Resumen:
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Best practices in cultural heritage management must include economic, social and cultural benefits to the people and communities where they are located; that is, in the words of the conference organizers, they must serve as local “wealth increasers”. Yet far too often even when site management plans include “wealth increase” as a goal, few such benefits are actually realized, most frequently the result of either poorly conceived or implemented plans, or both. The processes by which heritage serves as a “wealth increaser” have been badly under theorized, and site managers receive little or no training in the subject. In this paper, I set forth some theoretical considerations and practical steps to generate economic, social and cultural benefits in communities where cultural heritage sites are located. Rather than top-down mass tourism models in which most of any economic benefits accrue outside of the local community and there is little or no incentive to preserve a site, I propose a model predicated upon social entrepreneurship, economic sustainability and enhanced local control, and provide case studies that demonstrate significant economic, social and cultural benefits. I utilize projects of the work of the Sustainable Preservation Initiative in order to demonstrate the efficacy of this model.
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