How can a circular tourism economy help repurpose heritage buildings?

Aban­doned build­ings can be an eye­sore, a blight on a land- or city­scape, and even an embar­rass­ment to many loc­als. Yet they are all a part of a place’s his­tory and her­it­age. While very few would argue that all are worth sav­ing, many her­it­age build­ings do indeed deserve a new lease of life and may even help breathe new life into a place. In his second “Good Tour­ism” Insight, sus­tain­able tour­ism con­sult­ant Angelo Sciacca applies his pas­sion for cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ics and par­ti­cip­at­ive plan­ning to the problem. 

Her­it­age build­ings play a large role in defin­ing com­munit­ies and cre­at­ing a sense of belong­ing. In this brief art­icle, I dis­cuss some of the issues that chal­lenge the pre­ser­va­tion of her­it­age build­ings; their aban­don­ment, degrad­a­tion, sub­sti­tu­tion, or re-use for non-bene­fi­cial pur­poses. I argue that by apply­ing cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic prin­ciples in tour­ism des­tin­a­tion plan­ning, new func­tions can be pri­or­it­ised for these her­it­age build­ings that would not only fin­ance their — often expens­ive — main­ten­ance but also deliv­er sus­tain­able sociocul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, and envir­on­ment­al bene­fits for communities.

The degrad­a­tion of her­it­age build­ings is very vis­ible. After her­it­age build­ings have lost their ori­gin­al func­tions, they are often aban­doned and left to crumble. This has sig­ni­fic­ant impacts not only on the visu­al and his­tor­ic­al land­scape of a place but also on its sociocul­tur­al dimen­sion. It is well under­stood that her­it­age build­ings retain his­tor­ic­al sig­ni­fic­ance for loc­al com­munit­ies. So when they are left aban­doned, might this be a sign of sociocul­tur­al decline?

Also see Kev­in Phun­’s “GT” Insight
“How can tour­ism safe­guard intan­gible cul­tur­al heritage?”

When her­it­age build­ings are repur­posed, they are often giv­en roles that ensure the long-last­ing integ­rity of their archi­tec­ture, which is great, but rarely do they pre­serve sociocul­tur­al func­tions. This is an oppor­tun­ity lost, which I would argue is due to a lack of com­munity con­sulta­tion or par­ti­cip­at­ive approaches to decision-making.

Below I dis­cuss this prob­lem in the con­text of tour­ism des­tin­a­tions. Where cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic prin­ciples are adop­ted in des­tin­a­tion plan­ning, I believe the tour­ism sec­tor is well placed to help find par­ti­cip­at­ive ways to repur­pose her­it­age build­ings so that they are sociocul­tur­ally bene­fi­cial to both loc­al res­id­ents and vis­it­ors. Fur­ther­more, the con­ver­sions are likely to gen­er­ate enough rev­en­ue and/or polit­ic­al will for their main­ten­ance, and avoid the exploit­a­tion of resources (and noise and dis­rup­tion) involved in demoli­tion and the con­struc­tion of new facilities.

The circular tourism economy is a viable solution

The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy is often dis­cussed from a resource flows per­spect­ive, such as water, energy, food, and so on. The point of a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy is to keep valu­able resources in use and in cir­cu­la­tion for as long as pos­sible to max­im­ise their eco­nom­ic util­ity and to min­im­ise waste and there­fore their envir­on­ment­al impact. 

Also see Angelo Sciac­ca’s first “GT” Insight
“From lin­ear to cir­cu­lar: How to build resi­li­ence in small island destinations”

The concept of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy can also be applied to her­it­age build­ings. If con­sidered a resource, like water or energy, her­it­age can be val­ued, val­or­ised, re-used, and repur­posed; and its sociocul­tur­al util­ity max­im­ised at dif­fer­ent levels of society. 

The prin­ciples of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy emerge from the need to decouple eco­nom­ic growth from the exploit­a­tion of resources by find­ing solu­tions that keep resources flow­ing with­in the eco­nom­ic sys­tem. The But­ter­fly Dia­gram, below, developed by the Ellen MacAr­thur Found­a­tion, shows how the dif­fer­ent cir­cu­lar strategies can be applied to pro­mote the re-cir­cu­la­tion of end-of-use resources in a soci­ety. The adap­tion of these prin­ciples in the built envir­on­ment is — of course — not new. Yet, as men­tioned above, it is para­mount that these new func­tions cre­ate value across all pil­lars of sus­tain­ab­il­ity — eco­nom­ic, envir­on­ment­al, and sociocul­tur­al — an approach that is still not widespread.

The cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic frame­work can be applied to tour­ism plan­ning in many ways, includ­ing when con­sid­er­ing how to refur­bish and reuse aban­doned build­ings. Tour­ism plan­ners are more likely than most to see and appre­ci­ate the poten­tial advant­ages to a des­tin­a­tion of the sociocul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic bene­fits that could arise from an appro­pri­ately repur­posed her­it­age build­ing. Through tour­ism, sus­tain­able solu­tions for aban­doned build­ings might include, turn­ing them into museums, gal­ler­ies, com­munity her­it­age centres, theatres, and many oth­er spaces that can bring loc­als and vis­it­ors together. 

There are tour­ism-related func­tions that are not suit­able, how­ever. For example, des­tin­a­tions should avoid turn­ing her­it­age build­ings into hotels because, while hotels do offer jobs, they fail to offer much sociocul­tur­al bene­fit to res­id­ents. Indeed, the tend­ency to con­vert her­it­age build­ings into hotels often cre­ates severe detach­ment between loc­al com­munit­ies and the her­it­age inher­ent in those build­ings. This is because hotels are, of course, private; they are inac­cess­ible to all but staff and pay­ing guests.

Also see Phoebe Ever­ing­ham’s “GT” Insight
“Travel & tourism’s ‘crit­ic­al’ rethink and its imper­at­ive shift to cir­cu­lar economics”

As a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy assumes bene­fits to all stake­hold­ers, repur­pos­ing solu­tions — espe­cially through tour­ism — should be care­fully selec­ted. This is import­ant to ensure that there isn’t a detach­ment between the loc­al com­munit­ies and their her­it­age. It is, there­fore, of utmost import­ance to ensure that solu­tions are bene­fi­cial to and agreed upon by loc­al com­munity stakeholders. 

Participative tourism planning & governance essential

As dis­cussed, by integ­rat­ing cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic prin­ciples in tour­ism plan­ning, her­it­age build­ings can find new func­tions that are bene­fi­cial to the sociocul­tur­al life of com­munit­ies, gen­er­ate eco­nom­ic bene­fits such as jobs and the resources for main­ten­ance, and avoid envir­on­ment­al harm. To achieve a bal­ance between com­munity needs and wishes, tour­ism demand, and the feas­ib­il­ity of pro­posed pro­jects, it bears repeat­ing, again, that it is essen­tial to involve com­munity stake­hold­ers in decision-making. 

Also see Tan­ner C Knor­r’s “GT” Insight
“Tour­ism infra­struc­ture, well-being, & how to ‘build back bet­ter’ for all”

Par­ti­cip­at­ive gov­ernance involves key stake­hold­ers, includ­ing com­munit­ies. It thus encour­ages the form­a­tion of part­ner­ships and con­sensus build­ing. While par­ti­cip­a­tion in decision-mak­ing is not ali­en to tour­ism, it is not as wide­spread as it should be. In a tour­ism plan­ning scen­ario that seeks to val­or­ise and retain her­it­age build­ings through sus­tain­able tour­ism-based solu­tions, com­munit­ies should be con­sul­ted from the very begin­ning. This can ensure a sense of loc­al belong­ing to these sites, avoid dis­con­tent­ment later on, and improve the long-term pro­spects for her­it­age site main­ten­ance; espe­cially where there is a lack of dir­ect pub­lic fund­ing for her­it­age preservation.

In this short art­icle, I have briefly intro­duced a key chal­lenge in our urb­an and his­tor­ic­al land­scapes: The aban­don­ment of her­it­age build­ings and the lack of sus­tain­able strategies to con­vert them to some oth­er pur­pose tends to have a wide­spread neg­at­ive impact on soci­ety and the envir­on­ment. Yet when her­it­age build­ings are repur­posed through highly privat­ised approaches, they can deliv­er little or no eco­nom­ic or sociocul­tur­al bene­fit for the loc­al community. 

I have argued that should cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic prin­ciples be applied in tour­ism des­tin­a­tion plan­ning, aban­doned her­it­age build­ings will inev­it­ably be viewed as a valu­able untapped resource with the poten­tial to add a lot to the sociocul­tur­al life and appeal of a des­tin­a­tion. How­ever, I have stressed that con­ver­sion solu­tions should be care­fully selec­ted in a par­ti­cip­at­ive man­ner — with com­munity involve­ment — to ensure that the her­it­age resource remains res­on­ant and access­ible to all. Indeed, cir­cu­lar eco­nomy or not, par­ti­cip­at­ive gov­ernance is essen­tial to ensur­ing that solu­tions are socially ori­ented rather than solely driv­en by eco­nom­ic motifs.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): A home. Aban­doned. By Tama66 (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

Angelo Sciacca is a PhD can­did­ate at Edin­burgh Napi­er Uni­ver­sity con­duct­ing his doc­tor­al research in the Orkney Islands, Scot­land. His work focuses on “the bar­ri­ers and ena­blers to a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy faced by tour­ism busi­nesses” and is par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in how small island des­tin­a­tions’ “ter­rit­ori­al fea­tures may influ­ence a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy trans­ition”. Angelo is also a sus­tain­able tour­ism con­sult­ant “work­ing at the cross­road of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, tour­ism and com­munity devel­op­ment”. Since 2017, he has reg­u­larly col­lab­or­ated with NGOs work­ing in Myanmar.