CONSERVATION AND TOURISM #ARCHITECTURE #NEPALITECTURE #CONSERVATION

 Essay on Conservation and Tourism

                                                                                                                                                                      By

NEPALITECTURE

Abstract

Insight of this paper contains content about conservation and tourism and their relationship in the practical world with some examples or case studies. The study is done by reviewing lots of different articles and this paper seeks to find the relationship of the tourism sector and its contribution towards the economy for conservation work of heritage site as well as for the growth and development of country and vice-versa. In the planning process the purpose of conservation in relation to tourism becomes evident and the two merge together to become the grounds for the program itself. The case of Vigan City and Lumbini are two different studies which helps to relate the tourism and conservation in the sense of architecture.

Keywords: conservation, tourism, heritage, economy, cultural, master plan and country

Introduction

Conservation carries a wider meaning and embraces the various kind of treatment that are given to any monument to lengthen its life. Conservation can generally be considered as the action taken to prevent decay, and to prolong the life of the cultural and architectural heritage by applying different methods and principles for its restoration and preservation. The individual engaged in this pursuit is known as an architectural conservator-restorer. The term conservation refers to the "professional use of a combination of science, art, craft, and technology as a preservation tool".

In addition to the design and art/science definition described above, architectural conservation also refers to issues of identification, policy, regulation, and advocacy associated with the entirety of the cultural and built environment. This broader scope recognizes that society has mechanisms to identify and value historic cultural resources, create laws to protect these resources, and develop policies and management plans for interpretation, protection, and education. Typically this process operates as a specialized aspect of a society's planning system, and its practitioners are termed built or historic environment conservation professionals. Architectural conservation is the process by which individuals or groups attempt to protect valued buildings from unwanted change.

Tourism is travel for pleasure or business. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism, as “traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes.” Tourism can be domestic or international.

The tourism industry, as part of the service sector, has become an important source of income for many regions and even for entire countries. Tourism brings large amounts of income into a local economy in the form of payment for goods and services needed by tourists. Travel outside a person's local area for leisure was largely confined to wealthy classes, who at times traveled to distant parts of the world, to see great buildings and works of art, learn new languages, experience new cultures, enjoy pristine scenery, and to taste different cuisines.

Cultural and natural heritage are in many cases the absolute basis for worldwide tourism. Cultural tourism is one of the megatrends. As UNESCO is increasingly observing, the cultural heritage is needed for tourism, but also endangered by it so, they started to conserve the heritage site of different countries by enlisting them in international heritage site. The "ICOMOS - International Cultural Tourism Charter" from 1999 is already dealing with all of these problems. The focus of UNESCO is to ensure the protection of cultural heritage in order to maintain this future important economic basis for the local population. There are extensive international and national considerations, studies and programs to protect cultural assets from the effects of tourism.

Tourism and conservation are co-related term because every valuable conserved place or site is valuable in terms of tourism also. Conservation helps in rise of economic state of country directly via increasing tourist to that country. If number of tourist rises to some specific ancient conserve place, the challenges to the conservation also increases and in some cases the conserved site could be collapsed due to vandalism and heavy damage from heavy tourist flow. So at ancient vulnerable sites conservation has to be done assuming vulnerability done by tourists.

Conservation also has opportunity via tourism due to financial and moral support. If tourism rises, economic funding and awareness to conservation at particular site also rises, which could give better solution and awareness to conservation problems arise.

Conservation aimed at establishing the value of the historical components of the site in terms of tourist appeal and to heighten the awareness of the conservation of historic structures. Indeed, while illustrating the importance of conservation, it also exposed the importance of the historic area as a resource for tourism. In the planning process the purpose of conservation in relation to tourism becomes evident and the two merge together to become the grounds for the program itself. As the conservation of historic places takes concrete shape, the historic area as a resource for tourism becomes the foundation on which that conservation effort can stand. In this process the conservation of buildings becomes the method which allows for tourism promotion. In the actualization process, the local residents become involved in efforts for both tourism and historic building conservation. Since the economic effects are felt by residents, the motivation for participating in conservation efforts is very clear. As the town becomes beautiful and popular, residents also take pride in showing visitors their town and, in particular, the historical areas that are the draw for visitors. Additionally, as the conservation of historic buildings progresses, the historic region operating as a tourist spot becomes more and more charming and gradually grows into a place for sightseeing. With the development of a tourist program connected to the conservation of buildings, the result is that the conservation of historic buildings becomes part of the local business and activities. Although tourism is commercial activity it also promotes emotional value and importance of heritage sites and their conservation.

Case Study:

1.      Vigan City

Established in the 16th century, Vigan is the best conserved example of a planned Spanish colonial town in Asia. Its architecture reflects the coming together of cultural elements from elsewhere in the Philippines, from China and from Europe, resulting in a culture and townscape that have no parallel anywhere in East and South-East Asia. 1.4 million local and foreign tourists visited this heritage city in 2017, (data from the city tourism office ).The city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is among the country's most popular tourist destinations, known for its well-preserved Spanish-era architecture.

Tourists are attracted to traveling to the historic places of the Philippines such as Vigan, which is the home of one of the New Seven Wonder Cities of the world. Tourism in Vigan has experienced continued growth and development. When a large number of tourists is arriving at the same time, the Ilocos Sur Provincial Tourism Office, the forefront of the province, has been experiencing difficulty in catering all the information needs of such tourists. All of these may cause an adverse impact on tourism as well as on conserved areas. To remedy such a problem, the Tourism Infomercial Analyzer system is designed and developed with features of an infomercial, travel router, and analyzer.

Vigan city started masterplan for the conservation in 1999 and finished in 2001. There are 10 components of VMP (Vigan city master plan). They are Physical development, socio-cultural aspect, socio-economic aspect, ecological and environmental aspect, legal aspect, financial aspect, project development aspect, institutional aspect, collaboration with university of north Philippines, and Vigan culture and trade centre. The master plan resulted in quite impressive way, which grow the economy of city rapidly and visitor numbers have climbed from 76,000 in 2009 to 335,000 in 2012. The poverty rate has fallen from 45.5% in 1995 to 9% in 2013 of the city. Economic opportunities from heritage enterprises disproportionately benefit the relatively small fraction of the population that can access social and economic capital.

2. Lumbini 

Lumbini is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Rupandehi District of Lumbini Province in Nepal, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the place where, Queen Mahamayadevi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama in 563 BCE. The complex of structures within the archaeological conservation area includes the Shakya Tank (the remains within the Maya Devi Temple) consisting of brick structures in a cross-wall system dating from the 3rd century BC to the present century and the sandstone Ashoka pillar with its Pali inscription in Brahmi script. Additionally there are the excavated remains of Buddhist viharas (monasteries) of the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD and the remains of Buddhist stupas (memorial shrines) from the 3rd century BC to the 15th century AD. The site is now being developed as a Buddhist pilgrimage centre, where the archaeological remains associated with the birth of the Lord Buddha form a central feature.

Lumbini is developed and conserved as an international peaceful tourism area and pilgrims site. Lumbini had received total of 1,534,110 tourists in 2018 which increased to be 1558326 in 2019. The number of tourists in Lumbini, the holy birthplace of Buddha and World Heritage Site has mounted in 2019 by 1.58 percent in total in comparison to 2018. Speedy development activities, excavation of archeological site, and their authenticity and integrity of site can be identified as reasons of increment of tourist (LDT, 2018). Lumbini Development Trust was formed by the Government of Nepal as provisioned by Lumbini Development Trust Act 2042 (1985) in 1985 to implement Lumbini Master Plan, explore, excavate and conserve archaeological sites scattered in Kapilavastu, Rupandehi and Nawalparasi districts.

 

Conclusion

From the above cases and introduction we came into the conclusion that conservation activity and tourism activity is deeply related to each other. We conserve historically significance sites to celebrate our culture, religion, monuments etc., which attract people from different reason for different purpose like travel, business, tourism etc. And tourism boosts economic condition of particular country or place, which also helps to sustain the conserved site as it is or in its authenticity.