World heritage site management: a case study of sacred sites and pilgrimage routes in the Kii mountain range, Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This research examines three themes: heritage management and conservation activities, local communities, and tourism development in Kii World Heritage Site (WHS) after WHS designation. Kii is a cultural WHS having links with Japanese religions and consisting of shrines, temples and pilgrimage routes. This study inductively and qualitatively examines these three themes. Overall, the current status of Kii WHS is satisfactory. Local people, tourists/visitors and experts are all actively involved in heritage management and conservation activities. WHS listing seems to have enhanced local identity, increased local people's pride in their culture and place of residence, and triggered a revitalisation of local culture. Moreover, tourism's negative impacts appear to be minimal, despite an increase in the number of visitors since UNESCO inscription. There are a few issues to be improved, which derive mainly from a lack of understanding of WHS status or conflicts between heritage management/tourism and religious practices. A more holistic approach, such as establishing a forum consisting of all key stakeholders would be useful for the further success of Kii WHS as a religious and sacred site, place to live and tourist destination.

Religious tourism: the journey so far

“…While there has long been a pilgrimage infrastructure that facilitated pilgrim movement, in the Middle Ages, church-related establishments began to offer visitor services, making them tourist attractions, and worked with state tourism organisations, communities and tour operators to popularise religious tourism (Petrillo, 2003;Shackley, 2001Shackley, , 2004. There is a considerable literature on the marketing (Paniandi et al, 2018;Wong et al, 2016), management (Griffiths & Wiltshier, 2019;Jimura, 2016;Raj & Griffin, 2015) and the economics of religious tourism (Terzidou et al, 2008;Vukonić, 2002), focusing in part on the economy of tourism and related infrastructure (of hotels, tour agencies, tourism organisations) centred around religious attractions (Hung, 2015;Rotherham, 2007;Whiting, 2020).…”

“…The politics in religious tourism is evident at multiple levels: presenting the site and its attractions in ways that can weigh tourism over its sacred core (Bond et al, 2015;Brayley, 2010;Coleman & Eade, 2018;Jimura, 2016;Levi & Kocher, 2009), the hegemony of religious actors that generates unequal participation in the pilgrimage and tourism economy leading to uneven distribution of benefits (Shackley, 2001;Shinde, 2010); the absolving of visitors from their impacts (Alipour et al, 2017;Terzidou et al, 2008); profanity of tourism affecting the sacred and religious character of the place (Fraser, 2015;Olsen, 2003;Shoval, 2000); the blame game amongst stakeholders for not being able to adequately manage religious tourism (Coningham et al, 2011;Shinde, 2011); the conflicts between religious institutions and state; and so on. The politics originating from differences in offering of religious and tourism services leads to the fragmentation of religious tourism destinations -both socially and spatially.…”

Towards a new local tourism economy: Understanding sense of community, social impacts and potential enterprise opportunities in Podgrađe Bač, Vojvodina, Serbia

“…Sense of community is explored conceptually as a way of understanding how a community mobilises. Relevant to this work, Jimura (2011, 2016) argues that community involvement in destinations with World Heritage Sites is essential to ensure sustainable outcomes. This paper is concerned with how people perceive a local sense of community, given the direction of Podgrađe Bač and potential future tourism.…”

Still on UNESCO’s “Tentative List of World Heritage”? Heritage, Tourism, and Stunted Growth in Sarnath (Varanasi), India

“…Inscribing a place on UNESCO's register as a World Heritage Site (WHS) is a longdrawn process, and both the process and the listing have often produced mixed results [1,2]. There are several examples where places listed as a WHS gain more popularity and more tourism [3].…”