| Summary: |
UNESCO's World Heritage Centre is engaged in an ambitious year-and-a-half-long
initiative to develop working principles and policies for sustainable
tourism at World Heritage sites. This workshop is the first in a series
envisaged to craft tourism- and visitor-management "working principles"
for adoption by the World Heritage Centre, the World Heritage Advisory
Bodies, related United Nations agencies and the tourism industry.
The goal is to develop a set of common working methods which would
lead to the adoption of a common set of management tools, forming
the bases of a World Heritage programme which would in turn result
in the development of a pool of experts who would refine these methods
and train World Heritage site staff. This would facilitate the establishment
of regional and sub-regional learning platforms using a World Heritage
site as a hub to increase the training of trainers, and assist site
managers, local communities and Member States in addressing the
growing impact of tourism and in maximizing tourism benefits.
The workshop seeks to identify the key issues related to tourism
planning, concessions and site financing and to outline the requisite
joint action to address these matters through sound practical approaches
and methods.
The workshop objectives include drawing up:
- A list of recommendations for addressing the issues in the concept
paper
- A list of concise statements of working principles for the workshop
issues
- An action plan for next steps in achieving the conditions outlined
in the working principles
Discussion will be organised along the following lines
:
- Reach agreement with the working group on the meaning, content
and degree of importance of each of the agreed priorities
- List ideal conditions to be met in addressing each of these
issues
- List common obstacles to these conditions in order to focus
on practical solutions
- Draft a list of recommendations on innovative solutions to address
each issue
- Draw up a first draft of the working principles for tourism
planning, concessions and site financing
Expected results :
- Formation of a working group to advise the World Heritage Centre
on the issues of tourism- and public use planning, concessions
and site-finance planning
- A list of recommendations to improve the management effectiveness
of tourism- and public- use planning, concessions and site-finance
planning
- Recommendations on training and an outline of existing training
materials and initiatives
- A draft list of working principles for tourism- and public use
planning, concessions and site-finance planning
- A follow-up action plan to meet the needs outlined in the recommendations
outlined above
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