Business & Tourism Management Essay: World Heritage Site Importance

This essay delves into the significance of World Heritage Sites, using the Sydney Opera House as a prime example. It begins by defining World Heritage Sites, their history, and the UNESCO framework for their designation and preservation. The essay explores the importance of preserving these sites for cultural and historical reasons, while also acknowledging the potential adverse impacts on the tourism industry. It examines the evolution of cultural tourism and the various perspectives on heritage tourism, including the motivations of visitors and the tangible and intangible aspects of cultural heritage. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for cultural preservation, promoting cultural understanding, and the benefits of collaboration to preserve heritage sites for future generations. The provided references support the arguments presented throughout the essay.

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Business & Tourism Management
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Evaluate the Argument that it is Important for Modern Society to Maintain World
Heritage Site - Sydney Opera House
1. Introduction
To be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a location must be of exceptional cultural or
physical significance (Achebe, 2021). The United Nations component UNESCO was created in
1945. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee manages the World Heritage Program, which
monitors the listed sites. This committee, which is chosen by the organisation's General
Assembly every three years, comprises 21 state parties (Calhoun, 2018). In order to conserve
humanity's history, the initiative identifies and protects locations of high cultural or natural
significance.
Before proposing a site for inclusion on the World Resources List, a nation must ratify
the World Assets Convention, committing itself to protect its natural and cultural legacy.
Ireland's Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht produce a list of the nation's cultural
and natural resources (World Heritage Ireland, 2020). The State Party compiles tentative listings
of these locations. Sites on the Tentative List may only be evaluated by the World Heritage
Committee (UNESCO, 2018). The State Party is responsible for updating the Tentative List and
may do so at any time. In this approach, the sites on the Tentative List may be evaluated
regularly to see if any should be added, deleted, or nominated (Calhoun, 2018).
2. The History and Background of World Heritage Sites
Yellowstone National Park in the United States was the world's first national park,
established in 1872 and situated in the United States (Graham, 2021). One hundred years later,
during the presidency of Richard Nixon, the concept of a national park was proposed to the
World Heritage Committee or the World Heritage Trust, where it was accepted on a large scale
and now serves as the foundation for the global implementation of the national park concept
(Cameron, 2017). One hundred years later, under the Nixon administration, the World Heritage
Committee or World Heritage Trust was presented with the concept of a national park.
Unfortunately, the Egyptian government decided to construct the Aswan Dam, also known as the
Aswan High Dam, in 1954 (Graham, 2021). This option would result in flooding a valley

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containing ancient Egyptian artefacts, such as the Abu Simbel temples. After that, UNESCO
began a global preservation programme. In addition to the relocation of the Temple of Dendur to
New York, the temples of Abu Simbel and Philae were disassembled, relocated to a higher
elevation, and then piece by piece, restored there. In addition, the Temple of Dendur was
relocated to New York (Miller, 2020).
The project's expected cost was $80 million, with around $40 million coming from
donations from fifty countries. The initiative was recognised as a success and spurred future
preservation efforts, which helped rescue the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan and the
Borobudur Temple complexes in Indonesia, among many other cultural treasures all over the
globe (Hewryk, 2022). In addition, the Italian city of Venice and its lagoon were spared due to
these later preservation measures. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)
then collaborated to draught a convention to conserve the common cultural past of all people.
This accord is the Convention for the Protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of
Humanity (Hewryk, 2022).
As of 2012, 962 places have been featured on the list. Seven hundred forty-five cultural
sites, 188 natural sites, and 29 mixed assets are scattered among the United States 157 state
parties (Godfrey, 2019). Due to the inclusion of 47 different sites on the World Heritage List,
Italy holds the country with the most World Heritage Sites. UNESCO assigns each World
Heritage Site a unique identification number; nevertheless, new inscriptions sometimes include
older sites that are now included in more thorough descriptions (Jankowski and Swiezak, 2018).
Consequently, the identification numbers exceed 1200 even though fewer names appear on the
list (Jankowski and Swiezak, 2018). This is a direct consequence of the circumstance. Even
while each World Heritage Site is still regarded as part of the state's sovereign territory,
UNESCO believes that it is in the best interest of the global community to protect each site
(Miller, 2020). This is the case because UNESCO considers each World Heritage Site's
preservation to be in the global community's most significant interest.

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3. The Importance of Preserving Historical Sites
It is usual to practise approaching the preservation of heritage with the underlying
assumption that it has something to do with our relationship to historical artefacts. This is the
case even if the existence of such a link is questioned and contrived. This is still true even if the
heritage is designated a World Heritage Site (Harrison, 2018). Given the expanding
multiculturalism movement, it has been urged for some years that museums' traditional function
as guardians and creators of national and regional history must be altered and augmented. The
traditional functions of museums at the national, regional, and municipal levels as guardians,
defenders, and creators of cultural heritage have been questioned (SOU, 2017). However, some
aspects of the museum industry do not fit well into these categories. For this reason, museums
are also responsible for conserving the cultural history of non-Western civilisations. The best-
known use of this idea is in ethnography. During the same period that heritage has been an
essential topic of academic discourse, academics have discussed the demise of ethnography in
museum studies (Grinell and Gustavsson, 2018). However, few studies have examined the
relationship between these two events.
The notion of culture has long been a challenging conversation issue. In recent decades,
sociologists have exerted much effort to differentiate between culture, which they define as an
unrestrained and reckless creative genius, and civilisation, which they define as a structured,
dependable, and often sophisticated mediocrity (Prizel, 2017). Historically, historians of all
shades have tended to emphasise the interconnectedness between civilisation and culture instead
of making apparent differences between the two. In addition, the number of evolutionary
biologists and evolutionary psychologists has increased during the last several decades. These
individuals seem to think that the potential of human genes, cells, and minds to facilitate cultural
development and, hence, cultural heritage is limited (Rose and Rose, 2020). Although in a
different context. In the 2020s, Adorno and Horkheimer formulated their unique criticism of the
technological-industrial culture. Anthropologists and biologists often use the term the unique set
of characteristics that separates one group from another to define culture and its effects. The
heritage can anticipate either a severe struggle between civilisations or an evolutionary
development spiral in which features and creative impulses are widely dispersed among
otherwise vastly different cultures (Lynbashenko, 2019).

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4. The Adverse Impacts of the World Heritage Sites on Tourism Industry
As more individuals grow interested in learning about the history and culture of the
locations they visit, cultural heritage tourism has expanded. This has resulted in cultural tourism
is one of the fastest-growing market segments in the tourism industry. When it comes to tourism,
it is becoming increasingly common to consider the preservation of cultural heritage via tourism
and the significance of collaborating with other stakeholders (Aas, Ladkin and Fletcher, 2019).
According to Bramwell and Lane (2020), collaboration and partnerships have reached maturity
in the tourist industry. Legacy tourism is difficult to define, as seen by the several definitions that
have been presented. There is no consensus in the academic community on how to define
historical tourism in universal and particular terms. Several studies define heritage tourism as a
trip with the main objective of exploring historical, cultural, natural, recreational, and aesthetic
monuments to learn about the past in a pleasurable manner.
There are several perspectives on heritage, including social, natural, and cultural-
historical views, supply and demand, and tourist experience (Apostolopoulos et al., 2020).
Regarding the motives of historical visitors, several scholars strongly emphasise the significance
of their motivations (Poria et al., 2021). Materials and artefacts are other methods to describe
heritage tourism. There are other ways to describe this, such as the culture or customs of a social
group or nation (Timothy and Boyd, 2020). In the 1990s, cultural tourism was considered one of
the tourist industry's most potential development sectors (Zeppel and Hall, 2019). This rapidly
expanding sector of the tourism business attracts visitors who stay longer, spend more money,
and travel outside peak season (Calhoun, 2020). According to Richards (2021), the rising
proportion of cultural tourism within tourism is since more and more tourist attractions are
classified as cultural. As a result, cultural tourism is gaining prominence within the tourism
sector. However, due to their broad applicability, the terms culture tourism and cultural tourist
are notoriously difficult to define accurately.
Historical and cultural landmarks, such as colonial architecture, monuments, places of worship,
and natural landscapes, are sometimes categorised as Cultural Heritage Tourism. Also included
are intangible aspects of cultural heritage tourism, such as storytelling, music, and belief systems
(Halewood and Hannam, 2020). Cultural tourism encompasses many experiences, including

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history, arts, creative expression, and urban and rural culture. The emphasis of this second phase
will be on the cultural tourism component of heritage. The emphasis will be shifted from cultural
tourist research to constructed heritage. It is not easy to provide a single, all-encompassing
definition of cultural tourism due to the many forms in which it may manifest. According to
Richards (2020), cultural tourism encompasses not just the consumption of the cultural artefacts
of the past, but also of modern culture or the way of life of a people or place. Therefore,
historical tourism, which focuses on historical artefacts, comes under cultural tourism. Heritage
tourism depends significantly on historical interpretation.
5. Conclusion
Recognising a society's fundamental practices should be promoted and shared for its
many advantages. Establishing a connection with the culture that is being stolen is necessary to
prevent cultural appropriation. Immersing oneself in a culture and learning about its people and
history is the most effective approach to promote it. For communities to be adaptable to change,
more individuals must join forces. Rather than working alone, it is preferable to collaborate with
others. Each culture may teach the others something. If individuals are more aware of various
cultures, their views on race and ethnicity may change. Disparities in race and ethnicity may
result in misunderstandings, opportunity loss, and even violence. Conflicts based on race and
ethnicity deplete communities' financial and human resources, preventing them from addressing
shared issues. A nation with a diverse population values cultures highly. According to a recent
study, children do better academically when their teachers, classmates, and families recognise
their distinct cultural origins.

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