Protecting world heritage is important: Mechtild Rössler
Mechtild Rössler, Director, UNESCO World Heritage Center
All the nations around the world are celebrating 27th September as the World Tourism Day. Varied programmes are organized by people in the tourism industry. Tourism has become a major source of growth, employment and income for many of the world’s countries, particularly in emerging economies. However, when mismanaged, overwhelming numbers of visitors can damage ancient monuments and put intangible heritage at risk.
“World Tourism Day is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of protecting World Heritage and ensuring that tourism makes a positive contribution to the sustainable development of destinations and their local communities. This is especially relevant for this year, which is both the European Year of Cultural Heritage and the EU-China Tourism Year,” said Mechtild Rössler, Director, UNESCO World Heritage Center, in a press release.
The theme of this year’s World Tourism Day is ‘Tourism and the digital transformation’. UNESCO is working with the European Union to combat over-tourism by developing ‘World Heritage Journeys of the European Union’, an online travel platform that encourages people to travel more sustainably, by staying at destinations longer and going beyond the major tourism hubs.
“The UNESCO World Heritage Centre, through its Sustainable Tourism Programme, is continuously developing online tools that enable World Heritage sites to better manage and monitor tourism. These include the UNESCO World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Toolkit (launched in 2016) and the Sustainable Tourism and Visitor Management Assessment Tool, which will be pilot tested from October 2018,” said Rossler
“UNESCO is committed to working with its States Parties to supporting dialogue and positive action to address over-tourism and the challenges it presents. With over 1.2 billion people travelling internationally each year, a number which is expected to grow to 2 billion by 2030, it has become more important than ever that we work together to safeguard World Heritage,” she concluded the statement.