D7 - Give consideration to heritage in sustainable tourism development policies


The development of sustainable tourism requires both the satisfaction of visitor expectations and the preservation of the heritage, as well as local inhabitants’ quality of life. It is essential to diversify and publicise tourist attractions of the less well-known areas and offer an authentic cultural experience while strengthening the local identity.

D7 Challenges
Development challenges
- Building a more inclusive and cohesive society
- Developing Europe’s prosperity by drawing on its heritage resources
- Ensuring that Europeans enjoy a high quality of life, in harmony with their cultural and natural environment
- Implementing the principle of integrated conservation
- Ensuring that heritage is taken into account in sustainable spatial development strategies and programmes
- Developing the ability of public services to address sustainable spatial development issues by means of better use of heritage
Societal challenges
- Preserving the collective memory
- Promoting participatory management
- Promoting an inclusive approach to heritage
Knowledge challenges
- Raising awareness of the values conveyed by heritage
- Encouraging heritage research
- Enlisting the commitment of young people to heritage

D7 Target audience
- local
- regional
- national

Recommended courses of action for D7
- Draw up culture-heritage-tourism agreements at national level
- Set up tourism activities incorporating heritage assets and local know-how
- When promoting tourism in an area, showcase its cultural heritage in a reasoned way
- Organise consultations with local populations to promote sustainable and responsible tourism, based on the values of cultural heritage
- Inform and raise the awareness of those involved in tourism (professionals, suppliers) regarding the cultural heritage, its potential and its vulnerability
- Develop interoccupational and intersectoral co-operation
- Jointly devise material for tourists (guidebooks, virtual tourist guides, local visitor guides, etc.)
- Assess the negative impacts and envisage limitation regulations
Good practices for D7

- Strategy 21 - Territorial and economic development (D)
- D1 - Promote cultural heritage as a resource and facilitate financial investment
- D2 - Support and promote the heritage sector as a means of creating jobs and business opportunities
- D3 - Promote heritage skills and professionals
- D4 - Produce heritage impact studies for rehabilitation, construction, planning and infrastructure projects
- D5 - Encourage the reuse of heritage and use of traditional knowledge and practice
- D6 - Ensure that heritage is taken into account in development, spatial planning, environmental and energy policies
- D7 - Give consideration to heritage in sustainable tourism development policies
- D8 - Protect, restore and enhance heritage, making greater use of new technologies
- D9 - Use innovative techniques to present cultural heritage to the public, while preserving its integrity
- D10 - Use the cultural heritage as a means of giving the region a distinctive character and making it more attractive and better known
- D11 - Develop new management models to ensure that heritage benefits from the economic spinoffs that it generates