Sighting the experts
Maintaining a World Heritage Site is hard work. Infrastructure must adapt to visitor numbers. Security is vital, maintenance gets difficult. Communication becomes key; it’s hard to appreciate a site if you don’t know what you’re looking at or why it matters. Here are some sites that have found ways to navigate the challenges.
MACHU PICCHU, PERU
This 15th-century Inca citadel tucked into the Andes is on most tourists’ bucket lists.
Peru strikes a healthy balance by making it easy to get to Machu Picchu (there’s a direct rail link from the nearest airport), and enforcing daily caps on the number of visitors, so that the site is not overrun. The longest a tour can last is four hours.
Security cameras and guards keep a watchful eye. A guide is mandatory, as an added layer of security, and to help tourists learn more about it. This also ensures that the site generates employment locally.
Nikita Rana, 25, a data analyst from Delhi who visited Machu Picchu in 2018, remembers that there were no long lines. “Everything was well organised. Maps were available in different languages, so it was easy to understand where to go, what to see.”
AL AIN OASIS, UAE
This 1,200-hectare oasis in the Rub’ al-khali desert has the oldest functioning falaj (spring-fed irrigation system) in the world. Now sitting in the heart of Al Ain city, it has been inhabited for over 4,000 years.
People still live there, subsisting mainly on fruit and date farming. “The date palms; the mud walls; you feel like you’ve been transported back in time,” says Shreeja Ravindranathan, 29, a freelance journalist who grew up in Al Ain.
In 2016, the Abu Dhabi department of culture and tourism set up the West Gate Exhibition and Eco Centre to explain the workings of the falaj and the history of the place through exhibits, 3D installations, videos, games and a mini replica of the oasis.
“Vehicles aren’t allowed and new constructions must blend in with existing structures architecturally,” Ravindranathan says.
VATICAN MUSEUMS, ROME
The Vatican Museums were founded by Pope Julius II in the early 16th century. Subsequent popes added to his collection and commissioned new buildings, museums and artworks. In all, the museums include 54 galleries and about 70,000 exhibits. Over 6 million tourists visit each year to see the Raphael Rooms, Gallery of Tapestries, works by Bellini, Titian, Caravaggio, the famous double-helix staircase of the structure itself, and of course the Sistine Chapel.
“The vastness of the collection is overwhelming,” says Saloni Rohatgi, 34, a marketing executive who visited in 2019. “But the four designated routes break up the crowd and help you plan your tour.”
ABU SIMBEL TEMPLES, EGYPT
When Egypt was planning its Aswan Dam in the 1960s, it turned out that the change to water levels would threaten the temple complex built by Pharaoh Ramesses II over 3,000 years ago. At the Egyptian and Sudanese governments’ request, archaeologists from around the world got together, dismantled two temples block by block, along with the colossi of Ramesses II and his wife Nefertari, and reassembled them on higher ground close to the original site. The project took five years and cost $80 million dollars.
Now, twice a year, as it has for thousands of years, sunlight floods the sanctuary of the Great Temple, illuminating the statues of Ramesses II and the gods beside him, when the sun is at its solstices. The complex is one of the most-visited sites in the world.