Tourism Impacts Continuity of World Heritage List Inscription and Sustainable Management of Hahoe Village, Korea: A Case Study of Changes in Tourist Perceptions

Abstract

This study examines the World Heritage List inscription’s tourism impact continuity through Hahoe Village’s tourists’ perception changes between 2014 and 2018, and it tries to verify the direction of future management and development plans for a sustainable community. Of all the perceptions verified in this study, two noteworthy issues, such as (1) World Heritage as a tourists’ brand and (2) future management of Hahoe Village as a World Heritage Site for maintaining brand equity, are discussed. In conclusion, the title “World Heritage” has excelled in its role as a tourism brand. Based on this role, the immediate outburst of tourism after the World Heritage List inscription affected Hahoe Village. However, even though the title World Heritage is a powerful brand that has great effect on the tourism industry, it still needs appropriate management to maintain brand equity. In the case of World Heritage, the target object of management is located at a trade-off point of interests between preserving heritage value and improving service convenience for tourists.

1. Introduction

In August of 2010, Hahoe Village (HV), the case of this study, and Yangdong Village were inscribed in the World Heritage List (WHL). And as a result, the number of tourists in both villages has drastically increased [1]. Before the inscription, the annual visitors to HV numbered around 770,000. By 2010, the number had increased to over one million.

The upsurge of tourism after the WHL inscription affected not only HV, but also most WHL-inscribed sites worldwide. Although WHL inscription is not done for the purpose of increasing tourism, it is taken for granted by most researchers and professionals in the field that WHL inscription brings increasing tourism to the inscribed site and prompts economic growth in the local community [2,3]. Rapid increases of tourism could come as unintended effects for WHL-inscribed sites. However, at the same time, it could greatly increase economic growth in the local community, providing the kind of sustainability that is often seen as an essential element for preserving the heritage value of an inscribed site [4,5,6,7]. In this context, most heritage sites preparing for WHL inscription plan their development to accept the expected increasing tourism that follows WHL inscription [3,8,9,10,11].

Increasing tourism demands more and better service convenience for tourists. Consequently, tourism development plans to promote various aspects of service convenience for tourists were established and took effect in many World Heritage sites (WHS), immediately following WHL inscription. Therefore, increasing tourism resulting from WHL inscription could be a very important variable influencing future planning in local areas for the protection and development of a WHS and its neighborhood community. However, an important question should be: Is the impact of WHL inscription on increasing tourism permanent? Is it sustainable for a community to make a future plan based on increased tourism immediately after the inscription, without any evidence concerning the continuity of such tourism? This research thus aims to examine tourists’ perception changes, including tourism motivation related to WHL inscription between 2014 and 2018 in HV. A study in 2014 [2] concluded that WHL inscription was one important motivation for tourists to visit HV. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the 2010 WHL inscription was one of the primary factors directly effectuating increasing tourism in the village in 2014. In this research, the same survey employed in 2014 was used again in 2018. The comparative result between the responses to the 2014 and 2018 surveys could determine the continuity of WHL inscription’s impact on increasing tourism, and verify the direction of future management and development plans for sustainable tourism, heritage, and the village.

2. Literature Review

2.1. WHL Inscription and Its Tourism Impact

As stated above, most WHS have faced increasing tourism immediately following their WHL inscription. Sharkley [12] (p. xiii) described WHL inscription as a “magnet for visitors”, and Li et al. [7] (p. 315) also concluded that a site becomes “a definite must see” after WHL inscription. According to Yang, Lin, and Han [13], all WHS in China experienced a huge tourist-enhancing effect after WHL inscription. This impact of WHL inscription on increasing tourism is one important motivation for state parties to nominate their own heritage sites for inscription [14]. The tourism impact of WHL inscription is one of the important factors for managing heritage sites and thus, it is one of the main themes related to World Heritage (WH) studies. Feiden and Jokilehto [15] discussed how WHL inscription brings about a demand for tourism development of the site and its neighborhood, so this demand is one of the significant managing elements for heritage sustainability. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) [16] also states that WHS designation has to strike a balance between heritage protection and economic advantage due to increasing tourism.

In contrast, some studies have concluded that WHL inscription does not necessarily bring increasing tourism [6,17,18,19,20]. The case study by Shackley [6] shows that in two cases—inscription of (1) an unfamiliar heritage site and (2) another heritage site that most people expected to receive WHL inscription—increasing tourism did not occur after WHL inscription. Buckley [19] also argued in his study of Australian WH natural sites that, even though a WHS tends to have many more visitors than other non-WHS locations with similar natural characteristics, it is unclear that this distinction of visitors comes from WHL inscription status or from other factors, such as differences of awareness, accessibility, and tourism resources. An interesting case study related to this issue was also published by Huang, Tsaur, and Yang [20]. In the case of Macau, WHL inscription did not cause any significant effect for promoting tourism except a short-term tourism-enhancing impact.

Nevertheless, it is true that not all but most WHS faced increasing tourism immediately following inscription [4] (p.164). Therefore, WHL inscription’s increased tourism impact is widely and strongly believed. Even though the WHL inscription’s tourism impact did not appear to be the same for all WHS, increasing tourism is still a vital element for sustainable management of the sites, especially in economic terms, to provide funds for management. This impact of WHL inscription on tourism is commonly perceived on the basis of a brand equity of WH. There have been many studies previously published about the WH brand impact [19,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29].

However, most studies related to tourism impacts of WHL inscription, including the studies mentioned above, are limited in verifying the continuity of the impacts, because these studies only focused on cases of increasing tourism immediately after WHL inscription or at the time of the research.

2.2. Sustainable Management of a Historic Village as a WHS

As mentioned above, WHL inscription’s increasing impact on tourism could cause a harmful situation in preservation through overtourism carrying capacity. On the other hand, increasing tourism could be a very important source for fundraising for heritage preservation. Thus, the tourism impact is “a double-edged sword” [30] in the preservation aspect. In other words, if tourism carrying capacity is well managed, popularizing through WHL inscription can be beneficial for protecting its heritage value. According to Frey and Steiner [31] (p. 568), globally known heritage sites, such as the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, and Stonehenge, do not need to be inscribed on the WHL, because they can already gain enough funds for preservation through the market. Frey and Steiner think that fundraising for preservation through increasing tourism is one of the most important functions of WHL inscription, even though WH does not intend this.

Commonly, sustainability means effective management of limited resources in accordance with human needs [32]. With regard to a historic village as a community, sustainability means “the long-term durability of a community as it negotiates changing practices and meaning across all the domains of culture, politics, economics, and ecology” [33] (p. 24). Thus, for securing sustainability of a historic village as a heritage site, sustaining the characteristics as a community is as important as anything else [9]. This is because a historic village is not only a tourist destination, but also a living place for residents; thus, it is a “living heritage site” [9] (p. 2).

Before WHL inscription, most historic villages were in the involvement stage of Butler’s tourist area life cycle model [34], which focused on how residents became involved in tourism and how secondary tourism facilities, like a guesthouse, emerged. In this stage, needs for tourism development were recognized by residents, but the village still sustained its characteristics as a historic agricultural community. However, WHL inscription could convert this to the development stage. This conversion could bring many changes in residents’ lives, especially, degradation of living conditions, including privacy invasion, caused by increasing tourism, which makes planning hard to balance between residents’ lives and tourism activities [35]. Thus, for sustainable management of a historic village as a WHS, it is important to balance developing tourism based on increasing tourism and sustaining residents living conditions. Within the context of increasing tourism, these two things can be pointed out as important issues for sustainable management of a historic village as a WHS, such as (1) securing enough fundraising through tourism under well-managed capacity conditions and (2) sustaining unique village characteristics as a community, including traditions, cultures, and environments.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. A Case Study: Hahoe Village

Hahoe Village (HV) is a historic rural farm village, located in southeastern Korea, that maintains its tradition as a clan village, dominated by the Pungsan Ryu family. The village is well known for its historic landscape, which is composed of historic buildings, rice fields, and natural surroundings, arranged according to Korean geomancy.

The village is managed by two agencies: The HV Management Office, which is run by the government, and the HV Preservation Society, which is administered by the residents. The office commonly manages physical environments focusing on public areas and historic buildings, which are nationally designated heritage sites, while the society is overseen by a consultative body of residents for sustaining clan culture and improving residents’ lives. The heritage value of historic villages, including HV, is based on not only physical but also mostly cultural aspects that have been established by cumulating residents’ history and lifestyles; thus, it could be considered a living heritage. Therefore, for sustainable management of the historic villages, it is necessary to maintain residents’ living conditions, such as lifestyles, customs, traditions, and their quality of life. The HV Preservation Society is especially active in managing these aspects to maintain HV as a living place for residents [9] (p. 1). However, increasing tourism and tourism development today are closely related to residents’ lives, because tourism has gradually replaced agriculture as a main industry of the village. The operational expenses for the office and society, for example, normally come from the entrance fee of the HV. Thus, the entrance fee is the most important source for the village management to keep the village’s heritage value. More visitors means more entrance fee earnings, so increasing tourism in HV is directly related to future management, not only as a living place but also as a tourist destination. One notable point is that an increasing amount of tourism based on the WHL inscription since 2010 is largely from local tourists, while the changes in numbers of foreign tourists between 2009 and 2010 are negligible (from 40,574 in 2009 to 45,675 in 2010). HV’s annual number of visitors and entrance fee earnings are shown in

Table 1. Hahoe Village’s (HV) number of visitors and entrance fee earnings between 2005 and 2017 [36].

Year	Number of Visitors			Entrance Fee Earnings
	Total	Local	Foreigner
2005	830,993	815,528	15,465	783,969
2006	760,863	744,432	16,431	708,262
2007	782,657	759,118	23,539	721,669
2008	773,764	735,969	37,795	675,569
2009	775,396	734,822	40,574	703,851
2010	1,088,612	1,042,937	45,675	910,983
2011	1,027,405	983,705	43,700	783,054
2012	962,396	903,022	59,374	1,021,559
2013	982,134	922,480	59,654	1,171,696
2014	1,055,153	1,013,539	41,614	1,316,712
2015	1,035,760	1,006,976	28,784	1,222,314
2016	1,021,843	980,936	40,907	1,198,864
2017	1,045,492	1,006,771	38,721	1,161,514

.

As shown in Table 1, in 2010, the year that the WHL was inscribed, the number of visitors to HV increased from 775,396 (in the prior year) to 1,088,612. It is difficult to determine if this increasing visitation in 2010 was fully based on WHL inscription. In 2010, HV and Yangdong Village, inscribed on the WHL together as “Historic Villages of Korea”, showed dramatic increasing visitation (more than 40%), while visitors to other historic villages in Korea showed numbers similar to 2009. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the rapid increasing tourism in 2010 in HV was mainly owed to the WHL inscription. Differences in the number of visitors between 2009 and 2010 compared with other historic villages are shown in

Table 2. Differences in number of visitors between 2009 and 2010 in historic villages of Korea.

Name	Number of Visitors		Difference	Rate of Increase
	2009	2010
* Hahoe Village	775,396	1,088,612	+313,216	40.4%
Yangdong Village	224,821	415,234	+190,413	84.7%
Oeam Village	304,090	366,223	+62,133	20.4%
Nagan Eupseong Village	1,086,815	1,187,965	+101,350	9.3%
Museon Village	225,734	237,764	+11,830	5.2%
Daksil Village	415,541	454,398	+38,857	9.4%

* Data, except for HV, are referenced from the Tourism Knowledge and Information System [37].

.

3.2. Study Methods

A self-administered questionnaire was used as a research method for this study. The questionnaire was designed to measure the tourists’ perceptions related to their motivation to visit and their ideas about the relationship between WHL inscription and a heritage site. Three kinds of questions were included: (1) Demographic characteristics, (2) awareness of HV’s WHL inscription, and (3) perceptions toward WHL inscription and HV. The questions were adapted from a review of existing studies (e.g., [9,10,11]).

To compare differences and changes between tourists’ perceptions in 2014 and 2018, the data were collected from the village twice: In July 2014 and December 2018. In 2014, 348 tourists answered the questionnaire, while 172 tourists answered in 2018. The total number of respondents in the 2018 survey was smaller than in 2014, because of funds, manpower, season, and especially, weather. During the winter season of 2018, which included the survey period, the extreme cold in Korea prevented tourists from traveling domestically [38]. In both the 2014 and 2018 surveys, male respondents (58.6% in 2014, 62.8% in 2018) were higher than female respondents (41.4% in 2014, 37.2% in 2018). Of the respondents in 2014, almost half (49.7%) indicated that their age was 18–29. The second largest group (15.8%) was the age group 30–39, followed closely by the age group 50–59 (15.5%). Respondents in the age group 40–49 (11.5%) were slightly fewer than the age group 50–59. Of the respondents in 2018, the largest age group was 18–29 (47.7%). This was followed by the age group 30–39 (26.1%), 40–49 (11.0%), 50–59 (8.1%), and 60 and over (7.0%). The demographic characteristics of questionnaire respondents are presented in

Table 3. Demographic profile of survey respondents.

Demographic Characteristics		2014 (n = 348)		2018 (n = 172)
		Frequency	Percentage	Frequency	Percentage
Gender	Male	204	58.6	108	62.8
	Female	144	41.4	64	37.2
Age	18–29	173	49.7	82	47.7
	30–39	55	15.8	45	26.1
	40–49	40	11.5	19	11.0
	50–59	54	15.5	14	8.1
	60 and over	22	6.3	12	7.0
	Non-response	4	1.1	-	-
Highest level of education	High school or less	23	6.6	6	3.5
	College/university	245	70.4	141	82.0
	Graduate school	43	12.3	11	6.4
	Non-response	37	10.6	14	8.1

.

4. Results and Discussion

For verifying differences and changes of tourists’ perceptions between 2014 and 2018, tourists were asked to answer eleven questions through the questionnaire. The questionnaire first asked about respondents’ awareness of HV as a WHS. Of the 348 respondents in 2014, 87.6% answered that they knew that HV was inscribed on the WHL. In 2018, of the 172 tourists sampled, 94.2% answered that they recognized HV as a WHS. The results of the question regarding tourists’ awareness of HV’s WHL inscription are shown in

Table 4. Tourists’ awareness of HV’s World Heritage List (WHL) inscription.

Awareness of HV as a WHS	2014 (n = 348)		2018 (n = 172)
	Frequency	Percentage	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	305	87.6	162	94.2
No	38	10.9	8	4.7
Non-response	5	1.4	2	1.2

.

The results of the other questions regarding tourists’ perceptions toward HV and WHS are shown in

Table 5. Tourists’ perceptions toward HV and WHS.

Tourists’ Perceptions	2014		2018
	Mean	% Agree	Mean	% Agree
Perceptions of WHL inscription
WHL inscription stimulates my desire to visit HV	3.72	63.4	3.88	69.8
WHL inscription makes HV a “must see” location	3.67	61.0	3.65	64.0
WHL inscription makes it more attractive than other non-WHS historic villages	3.56	56.7	3.43	54.7
WHL inscription makes me feel proud to be in HV	3.89	66.1	3.48	57.0
WHL inscription makes HV a tourist “hot spot” in the country	4.18	85.1	4.23	80.2
WHL inscription makes HV valuable to visit	4.13	81.6	3.98	73.3
Satisfaction
I am satisfied with this trip to HV in general	3.96	69.6	3.97	66.3
I am satisfied with the cultural experiences in HV	3.28	27.6	3.64	58.1
Demand for future management and development of WH
HV needs to focus more on heritage preservation	4.18	78.5	3.90	70.9
HV needs more tourism development	3.18	46.1	3.76	65.1

Measured on a five-point Likert type scale; 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree.

. Of all the tourists’ perceptions verified in this study, two noteworthy issues regarding the WHL inscription’s tourism impact continuity, such as (1) WH as a tourists’ brand and (2) future management of HV as a WHS for maintaining brand equity, are discussed.

4.1. WH as a Tourists’ Brand

In both the 2014 and 2018 surveys, most respondents said that the WHL inscription of HV is one of their important motivations to visit. Of the questionnaire respondents in 2014, 63.4% reported that the WHL inscription stimulated their desire to visit HV. Similarly, 69.8% of respondents in the 2018 survey agreed that the WHL inscription stimulated their desire to visit HV, while 30.2% disagreed with this statement. Additionally, 61% of respondents in 2014 and 64% of respondents in 2018 believed that the WHL inscription makes HV a “must see” location, while 39% in 2014 and 36% in 2018 disagreed. One notable point of this result comparison is that the percentages in both 2014 and 2018 are similar, regardless of the passage of time.

These perceptions would make it seem that WH itself is recognized as a powerful brand to tourists in both surveys, and the brand impact of WH slightly increased further (6.4%) in 2018 from 2014. According to the American Marketing Association, a brand is defined as a “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition [21]”. In other words, a major function of a brand is offering a promise of value and differentiation [22] to outrival other similar items: In this sense, WH seemed to be recognized as a splendid tourism brand, according to the survey results. In addition, the brand equity of WH lasts regardless of the passage of time, which could play a significant role in tourists’ motivation. More than half of the respondents in both 2014 (56.7%) and 2018 (54.7%) noted that the WHL inscription makes it more attractive than other non-WHS historic villages. Furthermore, the majority of the respondents in 2014 (85.1%) and in 2018 (80.2%) thought that the WHL inscription makes HV a tourist “hot spot” in the country, while only 14.9% in 2014 and 19.8% in 2018 disagreed. Thus, most respondents perceived that WHL inscription makes HV a more attractive tourism destination than not only other historic villages but also other heritage sites.

Even though, the WH system was not intended to create a tourism brand, the title and symbol of WH seems to be a guarantee by UNESCO, which is the best historical organization in the world, especially with regard to cultural aspects, and WHS has more valuable outstanding universal value to see than other non-WHS heritage sites. According to Ryan and Silvanto [22], in the situation where most tourists lack the knowledge to judge the rank of cultural uniqueness and importance of heritage sites, the title WH is a kind of “seal of approval” to pass expert scrutiny and recognize its exemplary important value.

The perception of WH as a powerful tourism brand tends to be widely believed as much as WH’s increasing tourism. Therefore, for tourism marketing in many WHS, the title WH is used as a “tourism marketing device [19] (p. 70)”. In the case of HV, the symbols of UNESCO and WH are clearly visible, used like a tourism brand, in the center of the front page of the official HV website (Figure 1). Through the results of the questionnaire, the case of WH symbols usage, and previous studies, it can be seen that WH is recognized and applied as an influential tourism brand in most countries.

As mentioned above, one notable point is that, in the case of HV, increasing tourism after WHL inscription was mostly dedicated by local tourists. In a situation where the number of domestic tourists is limited, it is reasonable to plan for an increasing revisitation rate in the interest of long-term tourism development. At the same time, it is important that HV be recognized as a WHS by foreign tourists, who still make up a small amount of the market share of HV tourism today, through more effective marketing methods. The brand impact of the WH has the potential to draw not only domestic tourists, but to also have a strong influence on tourists internationally.

4.2. Future Management of HV as a WHS for Maintaining Brand Equity

As stated above, in 2010, HV faced a rapid increase in visitors after the WHL inscription. However, after rapidly increasing in 2010, between 2011 and 2012, the number of tourists visiting tapered off, as shown in Table 1.

Since 2008 when the village prepared for the WHL inscription in earnest, it prepared heritage preservation and tourism development plans to improve the village environment for expected increasing tourism after the WHL inscription. The plans, especially focused on improvement of physical environments, including enlargement of the parking lot outside the village, tourism complex development, the opening of exhibition facilities like Hahoe Mask Museum, and traffic line modification, were put into operation between 2008 and 2012 [40]. In 2013, when the plans and the tourism environment were improved, the number of visitors rose again, and the village has sustained slightly over one million since 2014. Therefore, the increasing tourism after 2012 could not be all due to the WH brand impact.

The recognition of WH as an influential tourism brand means that the title WH also leads to expectations of high standards from the perspectives of both heritage value and service convenience for tourists. Therefore, for maintaining the brand equity of WH, it is necessary to satisfy tourists’ expectations of high standards as a WHS. In other words, maintaining continued recognition of WHS through satisfying tourists can exercise continuous impact as a powerful tourism brand. Not only WH, but all brands need to provide higher value as a brand that consumers expect to maintain continuous brand impact. According to M’zungu and Merrilees [41], consistent delivery of the brand is mandatory for building and sustaining brand equity. Consequently, the level differences of delivery experience through the various components that motivate tourism activities, including accessibility, price, program diversity and originality—even though these elements are not actually related to the WHL inscription—are influential both directly and indirectly on WH’s brand equity; thus, increasing tourism continuity based on the brand value of WH could also be influenced, not only by the WHS itself, but also various surrounding tangible and intangible elements of the site.

Like HV, heritage sites inscribed by the WHL commonly establish and utilize tourism development plans to accept demands for increasing tourism. These plans aim to increase tourists’ re-visitation and create new tourism activities through enhancing tourist satisfaction. In the case of HV, after finishing tourism development from 2008 to 2012, other tourism development plans, involving both hardware improvement (such as constructing a new visitor center, extending a parking lot, and reorganizing visitor traffic with a shuttle bus and ticketing system), and also software improvement, including increasing visitors’ possibilities of traditional experiences like Seonyujwibulnori (the traditional fireworks) and Hahoebyulsinguttalnori (the traditional mask dance), were consistently established and utilized for delivering a better tourism experience and satisfaction to visitors.

According to the result of the 2014 and 2018 surveys, a large number of respondents (69.6% in 2014 and 66.3% in 2018) noted that they were satisfied with the trip to HV in general, while 30.4% in 2014 and 33.7% in 2018 were unsatisfied. However, in 2014, the answers to a question about their satisfaction of the cultural experiences in HV were totally different to the answers of general satisfaction, in that only 27.6% reported that they were satisfied with the cultural experiences in HV. By 2018, 58.1% of respondents were satisfied with the cultural experiences in the village, so there was a vast improvement in offering the cultural experience in HV from 2014 to 2018. This was because plans established and utilized before 2014 were mostly focused on physical improvements of tourism environments, while tourists perceived a shortage of cultural and traditional experiences. Fortunately, the shortage of these experiences has been improved since 2014, and the result of this improvement is connected to increasing satisfaction with the cultural experiences in the 2018 survey. Thus, according to the comparison of survey results, the direction of tourism development plans for HV today is suitable to both increasing visitors’ satisfaction and promoting sustainable tourism. One interesting point appearing in both the 2014 and 2018 surveys is that tourists perceived needs for more heritage preservation and, at the same time, for more tourism development constructing better tourism infrastructure. Thus, planners could face difficulties in balancing dilemmas of heritage preservation and tourism development, which sometimes appear to be compatible.

5. Conclusions

Even though the results of both the 2014 and 2018 questionnaires show that the WHL inscription played a role as an important motivation to visit consistently, they do not prove the permanent continuity of the WHL inscription’s impact on increasing tourism. However, the results of the surveys both four and eight years after the WHL inscription, which verified the similar leverage of WH as a motivation to visit, give promise that the WH impact as a tourism brand can be influenced in the long term. Above all, in the case of HV, WH has excelled in its role as a tourism brand. Based on this role, WH brought about rapidly increasing tourism after WHL inscription. However, even though the title WH is a powerful brand that has great effect on the tourism industry, it still needs appropriate management to maintain brand equity. In the case of WH, the target object of management is located at a trade-off point of interests between preserving heritage value and improving service convenience for tourists. What follows are the conclusions of this study for verifying WHL inscription’s tourism impact continuity through tourists’ questionnaires in 2014 and 2018:

• The title WH as a tourism brand works as tourists’ motivation to visit the WHS, regardless of the passage of time after its inscription. However, even though the brand equity of WH has remained the same over time, the real impact on increasing tourism to a WHS could be different—whether increasing, decreasing, or maintaining—depending on how the WH brand is delivered to tourists;
• Tourists familiar with the WHS expect high standards with regards to both perspectives of heritage value and service convenience for tourists, because tourists see the WH as a “seal of approval” for its brand equity. In the case of HV, tourists expect high standards including more heritage preservation and better service convenience for tourists, which, unfortunately, do not coexist easily. Planners face difficulties in choosing between these two demands and need to establish a balanced plan between them. For sustainable management of a historic village as a WHS, two implications can be determined: (1) Securing enough fundraising through tourism under well-managed capacity conditions and (2) sustaining unique village characteristics as a community, including traditions, cultures, and environments;
• In the case of HV, the brand impact of WH tended to be limited only to domestic tourists. For improving brand impact that constitutes sustaining the number of tourists of the village, planners need to consider both increasing re-visitation of domestic tourists and improving visitation of foreign tourists.

The background and environment surrounding every WHS are different. Thus, the result from this study is only applicable to HV, with consideration of the village’s unique characteristics. In this context, more research for other WHS cases is required to understand World Heritage’s tourism impact continuity in a wide scope. Additionally, to better understand the scope of tourism impact continuity based on the WHL inscription, more research for a long-term approach is needed. HV, the case of this study, is only over eight years on from WHL inscription (as of the time in the last questionnaire); thus, research related to the brand impact continuity of WH must understand the circumstances of continuity, regularly conducted to use a similar method of this study in the future.

Additionally, this study has a limitation in that the survey only focuses on tourists’ perceptual changes. For establishing effective management plans and for balancing future tourism development and heritage (community) sustainability, the following are additionally required: (1) Consulting with all related stakeholder groups, including public and private agents, and (2) assessing risks related to tourists over carrying capacity by heritage experts. Consultation and assessment are based on understanding of the destination and valuable resources. For future research, this consulting and assessing could be adaptable for a better establishment of future planning for sustainable management of a historic village as a WHS.