Sustainable tourism at archaeological World Heritage Sites

High tourist numbers at archaeological World Heritage Sites (WHS), mostly in developed countries, can create numerous problems that affect their culturally valuable structures or elements. Measures to ease the problems derived from tourism congestion at these sites are urgently needed. This paper argues that strategies and management plans aimed at site maintenance and conservation also need to include the management of visitors, specification of the corresponding interpretation and management techniques concerning group and individual visitors, seasonal flows, zoning, and capacity limits. A complementary approach to reducing tourism pressure on existing and Often crowded WHS is to diversify the heritage designation process, including wider heritage-rich regions. Also, cultural tourism opportunities could be expanded through the inclusion of wider regions in tourism development plans and promotional programs in and around WHS. In developing countries, where most archaeological sites suffer from abandonment, looting, and decay as a result of insufficient protection due mainly to the extreme shortage of public funds, tourism can offer an excellent opportunity to achieve two objectives: safeguard their archaeological heritage and generate job and income opportunities to alleviate poverty in the sites' surrounding areas.