SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AT WORLD HERITAGE SITES

World Heritage sites attract tourists, and increased tourism always carries the risk of harming the very attributes that led to the sites' inscription on the World Heritage List.

Tourism offers well?known advantages: visitor fees, concessions, and donations can fund restoration and protection efforts. Tour operators and hotel chains can play a role in the management of a site by assisting with monitoring efforts or instructing their clients in responsible tourism. Tourism can also bolster threatened cultural values by supporting local cultural events and preserving traditional crafts.

However, tourism also spawns well?known problems. Managing tourism has proven a time?consuming process of establishing policies, maintaining ongoing dialogue with stakeholders, and continuous monitoring. Tourism activities require environmental impact assessments and procedures for minimizing impacts. At sites with limited budgets and staff, tourism can stretch scarce resources and take managers away from protection efforts.

The degree of change that should be permitted to accommodate tourism growth at World Heritage sites is also controversial, since the original values for which the site was inscribed can not be compromised. To begin to meet these and other challenges, sustainable tourism is encouraged at World Heritage sites. This includes implementing policies, aimed at preserving the site for future generations, such as using tourism to contribute to environmental protection, limiting negative socio?economic impacts, and benefiting local people economically and socially.

The World Heritage Centre regularly carries out missions examining tourism development projects affecting sites' inscribed values. Missions have included evaluations of: the impact of helicopter over-flights at the Iguazu Falls in Brazil; tourism impacts on wildlife in the Galapagos Islands; the impacts of cable car projects at Machu Picchu, Peru, and at Morne Trois Piton National Park in Dominica; and the the reduction and management of tourist flows at the Alhambra, Generalife, and Albaicin sites in Granada, Spain.

Regional workshops on tourism and World Heritage are regularly carried out at World Heritage sites, and site managers are increasingly receiving support in the form of capacity building and training. Efforts are underway to develop an information web site that will enable managers to share case studies and best practices. To increase the skill level of site managers, the Centre has recently produced a tourism management manual containing information on the subjects of the World Heritage Convention, the tourism industry, public involvement, visitor impacts and management, carrying capacity, and interpretation and promotion.