Cultural heritage routes in South Africa: Effective tools for heritage conservation and local economic development?

Protecting cultural heritage is a challenge for developing countries, particularly where heritage sites are widely spread in rural areas and may not include impressive buildings and monuments. A potential solution adopted by a growing number of these countries is to link small sites of mainly local significance into a cultural heritage route and market them as a package while also improving the management and conservation of heritage assets. The tourism potential of such routes is often emphasised in local economic development (LED) strategies, envisaged as providing revenue-generating opportunities for conserving heritage assets. This paper explores the potential for economic development and heritage conservation of the Liberation Heritage Route in South Africa. This project may have non-market value in protecting cultural capital, but financial and other LED benefits are unlikely to be forthcoming in the short run, which could jeopardise the sustainability of the heritage protection.