In 2018, 10 million tourists visited the most popular section of the Great Wall. Nearly 9 million visitors explored the historic sites of Egypt. And Venice drew an estimated 30 million foreign tourists.
When well-managed, tourism can protect these historic sites and provide an economic boost to surrounding communities. Conversely, poorly managed tourism results in congestion, saturation, commodification, and physical stress on infrastructure and on natural, cultural, and heritage attractions.
Today, many historic sites most beloved by tourists suffer from poorly-managed tourism practices. Rather than benefiting from increased tourism and global attention, sites are crumbling under the strain of rising numbers of visitors.
Now is the time to critically explore how cultural heritage can contend with — and benefit from — the growth of travel and tourism.
THE GLOBAL RISE OF TOURISM
Tourism is growing rapidly throughout the world. Today, travel and tourism account for over 10 percent of global GDP, more than 300 million jobs, and 1 in every 5 new jobs created worldwide. Travel and tourism will outperform the global economy throughout the next decade, with a projected 3.8 percent average annual growth over the next ten years. Over 70 percent of the US adult population, or 175.5 million Americans, are leisure travelers. These numbers will only grow, and the UNWTO (World Tourism Organization) forecasts that by 2030, international trips will reach 1.8 billion.
Cultural tourism is especially popular, with 40 percent of current travelers identified as “cultural tourists,” or travelers who participate in a cultural visit or activity as part of their stay. Around the globe, cultural heritage sites are major attractions, and tourism offers the ability to ‘present’ the world’s wealth of cultural heritage to the public.
Cultural heritage tourism has a number of important benefits. Exposure to other cultures and communities can expand worldviews and increase intercultural understanding. Cultural tourism helps build bridges between vastly different communities. Tourism can also introduce people to new cultures, build understanding, and forge connections — impacts we sorely need in today’s increasingly divisive world.
The benefits of tourism don’t end with the tourists. Tourism can be an invaluable source of development and income for communities. In areas of limited income sources, tourism can provide alternative revenue for local people and provide jobs for younger generations who are otherwise forced to seek employment far from their home communities. Tourism can help stem the migrant outflow from rural areas of scarcity to urban centers. Tourism can also finance protected areas through visitor fees, prompt new community initiatives such as infrastructure and local development, and boost community pride by recognizing local importance and distinct characteristics. Furthermore, tourism can encourage promotion and development of local crafts and other cultural expressions that contribute to community identity.
With all these positive outcomes, it’s easy to think of tourism as a blessing for cultural areas. However, tourism can also pose enormous threats to fragile cultural and natural sites. Around the world, many historic locations are under increasing pressures from poorly planned and managed tourism.
TOURISM: A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
Tens of thousands of cultural heritage sites worldwide are threatened by dangers such as natural disasters, looting, commercial development, armed conflict, and neglect. Unchecked tourism development exacerbates these threats and can result in damage or loss of national treasures.
Poorly managed tourism can physical damage sites with daily wear-and-tear. Overtourism can also erode the unique atmosphere and charm of destinations, destroying the very reason that a site is prized in the first place. Increased visitation results in increased waste, water, and energy use and the development of vendor outlets, facilities, and services in and around popular sites. Poorly managed tourism at historic sites and monuments can have unwanted social and economic impacts, including increased crime, prostitution, and culture clash between tourists and local residents.
Take the classic example of Venice, one of the most popular cultural destinations in the world. Poorly planned tourism options are destroying the city — both metaphorically, by eroding the city’s cultural charm, and literally, by damaging city infrastructure. Drawn by Venice’s distinctive canals and charming atmosphere, swarms of tourists have today turned the city into a chaotic bottleneck. Cruise ships damage fragile architecture as they funnel hoards from 5,000 passenger boats to narrow, 16th-century alleyways. With barely enough time to see even a few of the city’s most impressive sites, visitors can forget entirely about taking leisurely hours to soak up the unique, romantic atmosphere. This “enclave tourism” endangers cultural destinations around the world and usually fails to benefit communities and cultural sites.
Of course, it’s easy to point to the problems with tourism. It’s much harder to work towards solutions that integrate modern tourism demands with the realities of protecting historic sites. So what can be done to bring more benefits — and fewer harms — of tourism to historic sites and the communities living around them? And how can destinations balance the demands of tourism with the protection of cultural values and historic areas?
I propose one solution: sustainable cultural heritage tourism.
SUSTAINABLE CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM
The term “sustainable cultural heritage tourism” bridges several concepts, beginning with sustainable tourism. According to the UNWTO, “sustainable tourism takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.” Sustainable tourism is not a site-specific activity but a global cause rooted in community development.
Heritage tourism is a growing sector of tourism involving travel to historic sites. The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States defines heritage tourism as “traveling to experience the places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past including cultural, historic and natural resources,” and cultural heritage tourism as “traveling to experience the places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present.”
Despite these definitions, a broadly accepted definition for “sustainable cultural heritage tourism” does not currently exist. I therefore propose the following definition:
Sustainable cultural heritage tourism is travel and tourism that:
- Contributes to the management and protection of cultural heritage sites;
- Makes a positive contribution to the socio-economic and environmental well-being of host communities;
- Mitigates the negative impacts associated with poorly managed tourism;
- And maximizes the quality of the resident and visitor experience.
To be truly sustainable, tourism must protect and promote development opportunities, balancing resources to promote economic, social, and aesthetic sustainability. What steps can we take towards sustainable cultural heritage tourism?
1. Promote sustainable cultural heritage tourism that benefits communities
Cultural heritage tourism can benefit communities through the production and sale of goods and services. Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet and a Trustee on Global Heritage Fund’s Board, explains: “When heritage sites support local community development through the provision of tourism activities and services, communities get engaged in heritage preservation.”
At Global Heritage Fund, we connect people with opportunities that leverage heritage to ensure sustainable tourism models. In the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco, our programs are creating new jobs and supporting local development by restoring ancient monuments and developing alternative local tourism routes that ensure traveler spending truly benefits all.
However, organizations such as GHF cannot shoulder the weight of conservation and site protection alone. The tourism sector is expanding and profiting from renewed interest in cultural heritage, and it’s high time for travel and tourism to help shoulder the costs of conservation by contributing to sites and communities. Tour operators must encourage people to stay longer at sites and contribute resources to local economies, emphasizing quality over quantity — principles at the core of our new sustainable travel program to Morocco.
2. Support community-based resources management
It’s easy to overlook that the heart of heritage are communities — real people with authentic connections to historic sites and cultural practices. All too often, the pressures of global cultural tourism disproportionately harm these communities. Around the world, communities are cut off from historic sites or even fully evicted in order to make room for tourism developments.
At Global Heritage Fund, we know that communities are integral to the success of our programs. From China to Turkey to Morocco, we create new opportunities that enable people living in and around historic sites to thrive and build ecosystems for long-term sustainability. Our new partnership with The Intrepid Foundation will focus on the archaeological site of Sagalassos, Turkey, and the nearby town of Ağlasun. Through skills development and training, this multi-year partnership will build on our established community training programs to expand local capacities and support sustainable development and preservation of the archaeological site.
Rather than pushing aside or ignoring communities, organizations and governments must enable communities to manage their own resources. These processes require capacity-building, training, and time — lots of it. Training new generations of stewards and cultural heritage protectors is not a fast endeavor, but it’s one we cannot ignore.
3. Create tourism management plans for historic sites — and integrate them within larger management systems.
Many cultural heritage attractions do not have active tourism management plans in place. Even when tourism management plans exist, they are oftentimes not integrated within larger management plans for sites.
Sustainable tourism seems hard to come by — and that’s no surprise. The systems of modern day tourism were built before the internet, when travelers were forced to rely heavily on major brands. Carryovers of that system, such as standardized rating systems, focus on uniformity and fail to take into account the quality of tourism experiences.
As tourism numbers increase in an outdated system, pressures build and disproportionately affect communities around historic areas. Heritage sites and cultural experiences are commodified — to the aforementioned detriment of the residents living in and around these historic areas. Better site policies, planning, management, and monitoring lead to increased site protection and a reduction in the negative impacts associated with tourism.
There are no easy solutions to balance sustainability and travel. However, I know that sustainable tourism can benefit cultural heritage sites — and with tourism only expected to grow over the next years and decades, historic sites can scarcely afford to ignore the coming increase in global travel.
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Sources:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/12/640512-world-could-see-18-billion-tourists-2030-un-agency
https://sdt.unwto.org/content/about-us-5
http://www2.unwto.org/webform/survey-big-data-and-cultural-tourism
https://hyperallergic.com/515985/the-implicit-threat-of-being-designated-a-world-heritage-site/
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/badaling-great-wall-quota/index.html
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/venice-entrance-fee-tax-2019-1429798