Assessment of the Cultural Heritage Potential in Poland

Abstract

Cultural heritage is a complex and multi-faceted concept, thus eluding a definition. Consequently, it is a daunting task to assess the cultural heritage potential of a country, region, or community unambiguously. The paper defines “cultural heritage potential” and presents an example of a synthetic assessment of the potential with Poland as an example. The assessment involved several normalised diagnostic variables grouped into four thematic fields. This way, cultural heritage potential could be represented by a “synthetic quality index”. The analysis yielded a ranked list of voivodeships (third-tier subdivision units) and their classification (typology) regarding cultural heritage potential. An in-depth analysis demonstrated that the cultural heritage potential rank of a voivodeship could be determined by values of selected diagnostic valuables, such as the number of heritage objects, number of food products of documented quality and particular cultural significance, and extensive cultural infrastructure. The typology can be a background for decision-making with the consequences of voivodeship classification depending on the context of a specific analysis. The proposed method for assessing cultural heritage potential is not related to the territorial extent of the area. Any quantifiable attribute of cultural heritage can be used in the assessment regardless of the unit of measure. Such an assessment can be useful for the identification of trouble areas, areas of concern, and model areas.

Tourism and Cultural Heritage in Beiuș Land, Romania

“…It is not a novelty that the evaluation methods, which included the catalog of multicriteria measures (MCA), have a very wide applicability in various fields, being suitable in taking necessary decisions to target predetermined objectives. Studies related to this topic applied MCAs in the assessment and conservation of cultural heritage [40,41], the identification of landscapes and cultural values [19,42], the assessment of the socio-economic development of a population [43][44][45][46]. Zero unitarization method (ZUM) is part of the MCA methods and is a method of standardizing index values to obtain an aggregate value for each criterion.…”

“…The economic potential of the cultural heritage is a major concern among decision makers, communities, tourism actors, and researchers, being the subject of various studies [18,19]. The links between cultural heritage and tourism are very strong, identified since the eighteenth century [20].…”

Research on Online Destination Image of Zhenjiang Section of the Grand Canal Based on Network Content Analysis

“…Through literature search and interviews with experts to classify and sort out the cultural heritage in the network content, the researchers selected 70 most typical cultural heritages and used the Echarts open-source visualization library to make the sunburst chart. Król stated that the potential level of cultural heritage can be determined by the value of selected variables, such as the number of heritage items, the kinds of food of specific cultural significance and the extensive cultural infrastructure [44]. Therefore, the enriched bubble chart produced by the ggplot2 is used to illustrate the changes in the number and activity of different types of heritage over time, while the heat map made by ArcGIS is used to obtain the law of word frequency in geographical location.…”

Assessing elements of potential tourism resources in a historic city from host community and tourists’ viewpoints: A perspective from Iran

“…A quantitative method was applied to extract some data from case study area maps due to the lack of data for some of the criteria. Król (2021) introduced an example of a synthetic assessment of cultural heritage potential in voivodeships of Poland. Accordingly, he ranked a list of voivodeships and classified them in terms of cultural heritage potential.…”

“…Zastosowano także metodę ilościową, aby wyodrębnić pewne dane z map obszaru studium przypadku, ze względu na ich brak przy niektórych kryteriach. Król (2021) Liczba miejsc na liście światowego dziedzictwa UNESCO; zabytki historyczne; inne zabytki; zabytki archeologiczne; pomniki przyrody; produkty na liście produktów tradycyjnych; produkty zarejestrowane w UE jako "Chroniona nazwa pochodzenia", "Chronione oznaczenie geograficzne" i "Gwarantowana tradycyjna specjalność"; produkty zarejestrowane w krajowym systemie jakości -znak "Jakość Tradycja"; muzea i ich filie; liczba ośrodków kultury, świetlic środowiskowych, klubów i podobnych instytucji w przeliczeniu na 10 tys. mieszkańców; biblioteki publiczne w przeliczeniu na 10 tys.…”