The interest in heritage tourism is increasing at the same time as the price on flight tickets is decreasing. World heritage has been around since 1972 when UNESCO adopted the convention for protection and conservation of world heritage. Today they are mostly seen as global icons and excellent tourist attractions, making tourists travel from all over the world to crowd around them. But how much do the tourists actually know – and care – about the real purposes of which the world heritages are elected? This thesis aims to examine the relationship between wanting to conserve and protect a world heritage, but at the same time wanting to use it and make it available for tourists. This has been done through a case study on the world heritage of the hanseatic town of Visby and interviews have been held with several of the responsible stakeholders. The result of the study tells us about how the destination Visby see the world heritage as something valuable they want to conserve and protect, but they also see many opportunities for tourism development that either follows from, or is benefitted by, the world heritage status. A recurring view is the importance of having a living city with people not only observing, but experiencing and understanding the history and culture of the world heritage. The importance of sustainable tourism is also discussed since it is considered a key to enable tourism development and still ensure the persistence of the world heritage in Visby.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-136446 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Nordlund, Maja |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Kulturgeografi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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