Critical Analysis of a World Heritage Site in Terms of Conservation and Tourism Promotion: The Case of “Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture” (Ibiza, Spain)

José Ramón-Cardona, David Daniel Peña-Miranda and María Dolores Sánchez-Fernández
Additional contact information
José Ramón-Cardona: Ibiza Island Council University College of Tourism, University of the Balearic Islands, 07800 Ibiza, Spain
David Daniel Peña-Miranda: Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences, Universidad del Magdalena, Carrera 32 No. 22-08, Santa Marta 470004, Colombia
María Dolores Sánchez-Fernández: Department of Business, University of A Coruña, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-23

Abstract: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites (WHS) have great prestige. Each year, candidatures are presented by advocates seeking to raise awareness of the importance of certain cultural and natural sites, to achieve better protection and to make them known, which can promote tourism to benefit the surrounding regions. One of these cases is Ibiza, which, after a first rejection in 1986, obtained the inscription of “Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture” in 1999. This WHS is made up of various cultural and natural elements of the island, although the best known is the fortified Upper Town of Ibiza (Dalt Vila). Since then, important restoration and musealization actions have been carried out in the old town, and some tourism promotion events have been held, but there have been failures in its conversion into a tourist product: Both residents and tourists see this as complementary to the traditional offer (sun and beach tourism); confusion has been generated in communication, focusing on the old town and forgetting the other elements; tourist visits to the registered elements have not taken off and are concentrated in the summer months (the traditional high season); some decisions have been politicized, among other problems. Finally, different lines of tourism development are proposed.

Keywords: World Heritage; Ibiza; management; tourism; conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13250/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13250/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13250-:d:691520

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().