Heritage and the COVID-19 pandemic: the meaning of visitation

Abstract

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global mobility. ‘Lockdowns’ and travel bans have been used as control measures by international governments. Consequently, the ways that we use buildings have also been impacted by these actions. Thus, this paper explores the roles of heritage sites in a post-COVID-19 pandemic society. This research is part of the Urban Heritage and Community Resilience: Conservation, Tourism, and Pandemic project, and it employs methods such as semistructured interviews, participant observations, archival research, and focus group discussions (FGDs). This paper is based on semistructured interviews conducted with one hundred eighteen participants across ten popular heritage sites in Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar, Indonesia. The findings confirm the debated claim in postdisaster studies asserting that some of these Acehnese heritage sites, especially those imbued with religious values, have become places of resilience. Specifically, during the pandemic, these sites have facilitated community resilience by helping people feel closer to God. For practising Acehnese Muslims, prayer at home is culturally acceptable, but praying at the mosque, which is one of the essential heritages of the Acehnese, has contributed to and strengthened the sense of community resilience. Therefore, visitation and participation in heritage sites that include experiencing the sense of place and conducting religious and cultural activities is integral to community resilience.

Tourism Development through the Sense of UNESCO World Heritage: The Case of Hegra, Saudi Arabia

“…According to UNESCO [1], "Cultural heritage is shared wealth with outstanding universal value, the precious wealth left by human ancestors to future generations, and non-renewable precious resources". Recently, after Covid-19, it happened that heritages have become places of resilience [2] both for residents [3,4] and workers [5] partly attributing to these places the role of the national building [6,7] through heritage enhancement [8,9] sometimes also running the risk of commodification [10]. However, the sense of place has a subjective value [11] that changes between different targets [12], in particular between tourists and residents [13][14][15][16][17][18] in particular when the value associated with it depends on the perception of the place [19,20].…”

Assessing the Long-COVID Impact on Heritage Organisations

“…As such, in heritage the shock is likely to initiate 'a "reset", rather than a simple "bounceback" or return to preCOVID-19 aspirations [110]. The physical restrictions have altered perspectives on the value and purpose of heritage [111]. As heritage was so affected by COVID-19, we must question the way it is studied, managed, and used [112].…”

“…There is a call then to stand back and rethink [18], and to make informed and longterm decisions [43]. This is an opportunity to reflect on the sector [18,36,118] refocus on sustainable development and find solutions to overtourism [82,111,119]. Heritage needs to develop a better understanding of the contribution of heritage towards physical and mental health of individuals and communities [13].…”