Managing World Heritage Site: a collaborative approach

Collaborative approach for tourism, site management and cultural district has been identified as a crucial aspect of success for sustainable development. Today’s heritage and tourism field is so complex that it is hardly impossible for one organization alone to make a significant difference in the pursuit for overall growth and development. The thesis identifies and discusses the possible role of the Unesco organization in the implementation of a collaborative approach for local site management. The research focuses on the obstacles that prevent local actors to put collaborative projects into action. The thesis identifies the strengths of the Unesco organization and discusses how they could be effectively used in practice. Furthermore, it illustrates why the Unesco organization should step in and use its strengths to remedy the problems that local actors encounter. The thesis studies the problems on a case study of the city of Trebic situated in the Czech Republic. One part of the case study investigates the management style of the local heritage site organization through interviews with employees who are in charge of the World Heritage Sites. The other part examines the willingness of the key stakeholder, the local community, to engage in the development of the Unesco sites through a survey. The findings have confirmed that the heritage managers of the Unesco sites in Trebic have problems with initiating stakeholder collaboration and involving local community.