Protection Status of a World Cultural Heritage Site Under Tourism Development: Case Study of Shuhe Ancient Town

Abstract In 2019, China joined Italy as the two countries with the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Among the Chinese heritage sites, the inhabited ancient towns, called Living Heritage, are the most difficult to protect in the eyes of many scholars. Only two Chinese ancient towns are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Old Town of Lijiang in Yunnan province, the most important settlement of the Naxi people. This indicates Lijiang’s significance in the protection of China’s cultural heritage. As one of three heritage sites within Lijiang Old Town itself, Shuhe is a pilot site for tourist development and heritage protection, led by the local government. In contrast to the Model of Dayan, the largest area and the earliest tourist development heritage site in Lijiang Old Town, Shuhe was renovated and modernised by a real estate company under the official guidance of the Lijiang government. This model was created to solve the contradiction between local development and cultural heritage protection in Shuhe. Since its renovation 17 years ago, the model of Shuhe has typical Chinese characteristics and has been a great influence on many other historical cities in China. After nearly 20 years of follow-up research, this study combs the development history of Shuhe Ancient Town, by analysing examples of architectural heritage transformation, and further reflects on the root causes of Shuhe development from the perspective of laws and regulations. The rapid development of tourism has become means for the local government and the people to lift themselves out of poverty at the cost of their historical heritage. The development of tourism has brought immediate economic benefits to the local government, developers, outside operators and local habitants in Lijiang. However, the original Naxi habitants have left their historic settlement, and the profound changes to the Naxi living environment have caused the Shuhe world heritage site to lose its original significance. In the renovation of heritage buildings, architects and craftsmen are not responsible for the modification of the historical heritage but are only tools for local governments, developers and outsider operators to gain wealth. The defects, backwardness and inability to fully implement the laws and regulations on heritage protection are the fundamental causes of Shuhe’s problems, which reflect the huge gap between the administrators’ awareness of heritage protection and the requirements of the professional guidelines of the UNESCO for the world cultural heritage protection.