**6. Recommendations and Discussions**

## *6.1. Building a Community Around the Heritage Site*

A community, geographically defined, which is involved in preserving the heritage associated with a monument, is characterized by the diversity of its stakeholders, as well as the nature and impact of their contributions (Figure 3).

**Figure 3.** Stakeholders from the tourism industry. A key actor in a local heritage community. Example of the founder of a Destination Management Company (DMC)-Fontainebleau, France.

The first occurrence of the heritage lottery brought members (general public) into a loosely defined community, with a common interest: getting a chance to win than contributing to the restoration. An interesting illustration of successfully engineering community is the one of Adopte un Château (Adopt a Castle). Established in 2015, this French association aiming at restoring castles has laid-out a very specific strategy for collecting funds, intensifying donors' involvement into the project, and, last but not least, attracting stakeholders into the site, or during the restoration phase, or after its completion. With its crowdfunding platform named Dartagnans, the NGO offers to the general public in France and overseas the opportunity to sponsor the restoration of monument from a list of selected sites. This initiative is remarkable in many aspects.

First, the overall communication strategy relies on rich contents (video footages filmed from a drone, etc.) made widely available via video-sharing platforms and abundantly commented by national media. More importantly perhaps, the promise made to the donor is very different from the usual tax-deductible donation scheme: Adopte un Château offers the opportunity to become the owner, amongst many others, of the castle to be restored. Each individual donor is therefore symbolically more profoundly engaged into the restoration project:

"I did not want to let 'my' castle down, the castle from my childhood." (A local resident, during a visit organized by Adopte un Château. Château de l'Ebaupinay: http://bit.ly/2RtI0wV, accessed on 26 April 2019).

By turning donors into committed owners, Adopte un Château carves around each project a community: participation to the restoration, taking part into events aimed at attracting visitors:

"We will do our best to restore [the castle], and organize events, like in the Middle Age (A local resident, future owner, during a visit organized by Adopte un Château." Château de l'Ebaupinay: http://bit.ly/2RtI0wV accessed on 26 April 2019).

The community is expected to play a large and long lasting role: finance and volunteer restoration work, activities and events to attract visitors. For such communities, bringing back a castle to its original function and attractiveness is as important as restoring it. The relationship between heritage and tourism is well established [28] and it is generally assumed that culture and tourism are interdependent.

The growing interest in cultural resources is likely to benefit culturally rich destinations, and simultaneously to provide the tourism industry with challenges of managing heritage facilities and attractions. Tourism is also an opportunity to generate income for the local community while simultaneously supporting the preservation of its heritage [29].

Stakeholders from the tourism industry are therefore meant to be an important part of such local communities, contributing to the preservation and protection of heritage, whilst incorporating the latter into tourism products and attracting visitors, local or foreign. With local knowledge, expertise and resources, they work in the design and implementation of events, activities, tours, transportation and program logistics.

Together with local chapters of Fondation du Patrimoine (offering the advantage of guaranteeing tax rebates to donor), stakeholders of the tourism industry have a vested interest in the preservation of local cultural heritage, as illustrated in the exhibit above. Another category of stakeholder of the tourism industry are companies managing heritage sites: with the responsibility of bearing the cost of preserving the site, they lay out business models with tourism as the main source of revenue. As an illustration, the company managing the Vaux le Vicomte castle offers a very wide array of events and attractions throughout the year, as well as unique venues for the organization of private events.

The relationship between heritage and tourism is frequently characterized by contradictions and conflicts whereby conservationists perceive heritage tourism as compromising conservation goals for profit [28]. However, the importance of preserving cultural heritage through tourism is receiving increasing attention and has been discussed in relation to sustainable tourism (ibid.). Fostering heritage tourism throughout an extended territory (nationwide) is also likely to efficiently address the rising issue of overtourism and related perverse impacts (tourismphobia and anti-tourism movements) in major cities.

### *6.2. Community Based Heritage as a Tool to Reduce Tourismphobia, Anti-Tourism Movements*

The relationship between heritage and the identity of a community makes it possible to address some issues of modern tourism. Here, we talk about the problems related to tourist pressure and its effects.

Public participation in the management of cultural heritage can solve some social conflicts [30] and it also helps to define the meaning of heritage in which the visions of experts and communities are often different [31,32]. As stated by Yung & Chan [31], in recent years the meaning of heritage has shifted from national to local importance, based on cultural value rather than on architectural or historical value.

It must also be said that the management of cultural heritage has evolved [33] by making public participation an essential element in the decision-making process [34]. Active participation at local level and social relevance are, therefore, dominant characteristics of cultural heritage practice of the recent years [35]. The participation of local communities in heritage management and in planning should extend the involved scientific expertise by adding local experiences that allows to recognize the importance of social judgement [36]. Therefore, the participation of local communities is essential for their involvement in the decision-making process. This allows them not only to express their opinions, but also to actually take part in the processes of planning and managing heritage conservation. Local communities are those that are closely linked to cultural heritage. Heritage conservation

should be for local communities and they should have the right to decide what and how to maintain and manage.

The presence of a community and its relation with the heritage could develop also a wellbeing condition. Power & Smyth [37] argue that it is important understanding the space that is created by community-based heritage groups and whether it is likely to promote social welfare. Gleeson [38] state that in the era of globalization and ecological risk it is certainly understandable that there is a new desire for social values based on community, belonging and place. That is what Gleeson call the new social yearning: the desire for a safe place in a social networks based on reciprocity, trust and mutual respect [37].

All those elements represent the formal condition to a social and economic development under sustainable condition. In this sense the tourism could be managed in a sustainable form. The importance of the relationship between community and sustainable tourism has been clearly recognized in the last two decades through studies on community-based tourism (CBT). These communities aim to create a more sustainable tourism industry by focusing on hospitality in terms of planning and maintaining tourism development. This idea came to the fore in the 1990s, with Pearce [39] suggesting that CBT represents a way to provide a fair flow of benefits to all those interested in tourism through consensus-based decision-making and local control of development. The CBT, therefore, proposes a symbolic or reciprocal relationship in which the tourist is not given central priority but becomes an equal part of the system [40]. According to Salazar [41] the most promising niche to develop CBT programs is cultural tourism, one of the major growth markets in global tourism.

Communities can also be based on heritage. Power & Smyth [37] state that the preservation of community-based cultural heritage refers to the increasingly popular activity of uniting with community members to research local historical "assets". It involves the development of a stronger relationship with your local area and is potentially open to everyone, regardless of location.

Unfortunately, participatory protection and enhancement are often linked only to high-value cultural assets. In relation to the low value attributed to local and less important sites and buildings, there is a tendency to separate communities from their local history. Furthermore, oral traditions and local knowledge which in the past supported a sense of place and it was often associated with specific sites and monuments, it has been eroded by the socio-economic and demographic discontinuities that have occurred in both rural and urban communities over the past years.

In many countries, participatory approaches to heritage conservation and management have had success and are more culturally and socially sustainable than using top-down approaches. Experiences of community involvement are related to the integration among urban planning, conservation and public involvement in the field of heritage, also with a growing role in the decision-making process of the voluntary and community sector [31]. These communities are able to support the tourist pressure and the negative impacts of the overtourism. Actually, the concept of overtourism is not easy to define. Recently, the *European Parliament's Committee* on Transport and Tourism (*TRAN*) [42] defined overtourism as "the situation in which the impact of tourism, at certain times and in certain locations, exceeds physical, ecological, social, economic, psychological, and/or political capacity thresholds".

As highlighted by Seraphin et al. [43], local communities are being aware of negative effects caused by overtourism. Therefore, they are increasingly interested in their quality of life rather than simply in the additional income generated by the tourism industry [43]. The consequences of overtourism are witnessed in various forms, namely pollution; littering; destruction of amenity of a place; degradation of landscapes; congestion; vandalism; disorders and anxiety among the local population [44]. Overtourism also causes risks to the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage status of some destinations; negative impacts on the quality of life, loss of identity, etc. [2]. Finally, it is important to remember the crowding out effects between residents' and tourism needs related to high pressure on touristic destinations. That said, Moscardo et al. [45], argued that conflicts between residents and visitors can contribute to the development of

social capital among local residents who gather within organizations or associations (anti-tourism movements) to defend their shared values and their sense of community and identity.

By involving local communities in heritage management, the benefits can be generated not only for the communities themselves, but also for society as a whole. At social level, community life can be improved. Community participation helps communities to build a sense of identity offering common identity, history and heritage.

Furthermore, social inclusion, cohesion and understanding can be strengthened by promoting a sense of shared responsibility towards the places where people live. Social capital and trust between people and government can be increased [46]. Furthermore, the relationships between not only within the communities but also between generations can be improved. And, above all, it helps the heritage to continue and maintain the value of the heritage of the past in the current life of local communities [47]. In addition to social impacts, through the involvement of local communities, it is possible to create more job opportunities for them. The economic profits of historical tourism can also go directly to the communities. Finally, the fact of being involved in heritage is good for health issues, which is a significant component.

Overall, we can therefore state that a community based heritage is characterized by the fact that it is the same community that has control over the management of tourism and receives a significant part of the benefits generated by this activity [48]. Therefore, this type of tourism has emerged as a possible solution to the negative effects of mass tourism and overtourism, allowing it to simultaneously become a strategy for social organization for the local community.

### **7. Conclusions**

## *7.1. Key Findings*

Despite the good intention behind Mission Patrimoine, the success could be considered to be mitigated by the fact that apart form the financial aspect, the project has failed to foster a sense of community, hence, the importance of the recommendation formulated in this research. The sense of community developed through the development and fostering of social capital is very important. The key findings of this research are directly related to the topic of sustainability.

### *7.2. Theoretical Implications*

Carlisle et al. [49] are arguing that when multi-stakeholders are collaborating on a project, it often leads to innovation and success, which means that they are putting together resources and more importantly a shared vision. They took the example of academic institutions working with private and public sector organisations to support their view. Indeed, they argued that this collaboration led to knowledge creation; innovation; and growth in knowledge-based firms. In particular, they used the Triple Helix model [49] to theorise their findings. 'At the heart of this triangulation is the transfer of knowledge and knowledge management to promote the diffusion of ideas from universities adding value to the private sector via innovation' ([49], p. 62). Furthermore, 'the triple helix model is being widely used as a source of inspiration for policies and programmes aimed at fostering innovation. This is evolving across the range of policymaking at geographical scales, as well as independently of the geographies of context that determine different framework conditions for promoting innovation' ([50], p. 1675). The Helix model has also proven to be a suitable leverage tool particularly in less developed countries [49–51]. The case of Mission Patrimoine, support the fact that the collaboration between the government, locals and tourism (triple helix), can be beneficial for each stakeholders and contribute to the creation of a theoretical and practical dialogical space. In other words, a space (Figure 4) that would create positive relationships between the three groups, what might prevent issues like tourismphobia and anti-tourism movements [4].

**Figure 4.** Mission Patrimoine as a dialogical space.
