Sustainable Tourism Law

Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Law Phil Cameron 1 I. INTRODUCTION For travel professionals working in SustainableTourism, it is useful to understand the legal protection of heritage in the global context as well as issues affecting the individual civil and economic rights. A large part of traveling is being able to learn about different cultures, history, and people. In heritage tourism exchanges, it is often the case that the tourist learns from the host. The host is empowered to tell their story, the history of their people and their land, as organized in a tourism product that is educational and fun for the traveler. One of the main goals of cultural tourism is to tell the story, but also produce a product from which people can derive a living; here there are so many opportunities to share the host culture’s food, artifacts, festivals, events, language, music, clothing, drink, hopes, dreams, fears, and a wealth of other cultural traits. Tourism therefore, is about travel and cultural exchanges, and but also about job creation and security for future generations. Responsible tourism seeks to provide jobs and enable cultural exchanges in a way that will ensure protection of the tourist sites and products meanwhile ensuring sustainable growth for today’s hosts and for future generations of both tourists 2 and hosts. To reach these ends, heritage tourism and sustainable 1 Dr. Cameron holds a doctorate of international law, from 2007 with the thesis entitled Sustainable Develop- ment through International Travel and Tourism Law, alongside other law degrees (S.J.D., LL.M., J.D.). Dr. Cam- eron has held university positions in Europe, Asia, North America, Middle East and has taught, studied, worked, served as an expert and advised businesses and governments in over 50 countries. www.drphilcameron.com . 2 Although in the essay the terms traveler, tourist, and consumer are used interchangeably, it should be noted that they are in fact distinct: traveler is the person taking the trip and can be for business or pleasure; tourist is a leisure traveler for recreation and whose trip is not wholly paid for by her employer for business purposes; consumer is the purchaser of travel, and may not be the person taking the trip – that is, the purchaser can be a parent or employer; however a fam trip or familiarization tour is for the business of a seller of travel to become familiar with consumer tourist products and destinations normally paid for by their employer. Another distinction can be made that travel law considers consumer issues, while tourism law is based the suppliers of travel viewpoint. See also detailed glossaries at UNWTO TOURISTERM website and www.travellaw.com/glossary.php.