Strategies for managing overtourism at World Heritage sites in China: the Forbidden City (Beijing)

Abstract

The sustainable management of mass tourism at World Heritage Sites in China is a major challenge for the conservation of this heritage. Taking the case of the Forbidden City of Beijing as a reference, the research has a double objective: on the one hand, to contextualise the discourse of sustainable management of World Heritage in China, and on the other hand, to analyse the implementation of strategies and measures to contain and control the influx of visitors on site. A qualitative methodological approach is adopted in two phases: 1). Exploitation of secondary information sources to study the evolution of approaches and strategies in heritage tourism management; 2). Evaluation of the functioning of the system based on the discourse of the Forbidden City's management body (questionnaire) and the opinions of visitors (exploitation of comments on the Tripadvisor and Mafengwo platforms). The results show that in China, the social sensitivity and political discourse on the management of mass tourism show notable differences with the Western context and thinking, although the most discussed measures are being adapted very quickly in the most popular tourist resources and destinations in other parts of the world.