The Effect of World Heritage Site Designation on Sustainability of Tourism in Bath
1. Introduction
The city of Bath has become a World Heritage Site (WHS) since 1987, identified as “a place of outstanding universal value for its architecture, town-planning, landscape, archaeological remains and its role as a setting for social history”, which is a unique WHS in Britain covering the whole city scale instead of only historic core part (UNESCO, 2009).
Following the inscription of Bath from UNESCO (2009), which is “astonishingly, undertaken with no boundary”, WHS designation became a remarkable label for Bath. A large increase in the number of tourists to Bath after the designation, which makes Bath to be recognized by historic attractions covering from Roman origins bath to Georgian developments collections of 18th century (Garrod, 2001). Bath has to adopt various changes and face additional pressures caused by WHS designation.
Based on the particular situation of Bath, this research focuses on the advantages and disadvantages affected by this WHS designation in terms of social-cultural, economic and governmental effects in Bath. In order to achieve the socio-economic benefits and sustainability under WHS designation, recommendations for enhancing the positive effects and avoiding the negative consequences will be provided as well. 2. The effects of WHS designation
Since gaining the WHS designation, considering the booming development in tourism industry and rising WHS recognition from travellers, more than 40% tourists, who travelled in the UK, were willing to spent time in Bath, which reported from the statistic from Bath and North East Somerset Tourism Strategy (2001). This increasing visiting demand has brought massive effects on Bath (Poria, 2013).
2.1 Cultural heritage conservation
2.1.1 Protection of cultural heritage in Bath
Since joined in the list of WHSs, Bath has attained widely attention from both governmental and non-governmental organization, which has spent a variety of efforts on protecting the heritage in Bath. The
The city of Bath has become a World Heritage Site (WHS) since 1987, identified as “a place of outstanding universal value for its architecture, town-planning, landscape, archaeological remains and its role as a setting for social history”, which is a unique WHS in Britain covering the whole city scale instead of only historic core part (UNESCO, 2009).
Following the inscription of Bath from UNESCO (2009), which is “astonishingly, undertaken with no boundary”, WHS designation became a remarkable label for Bath. A large increase in the number of tourists to Bath after the designation, which makes Bath to be recognized by historic attractions covering from Roman origins bath to Georgian developments collections of 18th century (Garrod, 2001). Bath has to adopt various changes and face additional pressures caused by WHS designation.
Based on the particular situation of Bath, this research focuses on the advantages and disadvantages affected by this WHS designation in terms of social-cultural, economic and governmental effects in Bath. In order to achieve the socio-economic benefits and sustainability under WHS designation, recommendations for enhancing the positive effects and avoiding the negative consequences will be provided as well. 2. The effects of WHS designation
Since gaining the WHS designation, considering the booming development in tourism industry and rising WHS recognition from travellers, more than 40% tourists, who travelled in the UK, were willing to spent time in Bath, which reported from the statistic from Bath and North East Somerset Tourism Strategy (2001). This increasing visiting demand has brought massive effects on Bath (Poria, 2013).
2.1 Cultural heritage conservation
2.1.1 Protection of cultural heritage in Bath
Since joined in the list of WHSs, Bath has attained widely attention from both governmental and non-governmental organization, which has spent a variety of efforts on protecting the heritage in Bath. The