Too Much of a Good Thing? Visitor Congestion Management Issues for Popular World Heritage Tourist Attractions

World Heritage Sites (WHS) are often popular and primary attractions for a destination for many reasons, in particular the economic benefits they bring in terms of increased visitation and extension of stay. However, without active management to reduce negative impacts, such as congestion, both tourists and the host community can become caught up in a downward spiral of poor visitor experiences and degradation of World Heritage values. Accordingly, this paper examines the nature of congestion and its impact on visitor experience at two popular WHS attractions in Macao. It also provides some insights into Chinese outbound tourist behaviour and visitation patterns. These observations should be of interest to planners and site managers of popular World Heritage attractions elsewhere in the world as China begins to adopt mass international leisure travel.