UNWTO Publishes Pointers to Restart Cultural Tourism

The world tourism organization (UNWTO) and the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) have worked together to create a series of new guidelines that focus on restarting culture responsibly tourism.

The UNWTO has been invited to contribute Unesco to the UNWTO Inclusive Recovery Guide, Edition 2: Cultural Tourism. This is the second set of guidelines on the socio-cultural impact of Covid-19 issued by the UNWTO and which will be further revised as the situation evolves.

The publication draws on the knowledge and expertise of the two UN agencies to analyze the impact of the pandemic on their respective sectors. This includes how lost revenue affects communities, cultural heritage sites, cultural events, spaces and institutions, while weakening the competitiveness and market differentiation of travel destinations. The cultural tourism guidelines also highlight the need for support from policy makers to ensure the relevance of culture to emergency and contingency planning in tourist destinations.

In addition to the new guidelines, the UNWTO is calling on the cultural tourism sector to create participatory governance structures that bring together artists, creators, tourism and culture professionals, the private sector and local communities to enable open dialogue, data sharing and real-time solutions. The document also advocates better urban-rural links to ensure that the benefits of culture and tourism are exploited as much as possible.

As a result of the pandemic, 90% of the countries closed their World Heritage Sites in whole or in part. In many cases, places of particular importance to humanity have been closed to the public for the first time in decades. At the same time, the pandemic has highlighted the relevance of tourism and culture. The sudden drop in tourist arrivals is being felt around the world as millions of people have turned to virtual cultural experiences for convenience and inspiration.

The guidelines are published as part of the International Year of Creatives Economy for Sustainable Development 2021, a UN initiative to see how different forms of culture, including cultural tourism, can contribute to progress the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).