Culture and the arts, man’s cultural heritage and nature’s beauty can be powerful economic agents. Tourism is stimulated by cultural heritage and the regeneration of historical city districts can become a driver of urban development with quality amenities, appropriate public services, a mixity of life, flourishing businesses and creative industries.
The very presence of a properly managed cultural heritage in a region comes to stand for quality and enhanced value and, handled properly, can further drive the development of other sectors. Similarly, art and art centres are now recognized as important economic agents of growth and wealth. The arts attract the many and answer this deep-rooted need of beauty and dream. It fosters individual freedom and knowledge and reinforces creativity. Furthermore, it enhances the role of the individual in society, promotes universal values and the creative side of the economy. Art and art centres act as a powerful magnet of tourism, while the creative economy greatly contributes to the regeneration of urban places.
Cultural heritage should be seen as an asset that can generate wealth while at the same time being open to appreciation and accessible to the public at large. For instance, it is no longer possible to safeguard a site or to protect a tradition without becoming involved in the management of its economic potential, or to run tourism businesses or hotels with no concern for protecting cultural heritage. This suggests that a cultural heritage site that is inaccessible and unknown has no economic value; it is unproductive. However, when overly accessible, cultural heritage gradually becomes eroded and dies from overexposure. Cultural heritage, material and immaterial, is by essence fragile, non-renewable and unique. Excessive or unsuitable exploitation of the asset kills off its intrinsic value.
Heritage is irreplaceable and must not be destroyed by its very use. Solving the paradox of conservation of the values of heritage, of the protection of the qualities of art and of museums while ensuring the necessary economic returns, of quality and economic value, bridging culture and development is precisely what GAIA-Heritage aims to do.