Rakic World Heritage : Issues and debates

Introduction World Heritage had originally been designed as a conservation tool for sites deemed to be of ‘outstanding universal value’ (UNESCO, 2006a). However, its status was soon to become very popular among tourists (Bandarin, 2005; Evans, 2001; Rakic & Leask, 2006; Shackley, 2006) and the World Heritage related issues thus also attracted great interest of the wider academic community. It seems that, as World Heritage was gaining its popularity among tourists and the tourism industry, it was also gaining its momentum within scholarly research. This growth of attention to World Heritage issues was seen in a number of scholarly journal articles (i.e. Ashworth & van der Aa, 2002; Čausević & Tomljenović, 2003; Drost, 1996; Fowler, 2000; Rakic & Chambers, forthcoming; Wager, 1995), special issues of academic journals (Tourism Recreation Research, 2001; International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2002; Current Issues in Tourism, 2004; Journal of Heritage Tourism, forthcoming) as well as book chapters (i.e. Hall & Piggin, 2003; Leask & Fyall, 2000), edited books (i.e. Harrison & Hitchcock, 2005 and Leask & Fyall, 2006) and international scholarly conferences Tijana Rakic