Cultural heritage, tourism key drivers for creating jobs, economic prosperity

Cultural heritage provides a huge opportunity for economic prosperity for countries as it is closely linked to tourism, Petra National Trust President of the Board and Unesco Goodwill ambassador Princess Dana Firas has said.
“Statistics have shown that 37% of international tourists have a cultural motivation. That translates to 4.2% of global GDP and 125mn jobs and that is just the cultural sector,” she said.
Princess Dana was among the speakers of a Doha Forum session yesterday titled “Protecting the Benefits of Tourism in a Multilateral World”, held at Sheraton Doha. “You have cultural industries, which are currently estimated at I think it is $1.7tn industry globally, cultural production, jobs, real estate becomes more valuable in areas where cultural heritage is well managed and well protected,” she said.
“So, there are all of these direct economic values that are related to cultural heritage. Beyond that we got to expand the way we think about cultural heritage and traditionally it’s always been one part, integral part, but it is one part of the tourism industry and I am always saying that it is the other way around,” Princess Dana said.
She described the tourism industry and the cultural heritage industry as strong and separate but very closely related. “Tourism, for those of us who fight for cultural heritage, is a means to which to promote cultural heritage,” she said, adding that the latter gives a sense of rootedness and belonging.
“When you are talking about sustainability, sustainable development goals, when you are talking about resilience and adaptability, we have thousands of years of lessons throughout history, of people dealing with climate change, with scarcity, taking specific actions that enable them to respond to different changes,” Princess Dana said.
“So there are incredible lessons for creativity, for innovation, for adaptability that can help us equip a new generation of young people to deal with global challenges,” she stressed.
Princess Dana also lauded the Doha Forum saying that the annual conference is all about governance, multilateralism, and collaboration. “It is about how do we deal with incredible challenges that the world is facing and moving forward, political, social, economic,  what is the landscape going to look  like in a few years and how do we deal with it,” she said.
“And I am always saying that a big part of the answer lies in understanding our cultural heritage.”