and management strategies for the future protection of Africa's archaeological resource. World Heritage inscription has become an all-consuming process, draining resources and diverting attention away from broader heritage provisions. As an integral part of this process archaeology needs to become embedded within the international development framework where it can become an advocacy voice for community and for poverty alleviation and contribute to the debate on environment and climate change. This can be achieved only once the specialized heritage agencies become less exclusive and more integrated within international frameworks of development and reconstructive work. Existing NGOs have an intrinsic role to play in this process and will need to adopt cultural heritage into their sphere of interest and expertise.