This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of cultural
and heritage tourism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region
and the many complexities that heritage sites and tourist attractions
face.
The MENA region has long been regarded as the cradle of Western and Arab
civilisation and is the home of many of the world's major religions.
Because of this, the region is rich in heritage sites that serve as
major tourist attractions and as icons of national, cultural and
religious identity. However, as this book examines, heritage in the
region is simultaneously highly contested and has even become a target
for terrorism creating a situation that brought major challenges for
heritage management and sustainable tourism development. Many of the
region's innumerable cultural sites are threatened, in some cases by
overuse, in others by neglect and, in many, simply by the pressures of
economic development.
This book is therefore of interest not only to heritage managers and
policy makers but those academics who seek to address the delicate
balance between tourism development, communities and the tourists who
visit such sites in a turbulent but highly significant region of the
world.