Tourism-based heritage conservation in Murshidabad: an appraisal

The article appraises the outcome of promoting tourism as a strategy for heritage conservation in the case of Murshidabad, an archetypal historic town in decline in India. A relational maturity-based framework has been used to examine the complementarities and conflicts between tourism and heritage conservation in the town. The prevailing nature of tourism conservation relationship in Murshidabad upholds the criticality characteristically observed in developing countries, where governments focus primarily on the revenue generating potential of built-heritage centric tourism ignoring the conservation attention necessary to retain authenticity and meaningful existence of historic structures. The overarching issues emerging from the current level of relational maturity in Murshidabad are identified with suggestions for possible policy implications of the study.     

The significance of the West Lake pattern and its heuristic implications for creating China's heritage tourism economics

West Lake's economic, social and cultural structure comprises six facets: (1) maintaining West Lake World Heritage Site as an open accessible tourist location; (2) ensuring the planning, management and tourism marketing of West Lake are culturally rather than purely economically oriented; therefore truly benefitting the preservation and conservation of West Lake; (3) selectively decreasing and mitigating the tourism pressure on West Lake, especially in those areas of high cultural, ecological and environmental vulnerability; (4) ensuring travellers adopt appropriate sustainable tourism values to enjoy a positive experience; (5) ensuring the marketing of West Lake tourism and the consequent distribution of incomes comply with legal and other appropriate standards; and (6) expanding and extending the social benefits of West Lake tourism. To aid the examination of West Lake in this paper, a comparison is made between the management policies of West Lake and Mt, Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) to illustrate a number of fundamental and organisational relationships involving tourism at heritage sites.     

Balancing the dual mandate of conservation and visitor use at a Canadian world heritage site in an era of rapid climate change

Abstract

National parks in Canada operate under the dual mandate of conservation and visitor use, which involves balancing ecological integrity and nature-based tourism activities. Climate-induced environmental change may increase the existing tension between conservation and visitor use as major tourism resources located in protected areas (PAs) are projected to undergo large-scale changes. This study draws upon the behavioural approach, scenario planning, and landscape visualizations to examine the relationship between climate change impacts, visitor perceptions, and visitor experience management at the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Canada. Four tourism development scenarios defined by two management drivers (ecological integrity and visitor demand) with corresponding storylines and visualizations were developed for 2050. The visualized scenarios were presented to visitors (n?=?304) in a survey to understand potential implications on visitor satisfaction. The results suggest that park managers need to find a balance between ecological integrity and visitor use in a way that ensures commercialized tourism development is limited, educational material is prioritized, and ecological integrity is maintained. While understanding the behaviour of future tourists is complex, it is a critical component of climate change adaptation planning and decision-making processes that needs to be prioritized by policymakers and PAs managers.