World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme

World Heritage properties are unique treasures of humanity. These natural and cultural wonders have outstanding universal value, represent our past and present, and belong to all. They provide an important narrative of environmental and historical development and serve as foundations for contemporary social identity.

World Heritage Properties are also among the most popular and heavily promoted tourist destinations in many countries. The dramatic current and projected growth of international and domestic travel represents both challenges and opportunities for World Heritage Sites and surrounding populations. Poorly managed tourism at a site can pose major threats to heritage in all of its forms and degrade the quality of the visitor experience.

If undertaken responsibly, tourism can be a driver for preservation and conservation of cultural and natural heritage and a vehicle for sustainable development. But if unplanned or not properly managed, tourism can be socially, culturally and economically disruptive, and have a devastating effect on fragile environments and local communities.

The overarching goal of the World Heritage Convention is the protection of cultural and natural properties of Outstanding Universal Value. This cultural and natural heritage in turn represents resources for economic activities such as tourism and the accrual of benefits for the local communities living in proximity to or associated with the World Heritage property. Therefore, in order to achieve long-term economic, environmental and social sustainability, heritage values and associated assets - tangible and intangible - should be considered as significant cultural capital which needs to be preserved and maintained through appropriate and responsible tourism in order to fulfil the ultimate responsibility set out by the World Heritage Convention.

Furthermore sustainable tourism relies on the development and delivery of quality visitor experiences that do not degrade or damage any of the Property's natural or cultural values and visitor attraction. UNESCO believes that tourism development should enhance the visitor's understanding and appreciation of the all heritage values through interpretation, presentation and visitor services. To achieve this sustainable and responsible tourism development and visitor management requires effective, cooperative commitment and coordination between site management and all relevant public agencies and private enterprises.

Building a new paradigm

In 2011 UNESCO embarked on developing a new World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme. The aim is to create an international framework for the cooperative and coordinated achievement of shared and sustainable outcomes related to tourism at World Heritage properties. The preparatory work undertaken in developing the Programme responds to the decision 34 COM 5F.2 of the World Heritage Committee at its 34th session in Brasilia in 2010, which "requests the World Heritage Centre to convene a new and inclusive programme on World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism, with a steering group comprising interested States Parties and other relevant stakeholders, and also requests the World Heritage Centre to outline the objectives and approach to the implementation of this programme".

The Steering Group is comprised of States Parties representatives from the six UNESCO Electoral Groups (Germany (I), Slovenia (II), Argentina (III), China (IV), Tanzania (Va), and Lebanon (Vb)), the Director of the World Heritage Centre, the Advisory Bodies (IUCN, ICOMOS and ICCROM), the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the Swiss Government as the donor agency.

The Government of Switzerland has provided financial support for specific actions to be undertaken by the Steering Group. To coordinate and support the process, the World Heritage Centre has formed a small Working Group with the support of the Nordic World Heritage Foundation, the Government of Switzerland and the mandated external consulting firm MartinJenkins.

The World Heritage Committee directed that the Programme take into account:

• the recommendations of the evaluation of the concluded tourism programme conducted by MartinJenkins (WHC-10/34.COM/INF.5F.3)
• the policy orientation which defines the relationship between World Heritage and sustainable tourism that emerged from the workshop Advancing Sustainable Tourism at Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites (Mogao, China, September 2009) (WHC-10/34.COM/INF.5F.1)

Overarching and strategic processes that the new World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme will be aligned with include the Strategic Objectives of the World Heritage Convention (the five C's) (Budapest Declaration 2002), the ongoing Reflections on the Future of the World Heritage Convention (WHC-11/35.COM/12A) and the Strategic Action Plan for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention 2012-2022 (WHC-11/18.GA/11), the Relationship between the World Heritage Convention and Sustainable Development (WHC-10/34.COM/5D), the World Heritage Capacity Building Strategy (WHC-10/34.COM/5D), the Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List (1994), and the Evaluation of the Global Strategy and PACT initiative (WHC-11/18.GA/8 - 2011).

In addition, the programme development process has been enriched by an outreach to representatives from the main stakeholder groups including the tourism sector, national and local governments, site practitioners and local communities. The programme design was further developed at an Expert Meeting in Sils/Engadine, Switzerland October 2011. In this meeting over 40 experts from 23 countries, representing the relevant stakeholder groups, worked together to identify the overall strategic approach and a prioritised set of key objectives and activities. The Draft Programme was reviewed by the Steering Group in December 2011.

The proposed Programme will be presented for adoption by the World Heritage Committee in 2012 at its 36th session in St Petersburg, Russian Federation. The public launch of the Programme is anticipated to take place during the 40th anniversary celebration of the World Heritage Convention (1972) in Kyoto, Japan, November 2012 subject to the adoption of the Programme by the World Heritage Committee.