Assessing the sustainability of tourism-related livelihoods in an urban World Heritage Site

The relationship between UNESCO World Heritage Sites and tourism has been described as a double-edged sword, with the benefits of tourism countered by its adverse impacts. To the extent that tourism-related livelihoods are dependent on World Heritage status, the loss of that status may have significant adverse effects, especially for poor people. The Sustainable Livelihood Framework has been used to analyse the development, or otherwise, of rural communities in poor regions of the world. This paper uses this approach to examine the urban poor of a World Heritage Site in Thailand, The Historic City of Ayutthaya. As a consequence of tourism and urban industrial development, not only has there been conflict between the urban poor and the Thai government within the designated heritage area, there is also conflict with the neighbouring industrial zones. This has resulted in fears that World Heritage status may be lost. Viewed within DFID’s Sustainable Livelihood Framework, lack of capital and little community participation are factors which contribute significantly to an unsustainable livelihood. However, this research concludes that using self-reliance as a measurement of people’s livelihood to determine ‘sustainability’ is inappropriate in an urban-tourism context because people living in urban areas rely heavily on external sources.The research was supported by a doctoral scholarship from the New Zealand Scholarships Programme – Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade New Zealand (MFAT)