World Heritage as Resilience for Tourism Recovery

During the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO proposed the idea of taking World Heritage as a source of resilience, humanity and innovation in the next 50 years. However, why and how World Heritage matters for tourism resilience remain unclear.

Today, most World Heritage sites have witnessed the return of tourism. Yet, the ways in which some traditional communities weathered Covid-19’s immense impact have most vividly demonstrated how heritage has served as a source of resilience and those lessons should not be forgotten. Specifically, recent practice and research have shown that traditional knowledge embedded in World Heritage increases the resilience of place. Echoing World Heritage as a source of resilience, humanity and innovation in the next 50 years as proposed by UNESCO, we argue that World Heritage as a concept and a collection of outstanding places is not only resilient on their own but provides the answers to more resilient forms of tourism recovery.

Since 2010, the UNESCO UNITWIN Network "Culture, Tourism, Development" has been organizing biannual international conferences on the topic of world heritage and. This conference will be organized by the UNESCO UNITWIN Network 'Culture, Tourism, Development' and its member, UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Tourism in UNESCO Designated Sites.

Topics to be discussed:

• World Heritage is resilience: Conceptualizing World Heritage and resilience.
• Traditional knowledge and the resilience of World Heritage tourism
• Unmaking and transforming World Heritage tourism.
• Resilience of communities in and around World Heritage places
• Culture and resilience of heritage
• Livelihoods, World Heritage and tourism
• World Heritage, resilience and technologies and innovations
• Any other topics that resonate with the above-mentioned themes

For more informations donwload the conference notice