Toward a Political Economy of World Heritage

Bertacchini, Enrico; Saccone, Donatella

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1757864

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Even though in this case the same definition and listing procedure is applied to all heritage sites, some issues related to the selection process have to be mentioned. As Bertacchini and Saccone (2012) argue, economic and institutional conditions of countries may influence their capability to submit a candidature for listing a heritage site and to influence the final decision through involvement in the World Heritage Committee. This might cause an over‐representation of more influential or richer countries resulting in a non‐representative database.…”

Section: Data and Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

European cultural heritage and tourism flows: The magnetic role of superstar World Heritage Sites

Panzera

Graaff

Groot

2021

Papers in Regional Science

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Cultural heritage is a potentially important determinant of international tourism flows. Apart from being an enrichment for both individuals and communities and an opportunity for different cultures to meet, tourism also represents a significant industry for European economies. We empirically investigate the impact of the endowment of tangible cultural heritage on tourism attractiveness of European regions. We measure material forms of cultural heritage both as regional density of locally defined monuments, cultural landscapes and museums, and as number of cultural sites listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites international programme. Using a Bayesian multilevel gravity model, we find that UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites are associated with an increase of 6,000 (one site) to 60,000 (eight sites) international tourists from each European country to an average European region. On the other hand, regionally or nationally defined tangible forms of heritage play a more limited role as pull‐factors for international tourism. Moreover, we show that the presence of UNESCO sites reduces the distance decay effect. International tourists are willing to travel longer distance if a destination is endowed with UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites.

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Section: Data and Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

European cultural heritage and tourism flows: The magnetic role of superstar World Heritage Sites

Panzera

Graaff

Groot

2021

Papers in Regional Science

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“…Among many others, the following issues have been investigated: (1) the cultural and political criteria behind the decision of nominating a site for WHS listing, including the lobbying power of local sites toward their governments, and of governments toward the UNESCO Committee; (2) the use of listing as a tool for raising awareness of local cultural heritage and for empowering local communities living near the sites; and (3) the listing as a tool to promote paths of socially and environmentally sustainable development. Since the analysis of these and other noneconomic issues is beyond the scope of this study, we refer to Poria, Reichel, and Cohen (2011) for an introduction and a review of the several issues pertaining to WHS listing, and Bertacchini and Saccone (2012) and Frey, Pamini, and Steiner (2013) to analyze the criteria used by UNESCO when accepting sites on the WHS list.…”

Section: Literature Review and Contribution To The Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Puzzle of Tourism Demand at Destinations Hosting UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Ribaudo

Figini

2016

Journal of Travel Research

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The study develops a comprehensive picture of tourism demand trends at UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs) with the aim of providing evidence of any growth in demand for specific destinations after the listing of their sites. In contrast to previous literature, this article focuses on the smallest statistical unit (the municipality) to examine WHS impact on the destination. Analyzing 16 Italian WHSs, we show the most relevant trends in hospitality demand, comparing tourism flows at destinations before and after listing. Data show that, on average, growth rates of tourism demand in the 5 years after WHS listing are not higher than growth rates in the 5 years before the listing, but a number of different patterns emerge. The policy and managerial implications of such findings are straightforward: at least for a mature destination like Italy, there is no statistical evidence that WHS listing is associated with accelerating market growth rates.

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“…The variable Committee is a binary variable indicating whether or not a country is serving on the World Heritage Committee. Previous works (Bertacchini and Saccone 2012;Frey et al 2013) suggest that this variable has a positive impact on the inscription of World Heritage sites, as countries that serve the World Heritage Committee in a given year might be more likely to propose and inscribe sites, thus generating a greater chance for the regions within their borders. Finally, we include the total number of years a country has been member of the World Heritage Committee.…”

Section: Empirical Strategy and Variablesmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Secondly, the paper is connected to the emerging literature on political, economic and institutional determinants of World Heritage designations (Bertacchini and Saccone 2012;Frey et al 2013;Parenti and De Simone 2015;Bertacchini et al 2016). Factors such as a country's income level, economic power, tourism specialization and active involvement on the World Heritage Committee sessions have been found to have an impact on the likelihood for a country to have sites included World Heritage List.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To analyze political and economic factors influencing the World Heritage sites selection, previous empirical works(Bertacchini and Saccone, 2012;Bertacchini et al, 2016) have used samples of nominated properties by countries and constructed dependent variables based on the inscription as successful outcome. This strategy cannot be adopted here as in the period of analysis almost all the nominated properties by European countries have been successfully included in the World Heritage List.8 The number of new sites considered here for the period 2010-2015 is lower than the actual number of inscriptions as we excluded transnational serial sites for methodological reasons.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Kalòs kai agathòs? government quality and cultural heritage in the regions of Europe

Bertacchini

Revelli

2021

Ann Reg Sci

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This paper uses panel data on over 200 regions of Europe during the years 2010–2015 to study the relationship between the quality of institutions and the capacity of local authorities and stakeholders to effectively protect and support cultural heritage, using new designations in the UNESCO World Heritage List as a proxy. Besides analyzing the spatial distribution of World Heritage sites across European regions, we test whether the location of a region matters for the chances of obtaining a new UNESCO designation by controlling for the stock of World Heritage in the surrounding regions, and whether low regional government quality is an obstacle to inclusion of sites into the List. While we can detect no significant spill-overs from the stock of World Heritage in surrounding regions, we find evidence that local government quality matters for the chances of a region gaining a UNESCO site designation.

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Toward a Political Economy of World Heritage

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

European cultural heritage and tourism flows: The magnetic role of superstar World Heritage Sites

European cultural heritage and tourism flows: The magnetic role of superstar World Heritage Sites

The Puzzle of Tourism Demand at Destinations Hosting UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Kalòs kai agathòs? government quality and cultural heritage in the regions of Europe

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