A New Approach in Vietnam: World Heritage Sites Unite

UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre is embarking on a new approach to destination management.  Rather than managing each heritage site in isolation, they are now coordinating the planning for multiple sites within a given region to gain a holistic tourism management plan.  The goal is to ensure more balanced visitation patterns, better protection of sites,  and the opening of new and authentic, heritage-based activities.

I’ve just returned from the Quang Nam Province of Vietnam, where I was invited by the World Heritage Centre to join a workshop arranged to launch a year of planning for three key sites.  The project showcases this new and unique approach: Site managers at the neighboring World Heritage sites of Hoi An and My Son (both UNESCO 1999) and the biosphere region of the Cham Islands (1999) will update their management plans jointly and include ways to integrate the tourist experience among the three.  The provincial government and UNESCO endorse and support the approach. PATA is involved, bringing together experiences from public/private trusted sources.

It’s a fascinating concept, as the three sites are quite distinct.  The ancient town of Hoi An is heavily visited, included in tourism itineraries by many visitors as well as cruise and tour companies.   It’s a town that conjured for me Brugge and Rothenburg in Europe – exquisitely real, passed up by the Industrial Revolution, and full  of historic architecture.  My Son, an archaeological site quietly nestled between mountains, was the spiritual capital of the Cham Empire, a Hindu culture that was a centuries-long powerhouse in the region until overtaken by Vietnamese culture.  During the “American War” as it is known there, the North Vietnamese Army brought the fight to this otherwise peaceful enclave, compelling American forces to bomb it, seriously damaging much of it in 1969.  Still, there is much to see, and much to ponder (even here, the Vietnamese hosts manage to make American visitors shockingly at ease about the events of forty years ago).   Then there are the Cham Islands just off the coast, places of solitude, little human activity, no motor vehicles, and precious coral formations.

The UNESCO workshop was inspirational.  Many plans and new ideas for joint cooperation among the site managers and provincial authorities can support small-scale infrastructure development for new authentic attractions between Hoi An and My Son.  It is an excellent example of public/private partnerships and I expect to return twice this year as an advisor from the private sector of tourism.