The Impact of the UNESCO World Heritage List on the price

This thesis focuses on cultural heritage tourism and the impact of the UNESCO status on their entrance price. Cultural heritage gives people the opportunity to experience, appreciate and learn from the past. The UNESCO on its turn, gives some heritage sites recognition for their universal value, which may lead to an advantage over other heritage sites. The listing of a site may have several positive as well as negative impacts on the site and its surrounding area. Moreover, another possibility is that visitors are willing to pay more for a site that is enlisted on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This research focuses on the latter and provides a comprehensive study to examine the impact of the World Heritage status of the palace of La Aljafería in Zaragoza, Spain. Following a quantitative research method, this thesis draws attention to the opinion of the entrance price and the motivations of the visitors, the willingness to pay and the maximum price the visitors are willing to accept. The goal of the research is to see what impact the UNESCO status had on the price. Still, when everyone knew about the UNESCO status, only a few would change their earlier determined entrance fee. Lastly, some limitations were highlighted, together with recommendations for further research.