Editorial to the Special Issue ‘World Heritage
and Tourism Innovation: Responding
to the Challenges in a Changing World’
Aleksandra Brezovec
University of Primorska, Slovenia
aleksandra.brezovec@fts.upr.si
https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.16.5-7
Heritage tourism has become an integral part of the
global economy, with World Heritage Sites among
the most popular destinations. World Heritage Sites
(whs), listed by the United Nations Educational, Sci-
entific and Cultural Organization (unesco), are rec-
ognized as having outstanding universal value and
attract millions of visitors each year. In 2019, prior
to the covid-19 pandemic, international tourist ar-
rivals to heritage sites increased by 6, outpacing the
overall global tourism growth rate of 3.5 (unwto,
2020). Tourism revenues from World Heritage Sites
amounted to approximately eur 120 billion in 2019,
with 600,000 jobs directly generated by these sites.
This represents a significant contribution to the local
and national economies of countries hosting World
Heritage Sites. On the other hand, the high number
of visitors has put a strain on infrastructure, cultural
sites, and natural habitats, and led to negative impacts
on the environment and local communities (unesco,
2021). In addressing negative impacts, World Heritage
Sites have experienced a steady increase in innovation
rates. However, the pandemic forced World Heritage
sites to innovate more in order to survive and develop
sustainable tourism practices.
The aim of this special issue is to address tourism
innovation in line with the principles and objectives
of the unesco World Heritage Centre and its World
Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme. The
potential of tourism innovation at World Heritage
Sites has not been fully explored and is rarely con-
sidered from an interdisciplinary perspective. There
is growing interest in exploring innovative tourism
practices that can help protect World Heritage Sites
and the people and ecosystems that surround them.
Tourismmanagement atWorld Heritage Sites can fos-
ter sustainability-driven innovation by using not only
new technologies, but also new visitation and commu-
nication strategies, new methods for measuring im-
pacts, new approaches to site and infrastructure plan-
ning and design, new social and institutional forms of
collaboration and networking, and more.
Research on tourism innovation, and in particu-
lar on sustainability-oriented tourism innovations for
World Heritage Sites, is crucial for three reasons. First,
WorldHeritage Sitesmust be preserved for future gen-
erations, as they provide insights into the history, cul-
ture, and natural environment of our world and have
significant value to humanity as a whole. Therefore, it
is critical to explore new ways to ensure their long-
term sustainability while facilitating access for inter-
national visitors. Second, it is important to develop
sustainable tourism practises that protect World Her-
itage Sites while generating revenue for their funding,
for local communities, and for the economies of the
countries that host World Heritage Sites. Last but not
least, research on sustainability-oriented tourism in-
novations can lead to the development of new tech-
nologies and methods that can enhance the visitor ex-
perience and engage local communities in the man-
agement and preservation of World Heritage Sites.
This volume brings together a selection of research
papers presented at the 7th unesco unitwin Con-
ference on World Heritage and Tourism Innovation,
held in Portorož in 2022. The conference highlighted
Academica Turistica, Year 16, No. 1, April 2023 | 5
Aleksandra Brezovec Editorial
the need for greater engagement between stakehold-
ers, including local communities, tourism operators,
heritage managers, and policy makers. Such collabo-
ration can lead to the development of innovative ap-
proaches to visitor management, conservation, and
community engagement.Many insightfulmanuscripts
were submitted for this publication, but the editors
had to limit the number of papers selected in order
to follow the journal policy. The nine papers in this
special issue present different research agendas devel-
oped by scholars with diverse cultural and disciplinary
backgrounds, addressing key issues in tourism inno-
vation forWorld Heritage Sites, such as sustainability-
oriented innovation, digital transformation and knowl-
edge dissemination.
The first paper offers an innovative approach to the
categorization of cultural sustainability elements for
World Heritage Sites. Based on the analysis of cultural
World Heritage Sites in Switzerland, authors Rafael
Oliveira, Silvia De Ascaniis, Renata Baracho, Hebert
Salgado and Lorenzo Cantoni propose five categories
of elements that need to be considered when develop-
ing sustainability strategies for World Heritage Sites.
With the proposed categorization the authors argue
for a proactive lead in setting new groupings of sus-
tainability elements for addressing complex tourism
management challenges at whs.
The second paper introduces a research agenda
on the transformative impacts of the covid-19 pan-
demic on the visitation of the World Heritage Sites.
The results of comparative analysis of World Heritage
Sites with other tourism destinations in Chech Re-
public, show that unesco list inscription was rather
a disadvantage at the beginning of the pandemic cri-
sis, but brought a faster recovery in the following years.
Although this study by Zuzana Kvítková and Zdenka
Petru does not specifically focus on the sites’ resilience
rate, it certainly opens up new ways of understanding
the non-linear stability and the ability of World Her-
itage Sites to adapt to difficult situations.
In the third paper, Ilaria Rosani, Maria Gravari-
Barbas, Silvia De Ascaniis and Lorenzo Cantoni look
at the innovative use of digital technologies in her-
itage tourism education and training. With the out-
break of covid-19 in 2020, the usefulness and flex-
ibility of eLearning have become the key element
for an industry’s survival and success. The authors
analyse the case of a particular type of eLearning
phenomenon: that of so-called Massive Open On-
line Courses, or ‘moocs.’ Through the example of a
mooc series ‘Tourism Management at World Her-
itage Sites (Vol. 3),’ they outline the characteristics of
its learners, as well as the relevance of eLearning for
World Heritage Sites.
The fourth paper is based on big data analytics as
an imperative of digital transformation for whs. Its
focus is big data performed on geotagged photographs
of Plečnik’s architectural heritage uploaded by visitors
to the photo-sharing platform Flickr. Authors Gorazd
Sedmak, Dejan Paliska and Aleksandra Brezovec used
big data to analyse the patterns and structure of spa-
tial visitor behaviour in Ljubljana, Slovenia, by focus-
ing on the spatially dispersed architecturalWorldHer-
itage Site. The results lead to a better understanding
of the behavioural patterns of dispersed whs visitors,
their structure, and the role of these attractions within
the destination.
In the fifth paper, Tadeja Jere Jakulin proposes a
systematic approach to the sustainable development of
World Heritage Sites. Based on the emblematic case
of the Bahá’í Gardens whs in Haifa, Israel, this study
examine the principles of systems thinking into prac-
tice. The data for the causal-loop model within the
framework of system dynamics was obtained through
a field survey. Results of the in person interviews with
Bahá’í religion’s representatives show they anticipate
the feedback loop to ensure that all activities at the site
are planned with the respect for natural and cultural
environments.
The sixth paper also focuses on the new approach
to sustainable development. It explores the role of
higher education institutions (hei) in the sustain-
able development of whs. Lombuso Precious Shabal-
ala presents tourism at whs as a vehicle that can be
utilised by higher education institutions towards mit-
igating poverty alleviation and socio-economic devel-
opment, which contributes to addressing Sustainable
Development Goals. The case under study is Mapun-
gubwe whs in South Africa. This study highlights
the new value of community engagement projects
6 | Academica Turistica, Year 16, No. 1, April 2023
Aleksandra Brezovec Editorial
undertaken by heis as potential drivers of a holistic
and more sustainable management of World Heritage
Sites.
The seventh paper looks at the strategic commu-
nication nature of cultural tourism of Zadar, Croat-
ian town with its City Walls inscribed on unesco’s
World Heritage List. Using the City of Zadar and
Zadar County as a case, this paper explores the her-
itage content in social media marketing for attracting
low-cost carrier (lcc) travellers to Zadar. unesco
World Heritage is one of the mainmotive destinations
use to attract tourists. However, Božena Krce Miočić,
TomislavKlarin andGabrijelaVidić found that culture
was not used as a primary strategic communication of
Zadar’s tourism promotion authorities while attract-
ing lcc.
The last two papers look at tourism innovation for
whs through the marketing lens as well. The eighth
paper focuses on tourism product innovation from
the perspective of heritage storytelling. It explores
an innovative heritage tourism product development
based on archaeological heritage of Cyprus. The An-
cient Life Stories Tourism depends on and connects
the elements from the unesco Representative Lists
of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, as
well as other products and services. Based on the find-
ings of the cluster analysis technique, authors Antonis
Theocharous, Petros Kosmas, Maria Panagopoulou,
Hristo Andreev, Petros Giannoulis, Katerina Peri-
cleous and Kirsi Lorentz, identified market segments
for ancient life story based tourism.
In the last paper, Anđela Šormaz and Engelbert
Ruoss shed new light on social media as a manage-
ment tool for heritage destinations. By using quantita-
tive content analysis of social media posts and reviews
for heritage destinations in Switzerland (13 parks, five
World Heritage Sites, and two unesco Biosphere
Reserves), they emphasize the link between social
media popularity of heritage sites and unsustainable
tourism practices in these sites. Data collected from
the tourism-related digital platforms serve as a ba-
sis for the identification and management of potential
over- and undertourism spots within larger protected
heritage destinations.
Overall, this special issue of the Academica Tur-
istica provides a valuable contribution to the grow-
ing body of knowledge on sustainable tourism and
innovation in World Heritage Sites. It highlights the
importance of collaboration, technology, and context-
specific approaches in promoting sustainable tourism
and protecting our World Heritage for future genera-
tions. We hope that this issue will inspire further re-
search and innovation in this important field.
References
unesco. (2021).WorldHeritage Tourism.https://whc.unesco
.org/en/tourism-statistics/
unwto. (2020).TourismHighlights. https://www.unwto.org
/sites/default/files/news/highlights-2020/
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