scholarly journals Protected Areas as a Center of Attraction for Visits from World Heritage Cities: Extremadura (Spain)

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
José-Manuel Sánchez-Martín ◽  
Juan-Ignacio Rengifo-Gallego ◽  
Marcelino Sánchez-Rivero
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
National Park ◽  
Nature Reserve ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Tourist Attractions ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Natural Parks ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Secondary Motivation

Conservation of the environment has become a key factor in tourist development, as is shown by the increase in visitors to natural parks and other places with rich ecosystems. Protected areas have become polarised centers for tourists of very varied characteriztics, not only for those who make them their main destination, but also for those who travel to nearby areas. This situation can be observed in Extremadura, where numerous tourists make the best use of their stay in the main centers of tourist attractions of the region to make local trips and thus get to know the most significant natural areas. These movements are being detected in varied aspects of demand, sometimes with little connection between the main and secondary motivation for the trip. We therefore consider a variable percentage of tourists visiting the main cultural destinations of Extremadura who use part of their stay to get to know protected areas. With the aim of structuring the research, we made a systematic study of tourists who spent the night in the cities of Cáceres and Mérida, which are World Heritage sites. During their stay, they visited prestigious natural places such as Monfragüe National Park, the Villuercas–Ibores–Jara Geopark, the Tajo Internacional Nature Reserve, and the Garganta de los Infiernos Nature Reserve. This information was obtained by carrying out surveys, which allowed us to determine the attraction capacity of each protected area by applying a network analysis. The results reflect a heterogeneous type of visitor who travels to the most appreciated areas following guidelines marked by the time of the year, his/her preferences, and the duration of his/her trip.

scholarly journals Managing congestion at visitor hotspots using park-level use level data: Case study of a Chinese World Heritage site

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin-Hui Guo ◽  
Tian Guo ◽  
Kai-Miao Lin ◽  
Yu-Fai Leung ◽  
Qiu-Hua Chen
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Heritage Site ◽  
Minute Interval ◽  
Monitoring Technologies

AbstractTourist congestion at hot spots has been a major management concern for UNESCO World Heritage Sites and other iconic protected areas. A growing number of heritage sites employ technologies, such as cameras and electronic ticket-checking systems, to monitor user levels, but data collected by these monitoring technologies are often under-utilize. In this study, we illustrated how to integrate data from hot spots by camera-captured monitoring and entrance counts to manage use levels at a World Heritage Site in southeastern China. 6,930 photos of a congestion hotspot (scenic outlook on a trail) were collected within the park at a 10-minute interval over 105 days from January to November 2017. The entrance counts were used to predict daily average and maximum use level at the hotspot Average use level at the congestion hotspot did not exceed the use limit mandated by the Chinese park administration agency. However, from 9:20 am to 12:00 pm, the use level at hotspots exceeded visitor preferred use level. Visitor use level was significantly higher at the hotspot during a major Chinese “golden week” holiday. The daily entrance counts significantly predicted the average and maximum use level at the hotspot. Based on our findings, we recommend that the number of visitors entering the gate on each day should be less than 28,764 for the hotspots to meet use level mandates, while less than 6,245 to meet visitor preference. The gap manifested the complexity in visitor capacity management at high-use World Heritage Sites and other protected areas and calls for innovative monitoring and management strategies.

scholarly journals Word Heritage Sites as soft tourism destinations – their impacts on international arrivals and tourism receipts

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (45) ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Bacsi ◽  
Éva Tóth
Keyword(s):  
World Heritage ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
General Level ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Tourist Attractions ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
Natural World Heritage Sites ◽  
Cultural World

AbstractThe paper deals with the relationship between the presence of world heritage sites in a country and the volume of international tourist arrivals and international tourism receipts. World heritage sites are unique tourist attractions with enhanced attention paid to their protection, preservation and sustainability. The paper analyses whether the needs of sustainability can be harmonised with the requirements of a profitable and successful tourism sector, by statistical analysis of data about world heritage sites and tourism performance, for 129 countries of the world from 2014 to 2017. The results show that both cultural and natural world heritage sites are generally strong attractions for tourists and can contribute to increased arrivals and receipts. Cultural sites were found to have higher impact on arrivals, while natural heritage sites seemed to have more impact on receipts, which suggest, that visitors of natural world heritage sites are usually higher spenders, than tourists visiting cultural sites. Countries widely differ, however, in this respect by their geographical locations. Countries in Europe and Latin-America & the Caribbean region benefit most from cultural world heritage sites, while African, and North American countries experienced the benefits of natural world heritage sites more. The general level of development measured by per capita GNI also mattered for the less developed areas, but not so much for developed regions that possess a suitable level of infrastructure, health and education, and living standards.

scholarly journals Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites: current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 3327-3347
Author(s):  
Ross T. Shackleton ◽  
Bastian Bertzky ◽  
Louisa E. Wood ◽  
Nancy Bunbury ◽  
Heinke Jäger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Invasions ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Alien Species ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Current Status ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Outstanding Universal Value ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Framework

Abstract UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are areas of outstanding universal value and conservation importance. They are, however, threatened by a variety of global change drivers, including biological invasions. We assessed the current status of biological invasions and their management in 241 natural and mixed WHS globally by reviewing documents collated by UNESCO and IUCN. We found that reports on the status of biological invasions in WHS were often irregular or inconsistent. Therefore, while some reports were very informative, they were hard to compare because no systematic method of reporting was followed. Our review revealed that almost 300 different invasive alien species (IAS) were considered as a threat to just over half of all WHS. Information on IAS management undertaken in WHS was available for fewer than half of the sites that listed IAS as a threat. There is clearly a need for an improved monitoring and reporting system for biological invasions in WHS and likely the same for other protected areas globally. To address this issue, we developed a new framework to guide monitoring and reporting of IAS in protected areas building on globally accepted standards for IAS assessments, and tested it on seven WHS. The framework requires the collation of information and reporting on pathways, alien species presence, impacts, and management, the estimation of future threats and management needs, assessments of knowledge and gaps, and, using all of this information allows for an overall threat score to be assigned to the protected area. This new framework should help to improve monitoring of IAS in protected areas moving forward.

scholarly journals Geological activity of humans represented in the world heritage sites of India, Italy, and Russia: Evidence of the anthropocene

2016 ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Ansari ◽  
Adriana Moroni ◽  
Dmitry Ruban ◽  
Svetlana Zorina ◽  
Aniello Aloia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Evidence ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Unesco World Heritage ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Tourist Attractions ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Full Discussion ◽  
The One ◽  
Rich Countries

The idea of the Anthropocene attracts attention of scientists, policy-makers, and broad public to the geological activity of humans and poses new important questions for the modern stratigraphy. The growth of the Anthropocene-related knowledge and its promotion can be based potentially on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS). On the one hand, many of these sites provide spectacular evidence of the human activity. On the other hand, these are remarkable tourist attractions. The WHSs of three heritage-rich countries, namely India, Italy, and Russia, have been assessed with regard to how these reflect the geological activity of humans. It is established that 65-90% of all WHSs in each country provide direct and indirect evidence of such an activity (artificial caves, terrace building, etc.), which appears to be enough for the general discussion of the idea of the Anthropocene. However, the distribution of the WHSs by their age allows focusing only on the ?early? (before 1800 AD) start of the Anthropocene, which is not enough for full discussion of the lower limit of this unit. The examples considered in the present study imply that some WHSs alone provide very important pieces of the Anthropocene-related knowledge.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document