University of Ljubljana Summer School on Sustainable Heritage 2024

Cultural Heritage and Cultural Heritage Tourism – Constraints and Synergies

A few highlights and lectures from the summer school, where we explored the challenges we face in preserving and managing heritage in a context of increasing tourist use of cultural heritage sites and destinations. We focused in particular on the heritage of castles and other complex historic heritage sites. Through the latest international document of the ICOMOS organisation, the ICOMOS International Charter for Cultural Heritage Tourism: reinforcing cultural heritage protection and community resilience through responsible and sustainable tourism management, which was drawn up in 2022 to prevent the degradation of cultural heritage due to touristification and highlight we explored the relevance of issues related to social, ethical, cultural, environmental and economic rights associated with tourism.

During our excursions we visited several examples of the integration of heritage and tourism in Slovenia (Ljubljana Castle, interpretation center and the UNESCO World Heritage Site Pile dwellings on Ljubljana Marshes, Mansion Gutenbüchel, Cmurek Castle and the Museum of Madness) and Austria: the cultural landscape of the Wachau Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Traisental cultural landscape with its historic castles, farms, villages with wine cellars and an abandoned mining town, the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the palaces and gardens of Schönbrunn - one of the world's most tourist-intensive sites, a visit to the Toourism exhibition at the Architecture Centre in Vienna.