The Asia Pacific region’s enormous diversity of living cultures and preserved heritage sites has significant appeal to many tourists. However tourism has grown so rapidly that many issues associated with the incorporation of cultural and heritage experiences in tourist itineraries (such as authenticity verses commodification, exploitation of national cultures, impacts on local communities, and the management of heritage resources) have not been adequately addressed and must be debated. This revealing book reviews recent developments in cultural and heritage tourism in the Asia Pacific region and provides a discussion on how communities have faced and overcome significant challenges to develop and market their culture and heritage resources. A range of models and case studies are used to deepen the reader’s understanding of heritage and cultural issues, to illustrate many of the more controversial issues, and to examine new evaluative, and planning tools. This book is a special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research.

The World Heritage community is currently adopting policies to mainstream human rights as part of a wider sustainability agenda. This interdisciplinary book combines a state of the art review of World Heritage policy and practice at the global level with ethnographic case studies from the Asia-Pacific region by leading scholars in the field. By joining legal reviews, anthropology and practitioner experience through in-depth case studies, it shows the diversity of human rights issues in both natural and cultural heritage sites. From site-designation to their conservation and management, the book explores the various rights issues and analyses the diverse social, cultural and legal challenges and responses at both regional and global level. Detailed case studies are included from Australia, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Vietnam. The book will appeal to both natural and cultural heritage professionals and human rights and heritage scholars, and will serve as a useful compendium for courses use allowing students to compare, contrast and contextualize different contexts.

This important new text examines the crucial social and cultural factors associated with the rise of the Asia- Pacific region at the end of the Twentieth Century. It takes a close look at those areas which have affected the everyday life of the people most directly. These include: * the family * gender relations and the position of women * religion * the arts, with specific reference to film * ethnic relations and population migration * education, and the images of the Asia-Pacific. The authors discuss real tensions between tradition and modernity in different nations of the Asia-Pacific, exploring the effects that economic growth has on powerful traditional cultures.

While considerable research and on-ground project work focuses on the interface between Indigenous/local people and nature conservation in the Asia-Pacific region, the interface between these people and cultural heritage conservation has not received the same attention. This collection brings together papers on the current mechanisms in place in the region to conserve cultural heritage values. It will provide an overview of the extent to which local communities have been engaged in assessing the significance of this heritage and conserving it. It will address the extent to which management regimes have variously allowed, facilitated or obstructed continuing cultural engagement with heritage places and landscapes, and discuss the problems agencies experience with protection and management of cultural heritage places.

Heritage processes vary according to cultural, national, geographical, and historical contexts. This volume is unique in that it is dedicated to approaching the analysis of heritage through the concepts of social movements. Adapting the latest developments in the field of social movements, the chapters examine the formation, use and contestation of heritage by various official, non-official and activist players and the spaces where such ongoing negotiations and contestation take place. By bringing social movements into heritage studies, the book advocates a shift of perspective in understanding heritage, one that is no longer bound by (at times arbitrary) divisions such as those assumed between the state and people or between experts and non-experts.

While considerable research and on-ground project work focuses on the interface between Indigenous/local people and nature conservation in the Asia-Pacific region, the interface between these people and cultural heritage conservation has not received the same attention. This collection brings together papers on the current mechanisms in place in the region to conserve cultural heritage values. It will provide an overview of the extent to which local communities have been engaged in assessing the significance of this heritage and conserving it. It will address the extent to which management regimes have variously allowed, facilitated or obstructed continuing cultural engagement with heritage places and landscapes, and discuss the problems agencies experience with protection and management of cultural heritage places.

This book contains the proceedings of a five-day symposium in September 1991, sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency, organized by US/ ICOMOS, and designed in consultation with the Getty Conservation Institute, that focused on conservation issues in Asia and the Pacific, with particular attention to policies and conditions specific to the region. Two keynote papers by international experts explore legal aspects of cultural heritage protection, and management of cultural sites. Three background papers cover the legislation of the 15 nations represented, regional professional training opportunities, and tropical environmental conditions that challenge managers of sites and collections. The discussion summary includes suggestions for enhancing conservation awareness, legislative action, and policy implementation.