Mellan världsarv och turistdestination

Sammanfattning

The World Heritage Site Venice and its Lagoon faces major challenges to its conservation, mainly those of mass tourism and climate change. This thesis examines how Venice is represented and managed as a World Heritage Site in official reports by Unesco and Italy, with a particular focus on conservation, tourism and sustainability. The study is conducted through a qualitative content analysis of Unesco’s State of Conservation of Properties Inscribed on the World Heritage List from 2025 and Italy’s State of Conservation Report by the State Party from 2026. The analysis focuses on how challenges facing the World Heritage Site are described, which solutions are presented, and how tensions between the conservation of Venice’s OUV, the economic importance of tourism, the city’s social sustainability and environmental challenges are made visible in the source material. The results show that Unesco and Italy mainly convey the same areas of concern, but that there is a clear difference which lies mostly in their differing depictions of the situation. Unesco repeatedly emphasizes the lack of management, insufficient implementation and need for stricter regulation. Furthermore, Unesco stresses the risks posed to the site’s OUV, Outstanding Universal Value. However, the Italian state party instead highlights ongoing measures, technical solutions and the development of new management tools as signs of positive progress. This tension is especially evident in relation to the subject of tourism, as Venice’s tourism is represented as an economic resource as well as a threat to the city’s social sustainability and OUV. The analysis further demonstrates that climate change and the ecological balance of the lagoon are integral components in the long term conservation of Venice. The thesis concludes that Venice and its Lagoon should be understood as a World Heritage Site where heritage politics, sustainable development and economic interests are constantly negotiated.