Book Description

Today, tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing industries accounting for nearly 700 million people travelling all over the world and spending more than 7.4 trillion US dollars. Besides promoting people-to-people contacts, ethnic and cultural understanding, mutual appreciation and co-operation and thereby promoting peace, tourism provides unlimited opportunities for employment generation, social and economic upliftment of the people and contributing to the economies of the nations. Cultural heritage tourism has a number of objectives that must be met within the context of sustainable development such as; the conservation of cultural resources, accurate interpretation of resources, authentic visitors experience, and the stimulation of the earned revenues of cultural resources. Tourism is an important issue at world heritage sites. Most managers at natural sites regard it as a key issue. Important features of world heritage tourism are local protection, conservation and restoration. Such a tourism also requires special training management skills. Different visitor management strategies, interpretation and site promotional activities have to be organised. Culture and heritage have also become major forces in economic and urban revitalisation. As cultural tourism becomes an increasingly important factor for tourist destinations involved in developing their cultural capital in order to attract more international visitors, there is value in assessing how cultural and heritage tourists can be better understood and serviced through marketing, planning and programming with local and regional communities. This book also provides readers with global charters developed for promoting cultural tourism and for preserving heritage sites. Focus lies on ICOSM and WHC. World Heritage Sites, identified and conserved around the world, have been listed and the initiatives to preserve cultural sites and conserve heritage sites.