Sustainable cultural and heritage tourism in the Covid19 era
New guidelines by Heritage Europe and the Organization of World Heritage Cities.
The leadership of Heritage Europe and the Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC) are inviting tourists around the world to rethink the possibilities of change in order to address the negative impacts of mass tourism in our historic cities in a post-Covid19 time.
“We see the key leadership role in securing more sustainable cultural tourism as falling, in large part, to historic towns and heritage cities,” write Brian Smith, Secretary General of Heritage Europe, and Matthias Ripp, OWHC Regional Coordinator for Northwest Europe and North America, as the two premiere global organizations release new guidelines that show how decision makers can assess their current approach and begin to scope a clear plan of action for a better, more sustainable and resilient future.
At Adventures in Preservation (AiP) we strongly believe in sustainable tourism, where volunteerism plays a key role in preserving historic buildings and sites, in helping communities, and in expanding private-public partnerships for the future of our historic cities.
Heritage Europe and the OWHC have been at the forefront of heritage, cultural and preservation efforts in cities around the world. Heritage Europe, formed in 1999 by the Council of Europe as the European Association of Historic Towns and Regions, now represents over 1,200 historic and heritage towns, cities, and regions in 32 European countries. The OWHC, founded in 1993, is a collaborative body that shares expertise on all issues related to the urban management of a World Heritage property. It interconnects more than 300 cities that incorporate sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List — in the US they include Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and San Antonio, Texas.
“The Covid 19 pandemic presents them, and all of us, with a once in a life time opportunity to rise to that challenge and ensure the pandemic cloud can indeed have a silver lining.”
“Although sustainability has been part of mainstream thinking on cultural heritage and tourism for some time, delivering sustainable cultural tourism has remained largely aspirational to date, with mass tourism maintaining its dominant role world-wide,” they write. “Resilience has only more recently entered the discourse in terms of its importance in delivering cultural heritage led tourism but has particular relevance post Covid19.”
“Whilst cultural tourism is an important part of the European economy, there is also a compelling case for safeguarding place-based European cultural heritage as the main resource for cultural tourism,” the two organizations point out in their conclusions.
“Indeed, there are innumerable opportunities for a positive relationship between culture and heritage and tourism.”
“These will be different in each place and responses will need to reflect these differences,” they write. “We place sustainability and resilience at the heart of the guidance proposed, where tourism should not be perceived as a closed sector, but rather as part of a system which includes urban heritage, tourism and the cultural, social, economic and environmental interactions that arise.”
About Adventures in Preservation (AiP)
Adventures in Preservation (AiP) is a non-profit connecting people and preservation through enriching cultural heritage travel and hands-on education. AiP was founded in 2001 by two women with a great love of historic buildings and a strong desire to travel and understand the world. While perusing the travel section of the Boulder Bookstore, the Volunteer Vacation section suddenly brought everything into focus. Judith Broeker and Jamie Donahoe combined their goal of saving historic buildings with the concept of experiential travel, and created AiP’s hands-on preservation vacations.
Work started on several sites in the U.S., and as word spread, requests for help began to pour in from around the world, underscoring the great potential of using volunteers to restore historic buildings. In supporting community-based preservation initiatives, we discovered that our love of old buildings could translate into environmental and economic sustainability for communities.
AiP is picking up the pace! As our hands-on experiential travel becomes more popular, we have new projects, new partners and initiatives to keep you excited and involved.
