GEORGE TOWN, Oct 29 — Unesco Jakarta Cultural Unit Head Moe Chiba today said managers of world heritage sites should focus on selling experiences of the local cultures and arts so that tourists will keep returning to visit.
She said tourists are now more sophisticated as they do not want to go back to a place if all it has to offer are some heritage monuments and a few touristy places.
“We need to look at sustainable tourism so that these places can attract visitors to keep going back,” she said in a press conference after opening a Unesco sub-regional inception workshop here.
She used Borobudur as an example where visitors would go to look at the monument and after that, they were unlikely to visit the site again as there was nothing else that attracts them to return.
In comparison, she said Paris kept attracting repeat visitors as they can rent an apartment in Paris, visit the cafes there and experience the “life of a Parisian” instead of only visiting common tourist places such as the Eiffel Tower.
“What visitors want are experiences, they want authentic experiences, they want to live like the locals, they want to immerse themselves in the local culture and taste the local food,” she said.
Therefore, Chiba said heritage conservation and sustainable tourism is not just preserving brick and mortar buildings but more about preserving the local culture and getting the local communities involved.
“This is why this workshop is important, it is to get heritage site managers together with the local communities, who are the cultural assets, to come up with activities to carry out in their cities,” she said.
George Town was selected as one of the sites for this Unesco pilot project to link the local creative industries, communities with site managers to come up with products, activities or services that sell the city as an experience.
George Town World Heritage Inc (GTWHI) general manager Ang Ming Chee said they do not want George Town to be another “Disneyland”.
“We want to involve the local communities and stakeholders so that we can create local economic opportunities,” she said.
Ang said the cultural assets in the heritage city will be better appreciated and can generate sustainable income for the local communities if strategies are in place to develop it.
The workshop, titled “Unesco sub-regional inception workshop linking world heritage sites and local cultural assets through museums, information centres and creative industries”, is the first step in implementing the project.
The workshop will discuss and come up with proposals for activities under the project which will be finalised by November.
Chiba said they hope to start implementing the proposed activities by the selected cities of George Town, Melaka and Vigan of Philippines in December.
“Each city will have to define at least one activity they want to carry out under this project and the implementation will be between December 2018 and January 2020,” she said.
The workshop is jointly organised by GTWHI and Unesco Office Jakarta in cooperation with the Unesco World Heritage Centre — Asia and Pacific Unit.
It is funded by the Japanese Funds-in-Trust and supported by the Penang state government.
