"Heritage tourism is the one that prioritizes the heritage. Heritage is the ultimate objective and responsible tourism is a means to protect it and make it known”, said Bernard Morucci during his presentation in Buenos Aires , in the framework of the UNESCO Chair of Cultural Tourism, jointly organized by the Tres de Febrero National University and the Association of Friends of the National Museum of Fine Arts.
Three hundred participants attentively listened to Dr. Morucci during a 3-day seminar on “Sustainable tourism and its added value to the cultural heritage: problems, challenges and possible answers", which ended with a key conference on "Management and stewardship of the cultural heritage: the specific case of World Heritage Sites".
The seminar, which was free of charge, with limited vacancies and required previous registration, was of great interest for officials in the areas of culture, tourism and national heritage at central, provincial and municipal levels, as well as for administrators of World Heritage sites, managers of travel agencies and cultural institutions, researchers and other academics of Argentina and Latin America, who in a very few days had covered available openings.
Participants came from La Plata, Luján, Azul, Olavarría, Tandil, Mar del Plata, Rosario, Santa Fe, Resistencia, Córdoba, Rio Cuarto, Catamarca, Tucumán, Salta, Jujuy, Corrientes, Concordia, Mendoza, San Juan, Neuquén, Río Negro and Ushuaia in Argentina; Colonia del Sacramento, Paysandú and Montevideo (Uruguay); Santiago de Chile and Valparaíso in Chile; Asunción del Paraguay and Cuenca (Ecuador), besides the City of Buenos Aires. For the latter, the eminent French expert offered a dedicated workshop on how to implement a Cultural Tourism Observatory that was also attended by the Minister of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires, Eng. Hernán Lombardi.
Based on the idea that a sustainable approach to “heritage tourism” requires cooperation among highly qualified professionals, UNESCO has sponsored the creation of three Chairs specialized in cultural tourism: one in Paris, under the leadership of Bernard Morucci, the second one in Moscow and the third one, more recently, in Buenos Aires.
Our guest speaker is also the coordinator of the international network of UNESCO Chairs of Culture, Tourism and Development.
His most recent research focuses in particular on the development and evaluation of sustainability indicators for cultural tourism, as well as on the creation of courses and modules for remote training in the field of cultural tourism, the development of sustainable tourism and the management of cultural sites and itineraries.
During his lectures in Buenos Aires he noted that when planning a tourist system, it is important to differentiate between cultural tourism and tourism focused on the heritage. "Depending on the “driver”, strategies to be implemented will be different. There may be complementary drives, but one of them will be dominant”, he said.
Every day, the seminar closed with a discussion by a round-table of experts from Argentina (Quebrada de Humahuaca, Ushuaia, Córdoba and the City of Buenos Aires), Chile, Uruguay and Peru, who presented to Bernard Morucci a panorama of the current situation and the outlook for the development of sustainable tourism in the cultural heritage sites of our part of the world.
The panelists discussed the characteristics, the strengths and weaknesses, the threats and challenges in their respective regions.
Among his conclusions, Prof Morucci stressed that it should not be allowed, as is the case in Ushuaia, historical buildings to be demolished, in spite of legislation meant to protect them. "Legislation must be respected, and one should ask why it was not enforced". The same is true in the case of Chile , clearly illustrated by Cecilia García Huidobro, President of Chile’s Cultural Heritage Corporation.
"Territory development must be based on sustainable practices”, noted Mr. Morucci, “as well as apply prospective tools to predict long term trends in order to make adequate decisions, based on simulation scenarios”.
He also alerted on the danger of de-culturization or a-culturization, by resorting to short-term solutions in order to please tourists.
María Esther Albeck, an archeologist who works at Quebrada de Humahuaca, gave the example of the cult to “Pachamama” that was commonly practiced in local homes, and in order to satisfy the interest of tourists who wanted to witness the rites, tour operators resorted to artificial staging that was ultimately detrimental for local traditions and sense of identity.
According to the French expert, a potential antidote is educating the young generations and raising their awareness of the importance of cultural and natural heritage.
"The media are also extremely important: their power must be used to promote in-depth awareness and reflection, and to support and help disseminate key issues in society at large, such as protection of the heritage by avoiding the demolition of historical buildings that are part of it”.
Bernard Morucci especially highlighted the importance of promoting the concept of a cultural system, where we are all inserted in an eclectic cultural map.
"It is possible to imagine a global policy in which cultural itineraries are developed: a good example is the Catalan Route , that values diversity but follows a sort of guiding thread that goes from prehistoric times to Picasso ". In his opinion, each heritage assed on a cultural route or itinerary is like a link in a chain. If one of the links is weak, the whole chain is jeopardized.
"Sustainable management requires the engagement of local communities. Without this element, sustainable tourism will be compromised", he said in his closing remarks.
