Students as tourists or residents

I have spent the day engrossed in a literature review associated with some research I'm doing in partnership with Dr Elizabeth Carnegie of the University of Sheffield, looking at student engagement with the World Heritage Site in Durham.  We are interested in whether or not living and studying within a WHS has an impact on their attitudes to heritage in general, and to the values of the WHS in particular.

There is a growing body of research that looks at how tourists engage with (or don't) World Heritage values in destinations, and other researchers have focussed more on how communities react to, and are affected by, WHS status. But no-one has yet looked at how students engage with WHS - they are short-term residents, spending 9 to 12 weeks at a time in the area, several times a year for 3 or 4 years. So according to UNWTO definitions, they are tourists.  But their motivations for staying in the destination are very particular, and it is unlikely that WHS status had anything to do with their decision to travel to the city in question (whilst we are looking at Durham, there are many other WHS that have universities and colleges in their core). 
Thinking of Durham in particular, the heritage of the peninsula, that part of the city ascribed WHS status, plays a key role in creating the atmosphere that is valued by many university students.  Already, we have anecdotal evidence that students living in one of the colleges that looks on to the great East Window feel inspired by the view when looking at it from their rooms, whilst we know that the opportunity to graduate in a ceremony held within the cathedral is valued by some university alumni.
Our first phase of primary research will start next week, with the first public presentation of our findings being at a conference Liz is attending in the Caribbean in January. That will be followed by another presentation at a one-day seminar on Communities and World Heritage we are hosting in Durham in March, and finally a paper that will be submitted to a leading academic journal some time in the spring.

Responsible Tourism around the Mediterranean

Have been pondering on a couple of the points made by Justin Francis, CEO of www.responsibletravel.com, at a recent evening seminar for ICRT students and alumni. He was talking about the 10 things that will change tourism, for good or for the worse, in the coming years and two of his 'top ten' were the Arab Spring and the economic crisis facing the PIGS. It is clear, even from the events in Tahrir Square and in Sirte last night, that the repercussions of the Arab Spring are still being worked out across the MENA region and it will be some time before destinations like Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia see their visitor numbers returning to anything like 2010 levels. Meanwhile, what will be the impact on destination marketing and management budgets of government cuts in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal as they struggle to bring their budget deficits under control?

I am a geographer by academic background and what really interests me about this situation around the Mediterranean is what impact there will be on tourism flows? Will there be a major increase in outbound tourism to Turkey as Europeans continue to search for their two weeks of sunshine? Or will the emerging destination of the Azores take up some of the demand diverted away from the MENA region in particular? And where will Morocco go? It gets a lot of business from Spain but with a major recession there, it may see numbers fall. Yet it too has experienced some unrest and analysts believe that it too may still see changes. And what the tourism sector needs is certainty, not uncertainty.

So - it is going to be an interested few months and we should watch the early UNWTO returns for 2011 with a lot of interest, to see who really has benefited from these major changes happening around the Med. One thing we know for sure though, is that the residents of these countries will feel these changes far more than we ever will.

Family holidays in the Lake District

Not having kids ourselves, we have been spared the trauma that goes with so many holidays - "where to go so that there is enough to do to keep them occupied so they don't moan about missing their friends", and "where can we go that doesn't cost an arm and a leg"? Well, we are just back from a week in the English Lake District having had a great week with our American friends and their three teenage kids.

True, having a 19 year old and 2 16 year olds meant that nothing much happened before mid-morning apart from 3 of the four adults (plus dog) going on a 4 mile run up the valley from where we were staying. And it also constrained a little the level of cultural activity (tho' we redressed that after they left on thursday to go down to Sussex for a wedding, with a trip to the amazing Arts & Crafts house at Blackwell - see photo of one of the windows above). But I had completely forgotten (a) how beautiful the Northern Lakes are in early summer and (b) how much investment there has been in good quality tourism products.

The town of Keswick, near our base of Bassenthwaite Village, is selling itself as the outdoor capital of the UK (I know - Fort William begs to differ) and there is certainly an outdoor equipment shop on every corner and in quite a few locations in between. Properly kitted out, we were ready for a walk around the shores of Derwentwater, a climb up Cat Bells (beloved by many as the home of Mrs Tiggywinkle and a hill I'd not climbed since 1972, at the age of 12 - this time I was able to take the dog), a canoeing trip across Derwentwater and, best of all, an afternoon exploring the slate mines of Honister using the Via Ferrata, zipwires and even a couple of old mine workings.

This mix of paid-for and free access recreational provision is what makes the Lake District such a good family holiday destination - every evening we collapsed around the table in our lovely cottage garden, teased each other about the day's disasters (the nine month old labrador jumping out of the Canadian Canoe just as we launched, requiring several trips back to the shore to get him in was but one mini-crisis) and planned the next adventure.
At a time when budgets are squeezed, and when the UK tourism sector is seeking to strengthen awareness of its potential as a destination for a main holiday, those in charge of developing and marketing the Lakes have much to be proud of. True, there were a few blatant attempts at price-gouging (£14.95 for a DVD with 80, mainly blurry, photos of the Via Ferrata trip was a rip off - shame on you Honister!) but by and large everything was good value. The weather was OK and the company great. For my first 'main' holiday in England since 1977, I couldn't have chosen a better place.

P.S. I didn't forget about work and the responsible tourism movement whilst I was there - lots of evidence of environmentally and socially sustainable action across the board. But in writing this blog I decided to focus on the fun element of holidays and tourism, something we professionals often forget!

An 'Evening With' ICRT students and alumni

Just back from London where I spoke to a small but enthusiastic group of ICRT students, alumni and a prospective student (thanks for coming along Caroline - hope you enjoyed it!) about some of the consultancy work I have been doing. My last blog covered much of what I was speaking about: how we need community passion behind any attempt to develop heritage-based tourism, but that without the public sector's ability to mobilise and mediate between different stakeholders (and often also to provide core funding) such projects often fail. What was interesting to me was how the conversation towards the end of the evening took a quite unexpected turn, coming around to the issue of whether or not there is ever a business case for investing in heritage conservation from a tourism perspective. Having analysed the issue from a number of sides, we came round to the decision that whilst there is very rarely, if ever, a BUSINESS case, there is quite often a broader economic development case. In other words, the public sector's role is to intervene in a situation where there would be conventional market failure in order to ensure the broader benefits are delivered. My problem is that I know I've read all this before, but can't remember where. So it's off to the library for a load more research before I start updating my teaching materials for next year!

ICRT 'Evening With'

For several years it has been a tradition for ICRT staff, students and alumni to meet on the second Wednesday of the month to catch up with one another, share ideas and generally try to find ways to progress the Responsible Tourism agenda. Tomorrow evening's meeting at the Vintry, a wine bar near Bank underground station, will be no exception. From my perspective, however, it will be slightly different as I am the 'guest speaker' and will spend an hour or so talking about three recently completed consultancy assignments.

The first project is the Cycle Hubs project that we have just completed in Northumberland, working for 18 months to set up a suite of routes radiating out from the two market towns of Wooler and Haltwhistle. At a time when the UK government is very keen to push more and more responsibility onto communities as part of its'Big Society' movement, it has been very instructive to compare and contrast the differing attitudes in the two towns towards the creation of a legacy group that can take the project forward now that our initial seed funding has been exhausted.

The second project was the preparation of a business plan for the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Fife, a small but important museum with a nationally recognised collection relating to the fishing heritage of Scotland, and particularly of the East Coast fisheries which once employed tens of thousands of people. The museum has existed for some 30 years, has a core of local authority financial funding and yet still relies on volunteers for much of the labour needed to care for and present the collections to the public. There is a good cohort of volunteers at the moment including ex-fishermen, academics, accountants and marine engineers. But what is interesting is the way that these men (and they are almost exclusively men who are volunteers at the museum) gravitate towards the 'sexier' jobs of restoring and conserving fishing boats and sailing the boats (particularly Reaper, a historic sail-powered 'Fifie' fishing boat) to other ports up and down the East Coast. There is far less interest in the unglamourous jobs of staffing the till in the shop or catologuing the photograph collection. So even when there is volunteer support, it is not always easy to direct it in the most effective direction - I know many museum curators who are afraid to do anything that might upset volunteers and drive them away - better some input than none!

And the final project I shall be discussing is an evaluation I carried out for UNWTO of the Saudi Council for Tourism and Antiquities Urban Heritage Programme. In many ways this seems totally different from the others but there are similarities. In one of the flagship projects, Rijjal Al Maa, a village of four and five storey stone-built houses in the mountains of Aseer, a community-based group has been investing its own resources in the conservation of the historic core of the village in order to protect and preserve the traditional urban form. They recognise that this is not only their own heritage, but also that without their involvement, they run the risk of the state party diverting its attention towards other, equally worthy causes. In two of the other historic villages participating in the scheme there are other interesting issues arising - at Al Ghat north of Riyadh, much of the leadership has come from one family (related to the Saudi Royal Family by marriage) who have the resources to be able to invest in the restoration of their original home in the village, thus setting an example (and challenge) to others in the area. And in Dhi'Ain in Al Baha province, ownership of the whole village has been transferred into a trust so that the conservation and re-presentation of the village for tourism purposes can be delivered effectively and to the highest standards.

No matter where I work as a consultant, I constantly am faced with new permutations of the community:state party relationship, and feel that there is still much that we can do in this country to learn how to make the most of community passion for heritage.

Valuing cultural heritage

I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about how to demonstrate the value that some groups in society place on their cultural patrimony. My interest in this topic was re-awakened by reports last month that the protestors in Cairo’s Tahrir Square had set up a protective zone around the Egyptian Museum next door to prevent looting and damage to the priceless assets contained therein. Although there was some minor damage and a small number of statuettes were stolen, this seems to have happened in only one incident. Recent reports from the former head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Dr Zahi Hawass, suggest that there has also been some damage around the ruins at Saqqara and in some other locations. But in the main, the Egyptian people have respected the legal protection afforded to some of the richest archaeological remains in the world.

One compares this with the situation a few years ago in Iraq, when there was widespread looting in the national museum in Baghdad, with many items still missing and presumed destroyed or sold on the black market. And the damage to the ruins of the ancient city of Ur by US marines who used the site as a base to oversee the downfall of Saddam Hussein was not only a violation of trust but also a clear illustration of the lack of awareness, appreciation and understanding of the enormously rich heritage of the region still prevalent amongst many people.

News coming out of Libya also gives some cause for concern, with reports that some archaeological sites are being damaged in the struggle between pro- and anti- Gaddafi forces. In all three cases, there are fundamental issues of national identity and political power being worked out and yet only in the Egyptian case have the protagonists gone out of their way to protect their patrimony. One wonders whether this is in part because they recognise the enormous contribution that such assets make to the development and sustainability of a responsible tourism sector that celebrates rather than diminishes cultures and their heritage. Perhaps we will never know what drove those Egyptian protestors in Tahrir Square to protect the treasures of the Egyptian Museum. But we should remember to thank them.

Fundraising at a sacred site

Am just back from a really positive committee meeting at Durham Cathedral where we heard that in the first two years of operation, we have raised some £1.6 million for various activities across the Cathedral. These include funds for the conservation of the historic fabric, money to pay for adaptation works to make some of the spaces fit for purpose (as well as the regular pattern of worship, the building also attracts some 500,000 tourists a year), and resources to pay for education and outreach work and the music programme (a particular source of pride locally, not least because the current BBC Young Choristor of the Year was trained at Durham).

One tends to think of those working in religious buildings as having very little to do other than light a few candles and preach the occasional sermon. But since the Dean first invited me to join the embryonic development committee back in 2007, I have become much more aware of the enormous range of responsibilities and activities. Current thinking includes developing a strategy to link in with the Government's 'Big Society' agenda (whatever you might think politically, the pragmatist sees money in there for organisations like the Cathedral to work with different groups within society) and, on a joyous note, thinking about how to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Cathedral's inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986. At present, we are thinking of a celebratory event in early November, possibly linked with an academic conference looking at the challenges of managing multi-use historic buildings. So watch this space.....

The contribution of handicrafts to livelihoods in package holiday destinations

Working in partnership with ICRT students Louise Dixey and Yvette Evers and my colleague Lucy McCombes, I am commencing a desk-based review of the contribution that handicrafts make to the livelihoods of communities living in and around popular package holiday destinations. The research is being funded by the Travel Foundation, the charity funded by the UK’s main tour operators, and the findings will be used to establish what can be done in these destinations to increase the contributions that crafts make to local economies. Some of the destinations we are studying include Tobago, St Lucia and Jamaica in the Carribean; the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, the area around Bodrum in Turkey and the Red Sea and Sinai resorts of Egypt.

A full report will be submitted to the Travel Foundation in early April 2011 and will include guidelines on specific projects that can be implemented in some of these destinations to enhance the quality of crafts available, improve market access for local producers and strengthen local linkages between suppliers of raw materials, the craftsmen and women themselves and the vendors who tend to sell the products on to the tourists.

Running in parallel with this work is another project that ICRT is undertaking on behalf of the Travel Foundation, this time focusing in on handicrafts in the Gambia. This work includes the first ever economic impact study of the sector in the country, an exercise that will allow us to examine which groups of craftworkers are most vulnerable to disruption and whose incomes suffer the most when tourist numbers fall off at the end of the season.

If you want to know more about the work that ICRT is doing in the traditional handicrafts sector, don't hesitate to get in touch