The UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Enlarged ...

Adriana Galvani Department of Economics University of Bologna Italy

The UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Enlarged Europe

Introduction The EU enlargement is profitable from all points of view, both for the old members and the new ones and on the basis of all aspects, from the economic to the politic, the cultural and educational. At last but not least, it would also benefit tourism because this activity is correlated to politiceconomic stability and peace. Culture increases as well, according to economic and politic improvements, based on the Bologna Process and Lisbon Agreement. Tourism may be a junction among all aspects of life and economic sectors, especially cultural tourism which is related to events, exhibitions, meetings, arts contents, as Picard states: “Cultural tourism is basically a tradeoff between cultural values and economic values”(1995 p. 53). The number of international visitors and cultural tourists is rising, in spite of terrorism, the September eleventh, wars, and economic crisis, as WTO/OMT attests (2007). Fig. – 1.

Source: WTO/OMT, 2007.

Cultural Tourism Surely cultural tourism is increasing, as more visitors from around the world enjoy Europe as a cradle of modern civilisation. “During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries affluent and state-conscious Americans made their pilgrimages to Europe in order to sample its heritage and, thereby, enhance their status and sophistication (Galvani, 2001). During this era, professionals in business and other careers believed that a liberal education and an exposure to the heritage of Europe was an essential ingredient for effective thinking” (Walle, 1998, p. 12). Cultural Tourism is emerging as an “increasingly vital activity” (Walle, cit., p. 15). Walle quotes Jane Alexander (chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts), who argues that “culture is a

magnet” (idem, p. 21). According to WTO/OMT (1993, p. vii) the magnets are the World Heritage Sites, which fall into two main categories: human made and natural sites. One component of cultural tourism involves what may be called “high culture”; thus many people gravitate to sophisticated places in order to participate in cultural achievements and opportunities that can be sampled there (Walle, cit., p. 9). Preserving the physical heritage with respect to its original integrity and aesthetic qualities means to realize sustainable tourism. Effectively tourism is also an integral part of downtown revitalization (Plotnicov 1986 in Sieber 1997, p.64). Tourism employs millions of people worldwide and many jobs are linked to travels to great historic sites. (WTO/OMT, 1993, p. v). Historic properties are often used to host cultural, social or fashionable events because they offer great sceneries. This can be also a way to earn money and to direct funds towards restoration and maintenance of ancient manors and castles. The buildings of outstanding value and unique significance are worldwide appreciated and recognised; when they are maintained in good conditions they can be inserted in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites (WHS). WHS are considered “irreplaceable properties of universal value”, for that recognized and protected by the UNESCO Convention since 1972. (WTO/OMT, 1993, p. 1). Being listed as a WHS enhances a property’s attractiveness to tourists (WTO/OMT, cit. p.4). “World Heritage Sites include several of the planet’s most wonderful attractions and grandest monuments of the past. For tourism promoters they act as magnets, while for the nation in which they are found, they serve as icons that continue to influence current values” (WTO/OMT, 1993, p. vii). Monuments may also be stages for exhibitions and fairs. Western Europe, along with North America, is one of the best-organised world areas with regard to the Meeting, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) sector which usually prefers to be located in prestigious sites. Europe enlargement is expected to create new business, and rediscover neglected properties, but it can also provide more competition for established destinations. When Austria, Sweden and Finland joined the EU their MICE industries grew by between 20 and 50 per cent. France, Germany, Spain, UK with their great heritage dominate the exhibition industry1. All Europe is rich not only in historic buildings but also in events, cultural and social activities, sports championships or gastronomy feasts, providing a large range of hotels and sites to host celebrations. Often historic properties are used as hotels, particularly in France, where a chain named “Hotels et Chateaux” and the chain “Chateaux et Manoirs” exist; other are distributed along the Romantische Strasse in Germany; many are famous in Italy which encompasses 41 officials sites. Many castles in United Kingdom are very ancient, there are wonderful manors in Austria and Germany (Galvani, 2004). The management and conservation of WHS are vital issues. Tourist are far more complicated customers than in the past, so the importance of sophisticated marketing is becoming widely recognised within the tourism industry (Witt & Mouthino, 1994, p. xiv). EU funds continue to play a major role in tourism development, financing investments incentives. (WTO/OMT, 2005, p. 15). What is more important in the year 2007 - the declared year of mutual understanding - is that a better symbiosis between culture and tourism could lead to a better understanding between peoples.

Selling the Past Selling the past to the present, in various forms, has become one of the largest and most profitable parts of the tourism industry in many different contexts worldwide (Ashworth, 1990 p. 138). 1

A particular case lets us notice that one exhibition centre, created in the XIX century in Melbourne, has become UNESCO Heritage.

The historic city is shaped from the past, is assumed to provide raw materials which are processed to create a contemporary product (Ashworth, cit., p. 139). Charlton and Essex (1994, p. 48) point out that “the tourism resources most commonly recognized as being very important are the countryside (82%) and historic buildings (78%). Nyberg (1994, p. 256) confirms the hypothesis of Ritchie and Zin who identified eight general attraction factors in tourism movement: o Natural beauty and climate o Cultural and social characteristics o Accessibility of the region o Attitudes towards tourists o Infrastructures of the region o Price level o Shopping and commercial facilities o Sport recreation and educational facilities.

The MacNauty’s (1999, p. 52) opinion is: “There is a thirst for knowledge - a substitution for the education in history and culture, which many of today’s tourists never have learned at school. There is a major change taking place in tourism, a move from passive holiday taking, to active holiday making (both physically active and mentally active)”. At the opposite, Petere Keller states that “The increasing commercialization of culture by tourism is based on the evolving expectations of customers and it is linked in the industrialised countries with the rising educational level of people who travel” (Keller, 1999, p. 77). Okoroafo (1994, p. 347) states “simply having a brand name increases social visibility and products prestige”, Lavery (1994, p. 461) reaffirms that “Europe has a great variety of attractions, scenic and cultural, both between and within member states. ……Very often the tourist is not buying a specific product or service, but rather an experience, a dream”. The European tourism product also includes a wide cultural heritage in museums; it includes archaeological features or prehistoric and historic sites, cultural manifestations, as the yearly celebration of the European City of Culture and the Month of Culture. Europe contains a greater diversity of attractions both natural and humanmade than any other tourist destination in the world.

Visitors to Europe By 1991, Europe took up 64 per cent of international tourist arrivals, accounting a 41 per cent increase since 1981. However, 80 per cent of international tourism is intra-European, so it is the tourism shifting within the EU and neighbouring countries that are of greater significance (Lavery cit., p. 460). The strength of the European tourism product is the sheer variety and diversity of opportunities in a relatively compact area, the ease of travelling within the continent and the wide range of accommodations. European continent has increased in importance as a destination for Japanese tourism since 1964; it is also the destination where they stay longest (Lavery cit., p. 464). The post September eleventh trend is still apparent and quite all destinations have been adversely impacted. Until 2003, the total world tourism declined by 1,7 per cent, but Europe had a relatively positive result of 0,4 per cent increase in arrivals. This result was due to good performance from “new” destinations in the Central and Eastern Europe (WTO/OMT, 2005, p. 11) which grew by 3,7 per cent. Northern Europe increased by 2,1 per cent, while “mature” destinations or Southern/Mediterranean Europe remained virtually static and Western Europe declined by 1,4 per cent. “There were plenty of negative factors overhanging Europe’s and indeed the world’s tourism markets in 2003, notably the Iraq war, terrorism, SARS, weak global economic performance, and, for the countries inside the Eurozone, currency appreciation. But in Central and Eastern Europe, the

euphoria surrounding EU enlargement, plus favourable exchange rate against the euro, created a much more positive environment for tourism (WTO/OMT, 2005, p. 11). At the opposite, Montenegro, a Balkan region, not incorporated among European members, has introduced the euro currency in order to facilitate tourists, but more to avoid serious inflation. After 2003 the situation ameliorated sensibly, giving stimulation to the five years schedule of the period 2000-2005 and afterwards. Nowadays, the last figures published by WTO/OMT in Madrid (2007), let us to see that, even if the percentage of European arrivals has decreased, Europe hosts more than half of total international visitors (table 1).

Table -1.

INTERNATIONAL TOURISM IN 2005 NUMBER OF REGIONS ARRIVALS Northern EU 52868000 Central/Eastern EU 87927000 Western EU 142689000 Southern/Med EU 158043000 TOTAL EU 441527000 WORLD 842000000 Source WTO/OMT, Facts and Figures, 2007.

% 11,97387255 19,91425232 32,31708974 35,7945589 52,43800475 100

The tourism characteristics of Europe Other than to physic beauties, the attraction towards Europe is due to high profile products, as the celebration of 250 years of Mozart birth in 2006, the 200th anniversary of Schiller’s death in Germany; to numerous sporting events, ranging from the World Ice Hockey Championship in Latvia to the FIFA World Cup in Germany, Olympics in Athens in 2004 and Winter Olympic sports in Torino (Italy) in 2006. The EU enlargement process gave a good opportunity to improve the image of the candidate countries years before official negotiations. Even the foreign visitors to Romania in 2003 registered a growth of 17 per cent, due to the completion of the privatisation programme in 2002. In the same year 2003 the number of foreign visitors to Estonia increased by 7 per cent, the highest level ever registered (WTO/OMT, 2005, p. 24). Generally an increase is expected by the improvement of transport means, through new railways and especially low fare air companies. Europe boasts a huge concentration of sites, thanks to its classical culture and to the accumulation of historic architectures from diverse civilisations. The tourism future will be based on quality, a factor which can be helped by natural and cultural assets, favoured by the EU Programme Natura 2000 and UNESCO Heritage network. UNESCO protection action began in 1972. Since then, the activity in monuments’ safeguard has been alacritous, both in natural and manmade monuments. The UNESCO label is able to attract numbers of visitors, especially the more educated of them. In that way all countries try to ask for enlistment, even if the process can be arduous, long and expensive, in order to respect all requirements. In facts,

some monuments are in peril to be cancelled from the list, because inadequate accomplishment of the clauses of the agreement: visitors access should be facilitated, interpretative materials distributed, education centres created, guides and information packages prepared, and so on. Then it descends a great involvement of stakeholders and of course a great visitors attraction. This heritage can benefit from the technological and economic advancements which will allow to meet the stringent criteria required to be designated as a world heritage site; such as maintaining monuments in a good state, facilitating visits to the site, distributing informative and promotional programmes for cultural events, taking responsibility for the overall management, etc… The openness and the European integration are now facilitating tourists infiltration towards East, to know a natural and architectural heritage, not easy accessible before. This process is helped by the inclusion of monuments and parks of East Europe in the world heritage list.

The European Heritage The Europe’s enlargement produced a cultural image reinforcement which manifestly appeared during 2004 with ten new entrants, joining the former 15 European countries. The author tried, before 2004, to study the two hypothesis of the future foreseen growth: the Europe of 25 and the Europe of 28. The situation in 2004 could foreseen a greater richness of cultural attractions, according to the projects of adjoining three more countries knocking at the door of Europe to become members: Bulgaria with 9 heritage sites, Romania with 7 sites and Turkey with 9. From these three foreseen, we know today that only two have been accepted. Fig. – 2. WHC Sites in the 2004 EU hipothesis of 28 countries

300

250

200

150

100

50

0 UE15

UE25

UE28

The list of UNESCO Heritage Sites consisted in 2004 of 754 items, of which 582 were cultural, 149 natural, and 23 mixed in 129 countries.

In 2007 UNESCO enlists 830 sites, whose 664 are cultural, 162 natural, 24 mixed. From the beginning of the 2004 analysis until now, the number of UNESCO members countries around the world has also increased, precisely from 129 to 138. Since 2004, the situation deriving from the process of the European economic enlargement, correlated to the process of UNESCO amplification, has seen the number of European enlisted monuments growing from 232, included in the former 15 members, to 319 in the 27 members of 2007. In table 2 we will enumerate the number of UNESCO sites included in all 27 European members, specifying which new sites have been enlisted since the biggest amplification of 2004. Table - 2.

Europe in UNESCO WHS List European Countries in 2007 Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxemburg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden UK Total Source: UNESCO - WHS List, 2007.

New sites after 2004 1

1 1 1 1 4

4 1 2

2 1

1 2 2 24

Total number of sites 8 9 9 3 12 4 2 7 30 32 16 8 2 41 2 4 1 3 7 13 13 7 5 1 39 14 27 319

This rise has evolved in many directions: the ten new countries brought 47 items in 2004, Bulgaria and Romania, as last participant in January 2007, bring 16 sites (nine in Bulgaria, seven in Romania) but there aren’t yet the foreseen nine sites of Turkey. The situation is also showing good results for the former 15 countries which obtained 18 more nominations from 2004 to 2006; the ten new entrants adjoined, since 2004, six new sites more. Among the old European members, the fifteen existing until 2004, some obtained more labelled sites after 2004; we can precisely observe Germany and Italy which have four more each, but also the new ten members of East Europe enjoyed some new recruitments, as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland. Some of the other already existing sites were geographically extended between 2004 and 20062, because they presented more requisites according to the UNESCO values. Now we have to wait for the next revision which would take place in July, to see other new entrants sites and to see if Europe membership would help the enlistment process for the post-communist countries. The former 15 members countries of Europe accounted for approximately 30.2 per cent of the world cultural heritage sites in 11.6 per cent of the member countries. This previous 11.6 per cent of the global total became 19.4 per cent after the new reinforcement arrived at 25 members. With the advent of the new states to the Union, the European percentage of the world heritage had of course been enlarged; the 10 new countries added 45 new sites to Europe, including two areas situated between old and new members states. That number may well rise to 47 if two more interstates sites, situated in the bordering States of Russia and Byelorussia, are added to the European UNESCO list. So from 232, the number of sites has become 279; thus going from 30.2 per cent to 36,3 per cent of the world total. In January 2007 two new countries entered the EU, Bulgaria and Romania, but Turkey should wait even more, then instead of 28 members EU is now totalling 27 members. If after May 2004 the percentage of European members among international UNESCO arena was 19,4 per cent, in 2007 they totalled 19,5 per cent, a little increase, but that put on evidence the major percentage increase of their heritage, accounting 318 official sites in 2007, which represent almost 40 per cent of the global heritage, precisely 38,3, compared to the heritage of 36,3 per cent after the 2004 enlargement. Observing these data we can note that the percentage of countries participating in heritage protection has evidently increased, but more has the number of sites augmented, bringing advantages for tourism in general, as Europe accounts for 52,4 per cent of international tourism arrivals. This breakdown of details just demonstrates how the heritage is strictly localised; more than one third of the entire world’s documented heritage is situated in only one fifth of the enlisted countries. This fact is mainly due to a large incidence of sites in Spain, Italy, France, Great Britain and Greece, with 37, 36, 27, 25 and 16 respectively in 2004, and 39, 41, 30, 27, 16 in 2007. It is clear that progressive European enlargement, with the erosion of borders and the progressive elimination of different currencies, can only increase tourism. Indeed, tourism influences Europe development as a whole and, at the same time, it depends on the European development.

Enlargement and Tourism In that sense a fortification of the Union means both a support for intra-regional travels which accounts for 80 per cent of the foreign total and a magnet for inbound international tourism.

2

That means July 2006, as usually being July of every year the period of revision and admission.

Enlargement becomes, at the same time, a keystone of an extended power and improved image, supporting political, economic, cultural and educational ambitions. Tourism in Europe is since years, increasing at a slow rate, do to its high position. We can see that the global European tourism increased at annual growth rate of 4,1 per cent in the period 19902000, but only 2,2 per cent per year from 2000 to 2005. Even the trends differ among European regions, we can observe that mature regions, as Western Europe, fell from annual growth rate of 2,5 to the quota of only 0,4 per cent in the same period. Our opinion is that this aspect would be connected to an increase in excursions, instead of tourism nights spent abroad, probably related to improvements in transports, as fast trains, or the deregulation in air transport, and the competition among numerous low cost air companies which don’t require a minimum of staying days or a Saturday night at hotel. International daily travels are also facilitated by the small dimensions of some countries in the old continent. On the other part, the relative decreasing percentage of tourist arrivals in Europe is due to other emerging countries in the international leisure market. If Southern/Mediterranean Europe decreased less, particularly from 4,1 to 2,3 per cent, or Northern Europe which fell from 3,8 to 2,9, we see that Central-Eastern Europe, even with a big decrease falling from an annual growth rate of 8,3 to a percentage of 4,8 - maintains the best annual increase among other European geographical areas. The best performance of Central Eastern Europe from 31 millions arrivals in 1990 until almost 88 millions in 2005 is evidently due to the great political changes after 1989.

Table – 3.

AVERAGE ANNUAL GROWTH OF INTERNATIONAL TOURISM IN EUROPE (1990-2000-2005) REGIONS 1990-2000 Northern EU 3.8 Central/Eastern EU 8.3 Western EU 2.5 Southern/Med EU 4.1 TOTAL EU 4.1 Source: WTO/OMT: Facts and Figures, 2007.

2000-2005 2.9 4.8 0.4 2.3 2.2

During the communist era, governments were not enough concerned in environmental problems, as demonstrated by the air and chemical pollution which destroyed historic buildings. Maybe museums, particularly Berlin museums were maintained in good conditions, even if West Berlin maintained better than East Berlin its buildings in interiors and exteriors, but Dresden and Leipzig offered a bad and sad image of their architecture. After German unification, many big restructuring works initiated in the Democratic Republic, first of all in the unified Berlin, considered the symbol of Germany and the pole position of liberty.

Conclusions

Nowadays the enlargement towards a big East would represent the emblem of unification of peoples even with their ethnic and historical diversities. Before a politic unity, there is a cultural unity of people living in a relatively small territory, which seamed bigger years ago, because various barriers. In 21st century West and East Europe will join together themselves, as the Tsar Peter the Great successfully attempted two centuries ago. The most symbolic chain of this cultural unity is the UNESCO membership, where culture is the global glue and the general magnet, eliding politic and economic differences.

Fig. - 3. The Cathedral in Ferrara, UNESCO city. (Galvani)

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