When we think of cultural heritage, it often brings to mind artifacts (paintings, drawings, prints, mosaics and sculptures), historic buildings and monuments, archeological sites, and other tangible reminders of the past. However, it also encompasses intangible elements such as a culture’s values and traditions, customs and beliefs, knowledge, achievements, language, and even a town’s natural landscape. The notion of cultural heritage has evolved to include all that people value about their history and identity.
Cultural heritage has a strong impact on a country’s sense of place and national identity, and it helps define a people’s shared history. It is an important part of the common good, which means that all of us benefit from its preservation and protection. This is why governments and NGOs work to protect it, both through laws and international agreements and cooperation.
A number of factors threaten the integrity of cultural heritage. In the short term, a natural disaster can damage it. But, more often, the threat comes from deliberate human activity. Whether by nonstate armed groups, militias, despotic regimes or invading armies, the destruction of tangible cultural heritage, including museums and religious sites, causes real-life damage.
In addition to these direct losses, the broader economic and social benefits of cultural heritage are at risk. Better estimates of these benefits can help governments and citizens focus on the full cost of such destruction.
Moreover, heritage is an invaluable source of inspiration and innovation. This is why many communities around the world are taking steps to protect and use their heritage for the future. But, to do so, we need a new approach to heritage valuation and funding.
One important way to help protect and fund cultural heritage is to rely on its inherent value, which is defined as the price of a product or service without any additional features or benefits. This approach is especially useful for measuring the value of cultural heritage because most of it is not traded and there are few close substitutes. Several methods have been used to measure this inherent value, but they each have advantages and limitations.
Another method involves using the market price of a similar, but non-culturally significant product or service to determine the value of cultural heritage. The advantage of this technique is that it can be applied to a range of cultural products and services, not just museums and other monuments.
Lastly, some of the benefits of cultural heritage are realized by charging a fee for admission to a site. This is a clear and effective way to capture the economic value of the site while promoting responsible tourism. Increasingly, heritage organizations are developing methodologies to more accurately measure and quantify these values. These efforts to bring rigor to the estimation of the value of cultural heritage are essential in guiding governments and helping to ensure that its protection is an integral part of a nation’s identity. This is the foundation for the success of organizations like UNESCO, which has designated 936 cultural and 188 natural sites as World Heritage Sites.