The Curse of Approval; If UNESCO designates it, they will come. Does identifying world heritage sites do more harm than good?(Cover story)

Byline: Barbie Nadeau (With Katka Krosnar in Prague)

In 1240, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II built his military fortress, Castel del Monte, on a lonely hill in central Puglia, where he had a perfect view of approaching enemies. He probably never envisioned it would become a major destination--or that the enemies might be tourists. But these days, the old castle has been polished clean, and hundreds of multicolored Pullman buses snake up the winding roads to its grounds, now scattered with T-shirt stands, Coca-Cola signs and a 200-car parking lot. In fact, all over this usually desolate part of southern Italy, tourists scurry between such stops as the conical trullo houses in Alberobello and the cave ruins of Matera in nearby Basilicata--all sites few would have heard of if not for the fact that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has christened them World Heritage destinations.

Officially, UNESCO bestows the honor on places that exemplify an area's ancestry, with the purpose of ensuring they are preserved. Unofficially, designation is a kind of fairy dust that often turns little-known cultural gems into overnight tourist sensations, fostering intense competition among places to get listed. That is not always a good thing. "Sometimes a site becomes so attractive it becomes impossible to visit or appreciate," says Francesco Bandarin, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center. "This is the big problem in generating tourist traffic."

Indeed, there is growing concern that World Heritage designation may in the end do more harm than good. Lisa Mastny, senior adviser to the World Watch Institute, says tourism is a double-edged sword for places considered of "outstanding value to humanity. It offers many impoverished communities the chance to reap financial rewards, but also threatens the very resources--human and natural--upon which the industry is ultimately built." The already popular Mayan ruins of Chichen ItzA in Mexico, for example, saw a massive influx of tourists after UNESCO declared them a World Heritage site in 1988. With more than 5,000 visitors a day, the ruins have turned into a Disney-esque mecca. Worse, they are being sorely threatened by the wear and tear of relentless foot traffic, not to mention outright vandalism.

The biggest problem is that there is virtually no money attached to World Heritage status. After places win the designation--a laborious bureaucratic process that takes nearly five years from the time they are nominated--they are left on their own financially. Funds are available from the World Heritage Trust in the form of loans, or through private organizations like Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation. But competition is fierce; in the 27 years since UNESCO designated the first 12 World Heritage sites, the list has grown to 812 today. Under smart government management, some of the increase in tourist dollars is invested ...