Once visited only by the cognoscenti of the ancient world, over the last decade Petra has drawn almost a million visitors in some years. Petra burst into popular consciousness with the release of enormously popular motion picture Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. Moviegoers all over the world were introduced to some of the spectacular scenic wonders of Petra: the Siq, a narrow chasm with colorful, towering sandstone walls, and Al-Khazna, the exquisitely carved tomb for a Nabataean king. For centuries, the Nabataeans controlled the trade in precious commodities across the Arabian Peninsula, bring spices from Southeast Asia, incense from present-day Yemen, gold and ivory from Africa, and silk from the Far East across the Empty Quarter to ports on the western Mediterranean. In 1985, Petra was included on the list of World Heritage Sites. Since then, low cost jet travel and a fast highway from the capital city of Amman have made the site increasingly accessible. The Jordanian government has made attracting tourists to Jordan a top priority. For all of the attention that Petra has received, it is still surprisingly poorly understood. A widely accepted chronology of the city, even the dates of major tombs and monuments, has yet to be established. Even the mystery of why and how Arab nomads adopted a sedentary lifestyle and built a great city has yet to be fully explained. Will Petra’s popularity as a tourism destination overshadow the importance of addressing these questions, and, more importantly, will tourism damage the archaeological remains there in ways that make answers more difficult or even impossible to find?

In 1985, Petra was included on the list of World Heritage Sites. Since then, low cost jet travel and a fast highway from Amman have made the site increasingly accessible. This book asks the question: will tourism damage the archaeological remains there in ways that make answers more difficult or even impossible to find?

Archaeological heritage conservation is all too often highly conflicted. Economic interests are often at the forefront of management decision-making with heritage values given lesser, if any, consideration, but when heritage places are managed with international principles in mind the sites stand out as evidencing superior outcomes.

This book investigates approaches to community heritage within the Arab region and the underlying theories associated with these approaches. It aims, within the context of the region, to define ‘community’ and ‘heritage’, as well as examine the emergence and development of this field. The volume’s contributors deploy a wealth of case studies from the Middle East and North Africa to provide a unique forum for discussion, comparability, analysis and deeper understandings of current trends in community heritage. In particular, the volume explores the relationship between communities and their heritage, the meanings and values placed upon it, the nature and degree of community participation and engagement in its interpretation and management, and how its different registers affect and produce sometimes unexpected community heritage formations. It also examines the level of responsibility held within the profession towards this essentially democratic process of public participation in their heritage in a region shaped by controversial histories, political turmoil and tourism-driven economies. The volume builds on current research and practice in community heritage globally by debating and re-centring a suite of familiar and new issues related to hitherto under-researched regional-specific methodologies, and developing fresh insight into the theoretical underpinning of these practices. It will be of value to heritage scholars and practitioners as well as those interested in politics, identity, education and the dynamics of heritage-based sustainable development.

Visitor management may be considered as a component of destination management at all levels of a destination. It involves a wide range of stakeholders. This book demonstrates current knowledge on visitor management. Visitor Management in Tourism Destinations provides insight into critical concepts such as the visitor experience, service quality, the uses of indicators and frameworks, and interpretation. It also addresses current issues including the social and political dimensions of visitor management, the implementation of monitoring, vandalism and augmented reality. Authored by leading international researchers in the field of visitor management research, this book is primarily aimed at researchers and postgraduate students.

Archaeological sites opened to the public, and especially those highly photogenic sites that have achieved iconic status, are often major tourist attractions. By opening an archaeological site to tourism, threats and opportunities will emerge.The threats are to the archaeological record, the pre-historic or historic materials in context at the site that can provide facts about human history and the human relationship to the environment. The opportunities are to share what can be learned at archaeological sites and how it can be learned. The latter is important because doing so can build a public constituency for archaeology that appreciates and will support the potential of archaeology to contribute to conversations about contemporary issues, such as the root causes and possible solutions to conflict among humans and the social implications of environmental degradation. In this volume we will consider factors that render effective management of archaeological sites open to the public feasible, and therefore sustainable. We approach this in two ways: The first is by presenting some promising ways to assess and enhance the feasibility of establishing effective management. Assessing feasibility involves examining tourism potential, which must consider the demographic sectors from which visitors to the site are drawn or might be in the future, identifying preservation issues associated with hosting visitors from the various demographic sectors, and the possibility and means by which local communities might be engaged in identifying issues and generating long-term support for effective management. The second part of the book will provide brief case studies of places and ways in which the feasibility of sustainable management has been improved.

Petra, Jordan became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985, and the semi-nomadic Bedouin inhabiting the area were resettled as a consequence. The Bedouin themselves paradoxically became UNESCO Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage in 2005 for the way in which their oral traditions and everyday lives relate to the landscape they no longer live in. Being Bedouin Around Petra asks: How could this happen? And what does it mean to be Bedouin when tourism, heritage protection, national discourse, an Islamic Revival and even New Age spiritualism lay competing claims to the past in the present?

21 papers present a holistic perspective on the research and public value of the site of Jericho – an iconic site with a long and impressive history stretching from the Epipalaeolithic to the present day. Covering all aspects of archaeological work from past to present and beyond, they re-evaluate and assess the legacy of this important site.