World Heritage Sites: History, Importance, and Adverse Impacts on Tourism Industry

Essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
History, background, inception of the idea, types and process:..................................................3
Importance of preservation and advantages of a place being declared a World Heritage Site:. .4
Adverse impacts of World Heritage Sites on tourism industry and the recommendations:........5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
A site recognised by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization) as a cultural or natural landmark is called as a World Heritage Site. The UNESCO
recons these sites to be worth preserving acknowledging their universal value to the humanity of
both the present as well as future generations. Such sites are held in collective trust and being
given legal protection by the international treaty with a motto of their belongingness to the
people of the whole world instead of the territory in which they are erected and standing. The
followed essay will be discussing the history and background of these world heritage sites and
explaining the idea of how these sites started to form. Also, the process of how these sites are
created, selected and nominated will be explained. Then the importance of such preservation will
be discussed and their respective advantages are enlisted. Lastly, the adverse impacts of these
sites in relation to the tourism industry will be discussed and steps for minimizing the adverse
impacts will be recommended.
MAIN BODY
History, background, inception of the idea, types and process:
History of world heritage sites dates back to 1954 when the government of Egypt planned
to build a new Aswan High Dam whole reservoir was a threat to the cultural treasures of the
ancient Egypt and Nubia in Nile valley. Therefore, on request by the governments of Sudan and
Egypt the director general decided to save those monuments and such campaign which ended in
1980 was a grand success and such success led to safeguarding of other sites and finally the
International council on Monuments and Sites of UNESCO commenced a draft for protection of
such heritage sites (Mariani and Guizzardi, 2020). Such draft was signed on 16th November,
1972 in Paris. This idea of safeguarding of such sites was initiated by United States in 1965 by
establishing “World Heritage Trust”. Now, there are three different types of World Heritage
Sites namely – cultural, natural and mixed. Cultural sites include historic buildings,
archaeological sites, sculptures and paintings. Natural sites include natural sites of excellent
geological process, evolutionary processes, etc. Mixed sites includes elements of both cultural
and natural sites. It shall be noted that only those countries who have signed the World Heritage
Convention are eligible to submit proposal for nomination of a property in their territory to be a
World Heritage Site as per UNESCO (World Heritage List Nominations, 2022.). The nomination
process can be explained as follows: