Urban World Heritage Research Articles

Backpackers' Order and Visit Length in an Urban World Heritage Destination: an Analysis Using Ordered Logit and Linear Models

Described as a group of independent travelers with flexible itineraries and without substantial time constraints, backpackers constitute one of the tourist segments that has drawn the attention of many researchers around the world. However, little is known about how this segment of travelers behaves in destinations from a space–time perspective. The purpose of this study is to examine the relevance of the order and visit length on backpackers' space–time behavior in an urban world heritage destination. Using geographic information system (GIS) software, the sequence and the length of the visit were identified. To analyze the order of the places visited, we used the ordered logit method and to study the duration dimension a multivariate equation, estimated by OLS with heteroskedasticity robust errors, was selected. The results showed that no variable in particular influences the order of the places visited in any of the parishes simultaneously, reinforcing the underlying randomness in relation to the order in which destination parishes are visited. Length of stay is mostly influenced by factors related to mobility conditions as well as factors exogenous to tourists' decision-making capacity.

World Cultural Heritage Management Toolkit: Heritage Impact Assessment. Features and Prospects for Use in Russia

This study focuses on Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA), which is one of the elements of the World Heritage protection system and aimed at maintaining the Outstanding Universal Value. Due to the absence in the domestic scientific literature of works devoted to a generalizing understanding of the goals and objectives of Impact Assessment in the system of cultural heritage protection, the author focuses on revealing the content side of the concept of Impact Assessment, examines the process and reasons for the introduction of HIA as an independent tool for planning, managing changes and achieving public consent, identifies and analyzes the key principles for its implementation. Based on a consistent analysis of the provisions of international and domestic normative and methodological documents, as well as the practice of the Heritage Impact Assessment, conclusions are drawn about the aspects of the interpretation of the content, problems and prospects for using this tool for managing World Heritage in Russia. Attention is paid to the relevance and importance of Impact Assessments for the conservation of the Outstanding Universal Value of urban World Heritage sites and properties located in the urban environment. As a result of the study, the author formulated recommendations aimed at improving the effectiveness of the HIA and its full integration into the national heritage protection system.

UNESCO urban world heritage sites: Tourists' awareness in the era of social media

This paper examines the tourists' awareness regarding UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) status of city destinations. A novel theoretical model defining macro and micro levels of analysis is constructed and used as research basis. A global sample of 105 WHS cities is examined together with corresponding user generated content from 2.5 million TripAdvisor reviews. Data collected is verified from various official sources, enriched, and thoroughly analyzed.It is shown that macro level attributes do not play a substantial role, while micro level factors significantly affect how much tourists and locals are aware of or interested in the UNESCO designation. Tourist demographics and representation of a city's attractions in social media are also shown to be important factors influencing the awareness.

Pingyao: The historic urban landscape and planning for heritage-led urban changes

Reconciliation of the often conflicting processes of urban conservation and urbanisation has been of academic and professional interest. The 2011 UNESCO recommendation on the historic urban landscape has provided guidelines for heritage management, but the ambiguities about its theoretical and practical bases have undermined its wider application in diverse urban contexts. The designation of Pingyao as one of the first urban World Heritage Sites in China in 1997 has stimulated tourism, and exemplified further challenges. An urban morphological investigation of Pingyao reveals the historical expressiveness, or historicity of its urban landscape forms as both spatial-temporal and representational creations. The historic urban landscape approach embodying both integrative and morphological values is fundamental to the formulation of historically-sensitive and community-based urban development and conservation plans. To achieve sustainable management of urban changes, integration of such historic urban landscape strategy into the established planning system is needed at both national and local levels.

Segmenting local residents by perceptions of tourism impacts in an urban World Heritage Site: the case of Dubrovnik

ABSTRACT The analysis of residents’ attitudes is an important concept in tourism development, especially in destinations that are highly dependent on tourism and where the negative socio-cultural impacts are usually ignored and neglected. The main purpose of this paper is to determine different segments of local residents permanently living inside an urban World Heritage Site (WHS), according to their attitudes towards the socio-cultural impacts of tourism. Cluster analysis and ANOVA were used for data analysis. The findings of the cluster analysis indicate the existence of three segments of local residents based on their attitudes towards tourism's positive and negative socio-cultural impacts. The ANOVA results show significant differences between segments according to their age, monthly income, the length of residence, support for current tourism development and support for cultural tourism development. The findings of this paper may contribute to the harmonization of local tourism development and local residents’ quality of life in urban WHSs, as well as to local authorities in the process of future tourism planning in urban UNESCO protected sites.

Stedelijk werelderfgoed en de Historic Urban Landscape-benadering in Nederland

Urban World Heritage and the Historic Urban Landscape approach in the Netherlands Within the category of cultural landscapes on the UNESCO World Heritage List the ‘continuing urban landscapes’ are a small but interesting group of sites. This group consists of urban and suburban areas (‘urban landscapes’) with outstanding historical and heritage values, while at the same time they are characterized by a high degree of spatial dynamics. Many developments take place that lead to change of the environment. Rio de Janeiro, the mining landscape of Nord-Pas de Calais and the Italian Amalfi coast near Naples are examples of these urban cultural landscapes on the World Heritage List. Next to these sites, there are urban World Heritage sites that formally are no cultural landscapes, but have similar characteristics. Historical city centers of Rome or Bruges, the Amsterdam canal ring or Speicherstadt in Hamburg are comparably stretched out and have comparable values. These sites are confronted with similar challenges with respect to conservation and management of change. The obligation to preserve the outstanding universal value of the site could become under pressure. This surely is the case in some urban and suburban World Heritage sites in the Kingdom of the Netherlands: Amsterdam Canal Ring, Defence Line of Amsterdam and Willemstad, Curaçao. The World Heritage status requires a strict management of the site. UNESCO’S Historic Urban Landscape approach can be helpful to make preservation and development compatible. In this article the opportunities and dilemmas of the HUL and ICOMOS’S role in it are discussed. A stronger emphasize on HUL when reviewing developments in urban World Heritage sites is advocated.

Impact Assessments for Urban World Heritage: European Experiences under Scrutiny

In the context of the broadening understanding of urban heritage, including the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape and related United Nations agendas such as the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda, this article questions the relevance of limited-focused impact assessments as a tool for the holistic management of complex urban sites in the 21st century. The article identifies pitfalls in the use of such assessments, illustrating this principally with two cases in which retrospective assessments were undertaken post-inscription in an attempt to address conflicting interests: the visual impact study for Dresden Elbe Valley, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2004 and delisted in 2009; and the three impact assessments for Liverpool Maritime Mercantile World Heritage Site, also inscribed in 2004, and placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger continuously since 2012. The article identifies critical missing elements that are inherent in discrete assessments, and provides indicators for practical tools with relevant applicability.

Assessing the sustainability of tourism-related livelihoods in an urban World Heritage Site

ABSTRACTThe relationship between UNESCO World Heritage Sites and tourism has been described as a double-edged sword, with the benefits of tourism countered by its adverse impacts. To the extent that tourism-related livelihoods are dependent on World Heritage status, the loss of that status may have significant adverse effects, especially for poor people. The Sustainable Livelihood Framework has been used to analyse the development, or otherwise, of rural communities in poor regions of the world. This paper uses this approach to examine the urban poor of a World Heritage Site in Thailand, The Historic City of Ayutthaya. As a consequence of tourism and urban industrial development, not only has there been conflict between the urban poor and the Thai government within the designated heritage area, there is also conflict with the neighbouring industrial zones. This has resulted in fears that World Heritage status may be lost. Viewed within DFID’s Sustainable Livelihood Framework, lack of capital and little community participation are factors which contribute significantly to an unsustainable livelihood. However, this research concludes that using self-reliance as a measurement of people’s livelihood to determine ‘sustainability’ is inappropriate in an urban-tourism context because people living in urban areas rely heavily on external sources.

Factors Influencing Residents’ Perceptions toward Tourism Development: Differences across Rural and Urban World Heritage Sites

This article compares the effects of factors influencing residents’ perceptions toward tourism development in urban and rural World Heritage Sites (WHSs). This study has been conducted in the rural Lenggong and urban George Town WHSs in Malaysia. Partial least squares–structural equation modeling, using a number of recently developed advanced analysis methods, has been used to assess the proposed measurement and structural models, and to compare the relationships between the two groups. The results of this study reveal significant differences between the effects of economic gain and community involvement on residents’ perceptions in rural and urban contexts. However, the findings do not support differences between the effects of community attachment and environmental attitudes on residents’ perceptions. This study makes a significant theoretical contribution by comparing rural and urban WHS residents in the developing world. Furthermore, this study has a number of practical implications for the local authorities.

Façade to Street to Façade: Negotiating Public Spatial Legality in a World Heritage City

AbstractAll UNESCO urban World Heritage sites are strictly regulated. In Antigua, Guatemala, this includes building façades and streets, as well as the use of public places. Homeowners and building owners, however, challenge regulations by using unapproved paints, signs, and building materials. Residents modify building façades to accommodate cars and open walls to effectively blend home‐based businesses with the street. At the same time, street vendors contest regulated public spaces by behaving inappropriately by selling goods on public streets rather than designated marketplaces. Rather than conceive of property owners and vendors behavior as outside and in contrast to the building and street vending regulations, I reframe their actions within what I am calling urban spatial permissiveness, a concept I derive from Roy's (2004) theory of the unmapping—flexible regulation—of urban space. Antigua offers an ethnographic setting that shows how regulations are not always rigidly enforced but are negotiated to deal with everyday contingencies that relate to residents' and vendors' rights to the city (Harvey 2008). By way of conclusion I consider Foucault's concept of governmentality as a negotiated process, in order to argue that relationships between building regulations and public space usage reveal the limits of legality and strict enforcement policies.

Strategies, policies and tools for an integrated World Heritage management approach

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline the strategies, policies and tools used in the World Heritage city “Old town of Regensburg/Germany with Stadtamhof” to face specific challenges. Even in a short period of time the city set up a management system which is working with an integrated approach to deal with all World Heritage issues.Design/methodology/approachTheoretical and practical UNESCO guidelines are the framework for each World Heritage property. On the local, regional and national level there are a multitude of parameters and stakeholders that must be integrated into the management of urban World Heritage properties to ensure that they are safeguarded.FindingsThis paper makes proposals on how to implement sustainable integrated World Heritage management, giving practical examples on how to include various stakeholders.Practical limitations/implicationsThis paper is not a comparative case study using a variety of other World Heritage sites for comparison. The individual structures and different heritage values need specific and adapted solutions in each UNESCO World Heritage site. Nevertheless some of the tools, strategies and policies described can be transferred to other historic cities. Depending on size, number of inhabitants, intensity of tourism, as well as ownership, economical environment, governance, etc., the model has to be adapted to the specific local situation.Originality/valueThis paper presents a novel integrated World Heritage management approach for urban World Heritage sites, describing new tools and strategies to sustainably integrate cultural heritage in the urban development.

Urban World Heritage Sites and the problem of authenticity

The number of designated World Heritage Sites (WHS) has proliferated across the world over the last two decades. Often associated with relatively self-contained sites of historic or architectural importance and their immediate surroundings, an increasing number of urban WHS now extend to broader areas within cities. The urbanness of WHS presents a series of challenges related to the designation, assessment and management of conservation objects in the context of dynamic and heterogeneous urban systems. One dimension that is often commented on is the tension between authentic conservation and commodification. However, there are also issues around how the ‘urban experience’ is treated. In this paper we discuss the difficulty of translating traditional conservation concepts, which we centre on the concept of authenticity, to the diverse and dynamic urban contexts urban WHS represent, and the concerns over their management that result. Specifically we explore the ‘coming to ground’ of the WHS designation in three British urban contexts. It is argued that the urban problematic of conservation is leading to something of a crisis in WHS designation as a primarily object-based logic is forced to contend with the complexities of place. This is beginning to lead to a changing set of practices related to urban WHS management.