The relevance of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and national parks for tourism

Project description

Back in 2013, the IMT carried out a comprehensive study of World Heritage sites in Germany in cooperation with all the federal states. Among other things, a short representative survey was carried out. The aim of the present study was to build on this, while at the same time expanding the objects of investigation to include the national parks. In addition to the German destinations, four international destinations were also included – two national parks, one World Heritage Site and one World Natural Heritage Site.

A representative survey for the German UNESCO World Heritage sites and national parks on the German source market was not available nationwide to this extent or in this depth. The creation of the competence field of sustainability in the tourism degree course at FH Westküste University of Applied Sciences provided a further reason to carry out this research project, which has attracted nationwide attention. The extremely extensive and high-quality data (very high number of cases, representativeness, wide range of questions, countless possibilities for crossing results and target group evaluations, etc.) are available to the IMT and thus to students at the University of Applied Sciences for teaching and research purposes.

The touristic relevance of protected architectural monuments, urban ensembles, important industrial facilities and natural landscapes in Germany was not extensively known at the time of the study. The study approached the creation of a “tourism profile” by asking specific questions. On the one hand, the four pillars of brand strength (awareness, likeability, willingness to visit and intention to recommend) and, on the other, target group and topic suitability (e.g. attractiveness for life-stage types, sustainability aspects) were surveyed.

As this was the first time the study had been conducted in this form and it was essential to address the relevant information needs of the two study groups “World Heritage Sites” and “National Parks”, two practice partners were already involved in the design phase.

Due to the geographical proximity of FH Westküste University of Applied Sciences and its location in Heide (Holstein), the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site, based in Wilhelmshaven, and the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park, based in Tönning, were obvious project partners. Both were happy to support both the objectives and the design of the questionnaire.

Project processing
The project is being implemented in cooperation with inspektour GmbH Tourismus- und Regionalentwicklung, Hamburg(www.inspektour.de).