Summary

• Understand the importance of cultural heritage protection messages in travel books newspapers, websites, magazines, etc.;
• write effective messages in order to raise awareness about the deterioration of cultural heritage.

Target audience
Tourist professionals, journalists, travel authors and editors, tourism bureaus and travel agencies.

Background description
Following numerous activities in raising awareness in schools, educational services of museums and municipalities, the media and the general public, ICCROM is now encouraging initiatives in responsible conservation in the tourism industry. Generally, cultural heritage is perceived to be stable and not a fragile resource. As heritage has survived for hundreds of years, people think it will survive forever.

Important conservation messages:

• cultural heritage is fragile and it is disappearing all the time;
• cultural heritage belongs to all of us;
• together, conservation professionals, the media and the public can preserve it for the future.

Reaching a wider audience
During the last ten years, tourism has become the world’s largest industry and it continues to grow; the World Tourism Organization predicts that, by 2020, the number of tourists will increase from 700 million today to 1,5 billion.

Cultural heritage plays an important role in the expansion of tourism and is one of the most important attractions for travellers. Even if tourism represents the main source of revenue for many countries and is a way for understanding cultural diversity, we cannot ignore the negative impacts on the environment – both natural and cultural – and the local population. While the philosophy of sustainable tourism encourages a development that meets the needs of communities and respects the natural resources, it does not pay enough attention to problems related to the conservation of cultural heritage. However, we do not intend to criminalize tourism, because tourism is useful to heritage just as heritage is useful to tourism: they depend on each other.

Tourist professionals such as guidebook editors, tour-operators, travel agencies, and national tourism bureaus, who reach millions of tourists, can play an important role in educating travellers to respect heritage by increasing awareness through publications and the media.

How to promote the conservation message
When researching and writing about cultural heritage sites and collections in guidebooks or print media, key questions should be addressed:

• what is the significance of this resource throughout time (historical significance)?
• why is it important to preserve it for the future?
• what has been done to help its protection (conservation activities related to the site)?
• how does the local community interact with the site?
• how can the general public help in protecting this resource?

'I realized as never before the urgent need to develop responsible policies in terms of cultural heritage …we absolutely have not been aware that we have been giving pride of place to the natural environment over cultural heritage'.

Lonely Planet participant of the seminar
'The Fragility of Heritage Sites:
the Role of the Tourist Guidebooks in
Raising Public Awareness',
Rome , 4-5 July 2003.

updated on: 22 September, 2006