World Heritage and Museums

The ever-growing global heritage tourism, boosted by the striking success of the UNESCO World Heritage programme, offers an ideal setting for site-related museums to act as a mediator of intercultural understanding. Museums are also important agents of sustainable development, as they provide quality educational contents for local and international communities. Moreover, associating local communities with developing quality museum signature products and cultural events, could lead to the stimulation of locally-based cultural and creative industries and employment.

Yet, many site-related museums and interpretation centres as they currently stand, lack the capacity - whether financial or human - to fulfil this role thereby remaining as static archaeological depots with little room for interpretation. Programmes linking World Heritage sites and museums, such as the one initiated with a pilot phase funded by the Japanese government, aims to accompany and assist this process of revitalisation for these cultural institutions.