Destination Heritage: Does heritage shape tourism or does tourism shape cultural heritage?
Our first ICTC Event in 2012 is a Colloquium at the International Conference April 5-9, 2013, Taipei, Taiwan, Province of China, organised in association with UNESCO UNITWIN Network – Tourism, Culture, Development, (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change, UK – Tourism and the Shifting Values of Cultural Heritage: Visiting Pasts, Developing Futures. This ICTC Colloquium is a direct response to consultation amongst academic members of ICTC during Summer 2012. They requested that as a committee we develop tighter links between research questions explored through academic study and the work of cultural heritage and tourism professional practitioners. UNITWIN and ICTC members Noel Salazar – a prime instigator of the Committee’s move in this direction and – Maria Gravari-Barbas – whose recent symposium in Paris also addressed debates on tourist destinations – are supporting the ICTC initiative in Taipei.
Participation of all ICTC colleagues is encouraged. Early bird discount is only available until 14 January 2013. To register http://shop.bham.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&prodid=580&deptid=17&catid=3 . The cost of attending the conference as follows: – Early bird discount – £160; – Full rate – £190; – PhD students (letter of confirmation required from Supervisor) – £110. This rate include access to all sessions, the pre-conference welcome reception and the grand conference banquet: http://internationaltaipei2013.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/conference-dinner-announced. Your fee also includes all lunches, tea and coffee breaks, choice of afternoon study visits http://internationaltaipei2013.wordpress.com/study-visits , delegate pack and CD of conference proceedings (available after the conference).
Destination Heritage – ICTC Research Project The Taipei Colloquium is a first step. At the ICTC 2012 AGM held on 9 November, Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Philippines, it was agreed that starting in 2013 a 2 to 3 year ICTC Project and Project Team would take forward the same question: Destination Heritage: Does heritage shape tourism or does tourism shape cultural heritage? and encourage academic teachers on the committee to examine this with their students through field work projects and case studies appropriate to their discipline/s: defining methodologies and taking into account a range of issues – sustainability, rights & responsibilities, decision-making priorities, the influence of conservation approaches and practices, visitor expectations, promotion and marketing communications and impact of mobile internet technologies.
Colloquium Question – Destination Heritage: Does heritage shape tourism or does tourism shape cultural heritage?
ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for Cultural Tourism invites debate on heritage destinations – the focus of our current research. Our Committee would like to explore with you a series of questions we are addressing as cultural heritage professionals relating to the preservation and protection of cultural heritage at major tourism destinations worldwide. Heritage destinations are the bedrock of cultural tourism: they are contested spaces – physical, intellectual, economic, social and cultural, especially UNESCO World Heritage sites. Cultural tourism, we believe, demonstrates – or has the capacity to demonstrate – the vibrant interplay between tangible and intangible heritage and highlights choices open to communities – local and national – in safeguarding and exploiting their past. Do communities really have a choice in the conservation of their cultural heritage when foreign investment and high demand often carry more weight than local planning strategies? What cultural values as opposed to financial and commercial values shape decisions? Are conservation and interpretation activities informed by stereotypical perceptions of ‘good practice conservation’ and a ‘good tourism experience’, a need for monocultural simplicity – or just a need on one side for a simple narrative and the other an immediate ‘wow’ factor’?
The first principle of ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Charter (1999) states: Since domestic and international tourism is among the foremost vehicles for cultural exchange, conservation should provide responsible and well managed opportunities for members of the host community and visitors to experience and understand that community’s heritage and culture at first hand. Unwittingly, the exponential growth in visitor numbers and parallel rise in managerial culture has overridden the chance meeting between tourists and local people. A mediated experience – often digital – replaces the first hand encounter and also limits opportunities for tourists to understand the importance and dynamics of conservation which is at the core of retaining individuality, difference and diversity – the raison d’être for ICOMOS; and to engage in the protection of other peoples places and ways of life as well as their own. Are the heritage and tourism industries catering sufficiently well for a maturing market? What encounters with cultural heritage – the people and places they visit – do tourists seek as they explore their own regions or become frequent travellers? Are we missing the opportunity to develop a loyal following of conservation supporters and in the long run a mass conservation movement taking cultural tourism and cultural heritage centre stage in sustainable development agendas?
We hope you will join the conversation.
Sue Millar – President, ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for Cultural Tourism
