CULTURAL TOURISM PLANNING

Tourism is now one of the world’s largest social and economic activities as well as a successful vehicle for encouraging cultural exchange and mutual understanding.  Increasingly, the tourism and heritage sectors are accepting that they must work together to sustain and enhance their mutual interdependence.

Assessing and preparing historic places for tourism seeks to optimise opportunities to communicate and present the values of the place to both visitors and the local population.  Following his decade long role as President of the ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Organisation, the Managing Director of GBA Heritage, Graham Brooks, continues to contribute to high level formulation of cultural tourism policies and leading edge practice on national as well as international level.

He was a member of a UNESCO appointed Panel of Experts for a five-year major conservation and cultural tourism project at the Ajanta and Ellora Caves World Heritage Site in India and advised the Indonesian government with regard to tourism management at the Borobudur and Prambanan World Heritage Sites.  He has written two important Handbooks for the UN World Tourism Organisation on tourism management at heritage sites.

In Australia, major projects have included the preparation of a Cultural Tourism and Conservation Management Plan for a series of 10 major historic lighthouses along the NSW coastline.  The project transformed the lighthouses and their former staff cottages into a series of vacation venues, a very successful outcome for regional NSW.

Graham also contributed to the tourism interpretation of the iconic Penitentiary Building at the Port Arthur World Heritage Site in Tasmania, as part of a major conservation upgrade and structural stabilisation project. This project was awarded the UNESCO Asia-Pacific 2015 Award for New Design in Heritage Contexts.

Selected projects

Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasmania | Penitentiary Precinct Conservation Project

Borobudur World Heritage Site, Indonesia | Cultural Tourism Management Advice

Ajanta and Ellora Caves World Heritage Site, India | Conservation and Cultural Tourism Project

NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Lighthouses, New South Wales | Conservation Management and Cultural Tourism Plan