The World Cultural Heritage protection in Spain

Abstract

The inclusion in the World Heritage List has been frequently assumed in Spain as a challenge to turn localities and territories into attractive destinies inside the emergent field of cultural tourism; however, the spirit of the List, that grants more responsibilities than privileges, is relegated to a background. The commitments accepted at the moment of the inclusion, among them the creation of appropriate management plans, are often forgotten or put under urban projects little respectful with heritage or even harmful to it, since their main aims are usually a pretended urban modernization or the simple real estate speculation.