Tourism Policymaking Assessment of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Tabriz, Iran
One of the mandates of UNESCO’s world heritage convention is preservation of cultural properties. The idea
is to create a balance between safeguarding the identity,
history and future of these places and the way people
interact with them. These interactive patterns become
premise of cultural and heritage tourism, the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry. According to the
WTO, Iran, with various historical and cultural attractions, is considered among top ten most visited countries.
Among tourist attractions of the country, Tabriz is one of
the central historical cities. The Tabriz Historical Bazaar
Complex (TBHC) is recognized as the WHS by UNESCO. It is one of the oldest bazaars of the Middle East
and the largest covered bazaar in the world. The present
research analysed the development of cultural/heritage
tourism in TBHC-WHS to assess efficiency of the established tourism policies. The multi-pronged approach included documents analysis, interviews, and comparative
case studies. Considering different areas of expertise of
the interviewees, three types of questionnaires were utilised for management organizations, tourism organizations and regional authorities. The questionnaires were
developed based on UNESCO’s standard based on 6
dimensions namely: regional development, general management, tourism management, condition and preservation, communication and awareness, involvement and
management. These dimensions are divided in 22 indicators as well as 40 criteria. For data analysing, a web based
Benchmarking tool was employed. The results of TBHC
were compared against four other case studies including:
Salzburg-WHS, Goa-WHS, Lamu-WHS and Cesky Krumlov-WHS. The results showed that Salzburg-WHS obtains
the highest score in condition & preservation, general
management and tourism management. Lamu-WHS also
obtained the highest rank in involvement & support, and
regional development. TBHC received the highest rank
in communication & awareness dimension.
