The workshop Advancing Sustainable Tourism at Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites took place in Dunhuang, China in late September 2009. More than 130 delegates from 25+ countries attended four days of presentations, discussions and site visits at the Mogao Grottoes WHS, hosted by the Dunhuang Academy and their partners the Getty Conservation Institute and the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. The venue was selected partly to demonstrate the growing challenges facing heritage sites in China. The grottoes, a World Heritage Site, currently attract more than 500,000 visitors per annum (90% Chinese nationals, 10% international visitors) yet only 15 years ago they received only 10% of this number. The Mogao Grottoes are a ‘unique repository of a thousand years of Buddhist wall paintings and sculptures’ and were amongst the first Chinese sites to be placed on the World Heritage List. A ten year partnership between the Dunhuang Academy, which manages the site, and the Getty Conservation institute, has pushed forward technical understanding of conserving wall paintings in arid environments. Sophisticated monitoring procedures have informed the preparation of a scientifically-based management plan for the site that addresses the opportunities and threats posed by increasing levels of tourism at this fragile destination.
As well as celebrating the decade of international cooperation in conservation and visitor management at Mogao Grottoes, the workshop also progressed the work of the World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Initiative (WHSTI). A key outcome of the workshop was the development of recommendations for amendments to the World Heritage Operational Guidelines so that best practice in tourism management can be incorporated into the management processes of the World Heritage Convention. Following endorsement of the process at the June 2009 meeting of the World Heritage Committee (33COM) in Seville, these amendments will be submitted to the June 2010 meeting (34COM).
The workshop also reviewed the emerging Principles for Sustainable World Heritage Tourism that support the proposed amendments to the Operational Guidelines. Thus the presentations at the workshop illustrated and analysed, through case studies, many of the key points associated with the responsible development and management at World Heritage Sites. Four main themes underpinned the workshop:
· Planning for sustainable tourism at heritage sites
· Working with the tourism sector
· Managing the tourist experience on site
· Maximising community benefits
Copies of many of the presentations are available on the website of the Australian Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. Highlights to my mind included a wonderful presentation by the managers of Port Arthur Historic Site in Tasmania that looked at market segmentation and satisfying the needs of very different audiences on one site, Sharon Sullivan’s exposition of values-based management for heritage sites and a paper by two Guatemalan conservation professionals looking at the integration of spiritual values into site and landscape management. A link to the papers should be available to ICOMOS members from Leanne Burrows (Leanne.Burrows@environment.gov.au). A draft of the revised Principles for Sustainable World Heritage Tourism is available from Graham Brooks (grahamlesliebrooks@hotmail.com), Chair of the ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Committee. Alternatively, I can supply a copy of the Draft Principles (drsimonwoodward@hotmail.com) .
