Unbearable Pressures on Paradise

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UNBEARABLE PRESSURES ON PARADISE?Keir Reeves; Colin Long

Online publication date: 13 April 2011

To cite this Article Reeves, Keir and Long, Colin(2011) 'UNBEARABLE PRESSURES ON PARADISE?', Critical AsianStudies, 43: 1, 3 22

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Reeves and Long / Unbearable Pressures

UNBEARABLE PRESSURES

ON PARADISE?

Tourism and Heritage Management in

Luang Prabang, a World Heritage Site

Keir Reeves and Colin Long

ABSTRACT: This article critically appraises and evaluates tourism strategies and heri-tage management in Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, a Unesco-designated world heritage city. Luang Prabang is widely regarded as one of themost significant heritage cities in Southeast Asia. The city is renowned for its Bud-dhist and royal culture and also its historic vernacular Lao, French, and LaoFrencharchitecture. The city earned world heritage status in 1995, but since that time theboom in in-bound Asian tourism has put pressures on Luang Prabangs authenticityand, for some, called into question the validity of its world heritage status. This arti-cle examines these substantial and wide-ranging pressures and argues that thegrowth in tourism and the treatment of Luang Prabangs heritage are symptoms of

broader regional processes of political and economic change, including the expan-sion of Chinese and Korean investment and the growth of intra-regional tourism.The authors argue that it is unreasonable to expect traditional heritage manage-ment mechanisms, including the world heritage listing, to be able to cope with thepressures on sites like Luang Prabang. The very least that is required, the authorscontend, is an expanded understanding of the context in which heritage places sit,and the authors make a case that the cultural landscapes approach, combined withexplicit concern for intangible heritage and poverty alleviation, must be at the coreof any strategy for long-term protection of the citys cultural heritage values.

Twoyears ago in this journal, a photo-essaybyDawn Starin detaileda number ofproblems in the Unesco-designated world heritage city, Luang Prabang.

1

Starins article cogently and evocatively alerted readers to the threats posed to

Critical Asian Studies

43:1 (2011), 322

ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 01 / 00000320 2011 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2011.537849


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Luang Prabang by the rapid rise of tourism. Other journalistic pieces in recent

years have celebrated Luang Prabang or alerted us to the risks posed to it by its

growingpopularityas a tourismdestination.2In this article we take these discus-

sions as a departure point, but go much further to provide an in-depth analysis

of the issues surrounding Luang Prabang as a heritage tourism site. Our goal is

to stimulate a deeper level of understanding about the dynamics of tourism, de-

velopment, and heritage, and about the influenceof the political and economic

context on such sites than can be reasonably provided in journalistic pieces. We

discuss the tensions between place, community, heritage, tourism, and devel-

opment in Luang Prabang, the former royal capital of Laos. We place these

tensions in the broader political-economic context that conditions the position

of Laos in Southeast Asia.

With the advent of increased site visitation and heritage tourism promotion,new threats to the built environment are apparent. Less readily discernible, yet

equally important, are the pressures on the intangible heritage of Luang

Prabang due to increased development. This article considers the heritage of

Luang Prabang by evaluating the historical significance of the site, its heritage

values, and the site management challenges the city faces today. We contextual-

ize these challenges in terms of the central importance of heritage tourism

revenue to the economic prosperity of the region. More broadly, this is a com-

munity-engaged piece that indicates important research strategies for

4 Critical Asian Studies 43:1 (2011)

1. Starin 2008.2. See, for instance, Balfour 2003; Billard 2007; Perlez 2004.

Map of Lao Peoples Democratic Republic. (Maps courtesy of authors.)


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developing awareness of rich local histories and intangible heritage in order to

tie local voices and cultural landscapes into public understanding of this exem-

plar world heritage site.

As the title of this article suggests, place, community, heritage, and tourism

need to be considered in conjunction in order to conserve the vernacular Lao

and colonial era architecture and also to effectively understand the intangible

heritage of Luang Prabang. Furthermore, we argue that the heritage of Luang

Prabang is best interpreted and managed by considering the world heritage site

asa multi-layeredcultural landscape (for the purpose of this article the termcul-

tural landscape thus covers a broad range of definitions, all of which reflect the

way people have shaped the environment in order to suit their needs or de-

sires).Luang Prabang, situated on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong

River and its tributary, the Nam Khan, is the most visited of Lao PDRs two world

heritage sites. The city has a sedate ambience, as would be expected of a place

best known for its Buddhist culture and French colonial era architecture. For

many this is the primary reason why it is regarded as a prime tourist destination.

The Lao National Tourism Administration (LNTA) admitted as much in com-

menting that Luang Prabang is a place where one can sit having a cool drink

perched high on the banks of the Mekong where you can watch life go by at a

very slow pace.3Since obtaining world heritage inscription in 1995 for its cul-

Reeves and Long / Unbearable Pressures 5

3. Lao National Tourism Authority 2007.

Map of Luang Prabang, showing its location on a peninsula at the confluence of the Me-kong River and its tributary, the Nam Khan.


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tural heritage values, Luang Prabang has become an international heritage

tourist destination and is now regarded as a key site of the cradle of ancient

kingdoms, which is the promotional branding of the Greater Mekong sub-re-gion that includes Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Chinas

Yunnan Province.

In November 2007, a mission from Unesco traveled to Luang Prabang to eval-

uate the heritage values of the city and establish whether the increased tourism

traffic and commodification of the city as a heritage tourism destination had

compromised the integrity of the heritage streetscapes and built environment

of the old city.4Tellingly, the mission was also concerned with appraising the ex-

tent to which the increased profile and commensurate rise in tourism had

affected the ability to preserve Lao culture.

5

When Luang Prabang was first listedby the World Heritage Committee, visitors to the site noted that the inscription

had struckan important blow for conservationand heralded a new eraof con-

servation in the region, suggesting that Laos may be backward and surrounded

by more powerful neighbors, but it can benefit from their mistakes: it is now vir-

tually certain that Luang Prabang will escape the fate of its near neighbor, the

once charmingbutnowdeveloped Chiang Mai in Thailand.6For some, in con-

trast, Luang Prabang risked becoming a sophisticated cultural heritage theme

park resplendent with shop-house streetscapes(see fig.1 above)Buddhist tem-

ples, the Royal Palace enclosure, and an extensive collection of French colonial

buildings (see fig. 2, below).Luang Prabang was technically incorporated into French Indochina as a pro-

tectorate rather than a directly run colony. It remained, during the years of

French colonialism, the royal capital of Laos, although the king was little more

than a figurehead; the French colonial authorities exercised the real power in

Vientiane.7This meant that, while the French substantially reconfigured Vienti-

ane to suit their purposes as the administrative capital, Luang Prabang


Fig. 1. Shop-house streetscape inthe world heritage precinct ofLuang Prabang. (Credit: A. Dillon)

4. Boccardi and Logan 2007.5. Ibid.6. Barnett 1996, 4.7. Stuart-Fox 1993, 226; Stuart-Fox 1997, 2930.


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underwent more nuanced, less morphologically dramatic transformation.8The

underlying structure of the cityconditioned by the location of the Buddhist

wats, the prominence of the sacred Mount Phousi, and the interaction between

the river and the built form (Lao houses were traditionally built so that the ridge

line of the roof ran parallel to any nearby river)remains substantially intact.

Nevertheless, much of the city, including the Royal Palace, dates from the

French period, and the streetscapes thatare recognized in the world heritage in-

scription and valued by tourists are French-Lao amalgams.

Tensions between Heritage Tourismand Cultural Preservation

A key objective of preserving the intangible heritage of Luang Prabang is to en-

sure that the built fabric of the city is connected to living cultural practices in away that ensures that the heritage significance of the city is maintained in a

meaningful, integrated way. Far too often in heritage preservation practice con-

centration on the tangible built form has led to the neglect of the intangible

elementsthe uses of places, theeveryday practices, celebrations, ceremonies,

social interactions, and cultural manifestationswith the result that many heri-

tage places become little more than quaint, attractive, and historically tinged

film sets stripped of the social and cultural practices that originally provided

their meaning. Good contemporary heritage practice understands that tangible

and intangible heritage are often inextricably linked, that when the uses ofplaces change the places change too, that cultural and social practices are usu-

ally place-conditioned, and that places stripped of their social and cultural

meaning are little more than simulacra.

Despite the rapid rise of themed tourist precincts,9

there is increasing evi-

dence that touristsparticularly cultural touristsvalue authenticity in their

tourism experience.10

One of the great attractionsofLuang Prabang is the appar-

ent authenticity of the citys tangible and intangible heritage. Of particular

importance in this regard is the citys Buddhist and royal heritage. The former


Fig. 2. Colonial-era French maisonsituated near the center of theLuang Prabang world heritageprecinct near the HueanchanCentre. (Credit: K. Reeves)

8. Askew, Logan, and Long 2007.9. McKercher and Du Cros 2002, 131.10. Ibid. 76.


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remains dynamic, thoroughly embedded in Lao social and cultural life and

etched into the physical fabric of Luang Prabang, most obviously in the form of

the many wats throughout the city. The royal heritage is, however, more prob-

lematic, given that the royal family was deposed by the communist regime in

1975. Its presencehas toa largeextent nowbeen museumified11

or adapted to

suit the commemorative needs of the present government.12

Most tourists to Luang Prabang are from overseas. Laos does not have a sub-

stantial domestic tourism industry, as most Lao simply do not earn enough to

travel on vacation. Tourism has provided many benefits to Laos, representing a

major source of the countrys foreign income, and Luang Prabang is one of the

most important attractions. This, of course, does not come without its prob-

lems. The continued development of Luang Prabang as a tourism destination,

with the construction of new hotels and other tourist accommodation, will put

further demands on finite space and potentially disrupt the connection be-

tween built heritage and the intangible uses and cultural practices that animate

it. The tension between the economic imperatives of tourism and cultural heri-

tage conservation is not unique to Laos. It is a problem in much of the region, if

not the world. This has recently been investigated in a Vietnamese context by

William Logan, in a Cambodian context byTim Winter, and morespecifically in a

Luang Prabang context by Colin Long and Jonathan Sweet.13

This increase in heritage tourism in Luang Prabang, while having some posi-

tive outcomes, poses various serious threats. The chief concern is the impact of

tourism development on living cultural heritage and the economic capacity of

locals to live in the city.14

This tension was apparent in one cultural heritage

practitionersobservation that investing for guesthouses and hotels rises up asif there is no ceiling. On the other hand locals continue to sell their property

and leave the town.15

In all probability this trend will continue and increasing

numbers of those who cannot afford to live in the city will be driven to the pe-

riphery. While Luang Prabang offers substantial financial rewards to investors, it

is geographically and demographically small and as a consequence unable to

expand to cope with these new pressures without compromising the cultural

fabric of the site.

The pressures on Luang Prabang are most dramatically revealed in recent

proposals for major developments in or near the city. Growth in accommoda-tion establishments has been dramatic: from 45 in 1998 to 120 in 2004.16While

hotels have until now been kept to a small size and are few in number (2004 fig-

ures show that only 15 of the 120 accommodation establishments in the city

were hotels17), pressure is now growing for the construction of large hotels,

such as the five-star Kunming, a 200-room hotel on a thirty-hectare (ha)plot of


11. Long and Sweet 2006.12. Evans 1999.13. Logan 2005; Winter 2007 (Post-conflict); Long and Sweet 2005.

14. Starin 2008.15. Yamaguchi and Vaggione 2008.16. Askew, Logan, and Long 2007, 189.17. Ibid.


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land located five kilometers (km) from the historic core.18

Smaller hotels are not

necessarily less problematic. Aman Resorts, an Indonesian company, has been

given permission to redevelop the citys old hospital site into a luxury twenty-

room hotel. Developers have their eyes on other public infrastructure, includ-

ing a large primary school site on Sakkarine Road, Ban Vat Non, and the nearby

FineArtsSchool, formerly the QueenMothers house,both subject toproposalsto convert them into tourist complexes. As the Unesco mission noted, the con-

version of these public buildings and associated open spaces into tourist

facilities would impact negatively on the traditional social context of Luang

Prabang.19

Potentiallymore destructive again is a bridge,proposed asan impor-

tant link in the GMS (Greater Mekong Subregion) Flagship Road Project:

National Road 4, linking the LaoThai Bridge at Nam Heuang, via Kenthao

Paklay and Sayaboury to Luang Prabang.20

While the Unesco mission did not

challenge the proposed location of the bridge, it commented that it will almost

inevitably lead to the build-up of urban settlement on the north-eastern out-

skirts of the inscribed site.21

In the heart of the world heritage site the increasing pressures of tourism are

leadingto the displacement of residents as land valuesrise and tourism facilities

like guesthouses and restaurants dominate land uses. This has implications for

the street-level sociability, community spirit, and intangible heritage of Luang

Prabang. An example is the best-known event in old Luang Prabangthe daily

procession, at the crack of dawn, of saffron-robed monks holding their brass

begging bowls.22

Buddhism remains a vital element of Lao culture; a powerful

symbiosis exists between temples, their monks, and local communities. Tradi-

tionally one of the ways in which this has been expressed is through the givingof alms by villagers to monks as they process through the street, as occurs in

Luang Prabang. In recent years, however, the increasing tourist presence

complete with clicking camerasand a decline in the local population within

the world heritage site have interrupted this intimate symbol of spiritual and

community reciprocity, with the result that the monks are not getting enough

food and the essence of the cultural practice is under severe strain.

Most worrying of all is the proposal to construct a new town on the opposite

side of the Mekong River from the world heritage site, using US$2 billion of Ko-

rean project funding.

23

The proposal is in the very early stages of planning and,given the present-day global economic crisis, there can be no guarantee that it

will proceed in the near future. But the Lao government, ruling over an impov-

erished, small country surrounded by much larger states, is particularly

susceptible to big promises of investment, a susceptibility not reduced by the

absence of democratic accountability or a free press.


18. Boccardi and Logan 2007, 17.19. Ibid., 19.

20. GMS 2005, 19.21. Boccardi and Logan 2007, 18.22. Balfour 2003.23. MCOT 2008.


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The proposal, which illustrates the substantial effect that world heritage list-

ing and tourism development can have, is clearly driven by the attractiveness of

Luang Prabang as a tourism destination24

and has in mind the increase in wealth

that tourism development in the area can be expected to bring. The Luang

Prabang new town is intended to feature golf courses and other tourist infra-

structure; it seems to be designed to provide not only an area for populationgrowth in the Luang Prabang region,but also toenhancethe touristofferingsas-

sociated with the city. Indeed, the project is geared toward the incorporation of

Luang Prabang into the Asian mass tourism market. This is a rapidly evolving

phenomenon with enormous implications for tourism and heritage sites in

much of Southeast Asia, if not the world. As Tim Winter has observed, the nor-

mative use of expressions like package tour, mass tourism and the seaside now

hides their cultural and historical roots.25Where once Asian mass-market tour-

ism was largely confined to Japanese tourists, the rise of South Korea in the

latter decades of the twentieth century and the spectacular growth of the Chi-

nese economy and its burgeoning middle class, combined with the

incorporation of China into global processes of production and exchangein-

cluding tourism and tourism serviceshas produced an enormous supply of

tourists wanting to see the world. Where once countries like Vietnam and Cam-

bodia were the domains of intrepid Western tourists seeking authentic

experiences off the mass-market trail, the two countries are nowthoroughly en-

gaged in the mass-market sector, especially for tourists from elsewhere in Asia

(and increasingly from the West).26

Indeed, it appears that the market segmentation that has long characterized

the mature Western tourism sectorranging from backpackers, through smalltour groups, independent travelers, organized bus tours, up to high-end cul-

tural tourism, with many variations in between is to a considerable extent

lacking in the contemporary Asian tourist market. The reasons for this have not

only to do with cost. It is likely that the concept of tourism as a form of self-dis-

covery and engagement with the other that runs deep in Western tourism

understandings and motivations is much less important in cultures like China

and the Mekong region countries. It is clear, too, that the heavy emphasis on in-

dividuality in contemporary Western societies, which is reflected in tourism

practices, is not replicated in societies like China and Korea, where social soli-darity is a much more thoroughly ingrained concept. It is also the case that

Western tourism companies have much longer experience than, say, Chinese

ones, in developing and refining tourism products.

Cambodias experience with the rapid transformation of a niche-market

tourism destinationAngkorinto a mass-market tourism destination is in-

structive. In this case the number of tourists, particularly Asian tourists, has

soared so rapidly that serious problems are now emerging. Wear and tear on in-


24. In2008 theNew York Times declared Luang Prabang,along with Vientiane, the next potentialhotspots for globe-trotting tourists (Billard 2007).

25. Winter 2008, 313.26. Winter 2007 (Rethinking); 2010; Henderson 2009.


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dividual sites within the Angkor complex have been exacerbated by the sheer

numbers of touristsover a milliontourists visit the area each yearand by the

practices of tourism companies, which utilize similar, limited itineraries that

tend to concentrate tourists at particular sites at specific times.27

Mass tourism

also places a strain on Siem Reapthe location of the hotels for visitors to

Angkorparticularly its water and power supply and sewerage infrastructure.28

Cambodian authorities also complain about the social problems that accom-

pany mass tourismprostitution, commercialization of local culture,

distortion of local economies and labor markets, and so on. On a broader scale,

the popularity of Angkor and the fact that Siem Reap is an international airport

hub are distorting national development patterns, with Siem Reap receiving a

disproportionate amount of the nations investment and foreign exchange

earnings. Luang Prabang airport also receives international flights from Thai-

land, Cambodia, Vietnam, and regional Laos. For many overseas tourists it is the

only place in Laos that they visit, just as Angkor is the sole destination for many

tourists to Cambodia.

The Luang Prabang new town project is at least partially driven by a desire to

expand the citys capacity as a tourism sitenot only its capacity to accommo-

date more people but also its capacity to attract a wider range of people and to

get them to stay longer. Providing resort-style facilities on the west bank of the

river will entice tourists who are attracted to the world heritage ambience of

Luang Prabang but who are not satisfied by its cultural and heritage offerings

alone. World heritage sites in other countries have similar experiences. In Ha-

vana, Cuba, for instance, many tourists spend almost their entire holiday at

resorts, perhaps venturing out for a daylong organized tour into the Old Ha-vana world heritage site.

29

It is possible that Luang Prabang new town will relieve some of the develop-

ment pressure that exists in the world heritage site. Hotels and other tourist

facilities can be diverted to the new town. This is not an uncommon strategy.

Many European cities have implemented such approaches: at a large scale the

preservation of Pariss wonderful streetscapeshas largely been facilitated by the

construction of La Dfense as the center for new high-rise construction. Even in

Laos, some have argued, the Lao government has made a conscious decision to

develop Vientiane as a modern capital city and to keep Luang Prabang as theproverbial jewel in the nations heritage crown.30

Yet, such an approach is still fraught with problems. For a start, access from

one sideof the river to the other, currently facilitated byboat, is tobeenabled by

construction of a bridge built right into the world heritage site. Besides the

problems of increased traffic through the old towns streets, such an interven-

tion would do major damage to its visual setting and severely compromise its

cultural landscape integrity. Butabove all, what the new town proposal demon-


27. Winter 2007 (Post-conflict).28. Sharp 2008.29. Long 2008.30. Logan, Long, and Hanson 2002.


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strateswith the bridge being a very clear indication of thisis a failure to

recognize Luang Prabang as part of a much broader cultural landscape that

takes in the western side of the river, the Mekong itself, and the surrounding

mountain landscape. The western bank of the river was closely connected to

Luang Prabangindeed parts of it are included in the world heritage designa-

tion. The settlement there, Chompeth, provided agricultural produce for thecity, as it still does, while a temple, Wat Long Khun, was a vital element in royal

coronation ceremonies. In fact, the coronation ceremony was crucial in inte-

grating the river into the broader cultural landscape that constituted the royal

meuangof Luang Prabang: the kings slow, ceremonial procession up river by

boat to the Tam Ting Caves was an integral element of the citys symbolic prac-

tices. It can already be argued that, if the royal heritage has largely been

museumified in the world heritage site, the royal heritage associated with the

western bank of the river and with the river more generally has been completely

elided in popularparticularly touristunderstanding of the citys signifi-

cance. This can only be exacerbated if the new town proposal goes ahead.

Luang Prabang: A Cultural Landscape

The termcultural landscape has beendefinedby the U.S.National ParksService

as a geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the

wildlife anddomestic animals therein associated with a historic event, activity,

or person, or that exhibits other cultural or aesthetic values.31

More broadly,

cultural landscape analysis also provides an important conceptual tool for

investigating how human activity has shaped the built environment. Only by

considering people and place together can a deeper historical understand-ing of key heritage sites be realized. Cultural landscapes reflect the way

different people have valued land over time, and demonstrate how differently

land has been and continues to be used by groups and individuals.

As Peter Fowler notes, cultural landscapes record the interaction of natural

and cultural processes.32

Cultural landscapes also offer theopportunity to look

at the way people have interacted with one other by recording which culture or

cultures usedany onesiteat any onetime; this, in turn,reflects the way different

cultures have valued and used land throughout history. Cultural landscapes are

a record of the way land is valued: for its religious or spiritual connotations; itseconomic value; its aesthetic, social, or recreational value; and for its historical

value. Cultural landscapes include architectural features, such as shrines,

shops, or houses, that reflect the social or everyday history of the people who

built, inhabited, or used them.33

Luang Prabang is a layered cultural landscape containing elements of a num-

ber of erasof human activity. In usingthe termcultural landscape werefer to the

elements of the built and natural environments that constitute the key sites in


31. National Parks Service 1994.32. Fowler 2004, 172.33. The Cultural Landscape Foundation 2006.


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Luang Prabang, together with the visual, oral, and documentary material that

give them meaning and assist in their interpretation.

Today, cultural landscapes cannot be understood without reference to thecultural heritage of the region and the key historical themes that explain this

heritage. Further, this broader sense of heritage cannot be divorced from the

wider political, economic, and social context. In a sense we have no choice: the

Luang Prabang new town and other contested development projects close to or

in the city forceus to confront thiswider context. Increasingly heritagedevelop-

ment projects are caught up in regional, even global, processes of tourism,

economic development, and political interaction. This is nowhere more obvi-

ous than in Southeast Asia, a region of dynamic change in the shadow of the

greatest source of dynamism and change, China. Projects like the Luang Prab-

ang new town, and the contentious(but increasingly unlikely) construction of a

new Chinatown in Vientiane, the Lao capital, as well as proposed new town de-

velopments in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, are classic manifestations

of uneven development and a geographical solution to the crisis of over-pro-

duction in the economies of Northeast Asia.

The construction and massive reconstruction of Chinese cities has many

complex origins and ramifications. While much emphasis has been placed on

the urbanization and industrialization of China, we cannot neglect the role that

investment in the built environment plays directly in the process of capital accu-

mulation.34

In this sense, real estatedevelopment plays several roles: it provides


34. Harvey 1989; Harvey 1990.

Fig. 3. Buddhist monks soliciting alms on the streets of Luang Prabang, a daily ritual. Withthe influx of camera-wielding tourists into the Unesco-designated world heritage site, crit-ics worry that Luang Prabang could become a sophisticated cultural heritage theme parkwith saffron-robed monks playing their assigned roles. (Credit: Tim Winter)


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large numbers of jobs for laborers and trades workersthis is vital for China,

with its huge population; it has substantial multiplier effects on the broader

economy; and it absorbs surplus capital created in the industrial sector. The

enormousgrowth in the industrial capacity and export earnings of South Korea

in earlier decades and China in particular today has led to enormous over-accu-

mulation of capital in the industrial sector, some of which is in turn invested inwhat David Harvey

35calls the secondary and tertiary circuits of capital, in partic-

ular the built environment. And this includes the built environments of

Southeast Asian cities like Luang Prabang.

The degree of change and the economic and political pressures in the region

provide dramatic illustrations of the difficulty of managing popular heritage

tourism sites with traditional heritage preservation instruments that focus on

architectural conservation. The Luang Prabang case demonstrates the disparity

between the control provided to managers of heritage sites by world heritage

listing and traditional planning controls, on the one hand, and the economic,

social, and political changes that are the main threat to heritage values, on the

other. There is no simple solution to this problem: it is unreasonable to expect

that broad political, economic, and social pressures can be managed entirely

through the agency of heritage controls. Nonetheless, heritage site managers

and policy-makers need to be aware of the broader context in which they must

practice and in which sites exist. Our contention here is that heritage manage-

ment systems should be strategically tailored to meet the challenges posed by

the broader context.

We are not necessarily arguing that there is an orchestrated resistance to im-

proved heritage planning controls. Our point is that the factors impinging onthe management of world heritage sites are various and complex, and that tradi-

tional heritage planning techniquescontrols on new construction,

conservation regulations focused on the preservation of architectural forms

and features, and urban design and planning regulations that are necessarily

place-specificare sometimes insufficiently powerful to cope. This is a prob-

lem that is not confined to developing countries like Laos or, indeed, to the

management of world heritage sites alone. The world heritage site in the Ger-

man city of Dresden was recently removed from the world heritage list as a

result of the construction of a bridge that city authorities deemed necessary, butwhich Unesco declared would destroy the integrity of the world heritage prop-

erty.36

In many countriescertainly in our home, Australiaheritage

preservation agencies often struggle to preserve heritage sites in the face of de-

velopment pressures, especially when more powerful government agencies

such as road construction agenciesare involved.

While heritage controls may not be adequate to deal with large-scale devel-

opment pressures, it is widely acknowledged that heritage controls themselves

can sometimes have deleterious effects. The problem is that heritage controls


35. Harvey 1989.36. Unesco 2009.


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rarely involve controls on the use of places, as distinct from preservation of ma-

terial fabric, and that they almost inevitably lead to an increase in property

values through the revitalization of decaying areas. This leads to the common

problemoften unintended, but sometimes deliberateof gentrification in

historic preservation areas. It is clear that in market-basedsystems (and in terms

of capital flows, investment, and the tourism industry, Luang Prabang exists in amarket system, despite Laos being one of the last states run by a Communist

Party), rather than helping to control the macro-level development pressures

on sites like Luang Prabang, heritage controls interact with these pressures in

ways that direct benefits toward the owners of capital (causing gentrification)

and, in the absence of state intervention to ensure the preservation of cultural

traditions, militate against non-commodifiable aspects such as intangible cul-

tural heritage, everyday practices, and the spirit of place.

But it is also true that heritage controls are often seen by governments

again, not only governments in developing countriesas potentially too re-

strictive of needed development. Unfortunately, in recent years heritage

cultural, natural, and intangiblehasbeen the victim of pro-development deci-

sions by the Lao government. For instance, the remnants of the old city wall of

Vientiane were destroyed in 1996 for road widening, along with a number of

mature trees planted during the French period. The former French treasury

building in the capital was allowed to decay and was then demolished. The

Nong Chan wetlands were redeveloped to construct a water park. The National

Museum, housed in the former hotel du commissariat, which also functioned

as the offices of the prime minister of the Royal Lao Government, is threatened

with demolition, and the museum is to be relocated to the citys fringe. Majordam projects, such as Nam Theun II, have led to forced relocation of thousands

of people.37

There is nothingnecessarily sinister about governments in developing coun-

tries seeking development. Laos is a poor country with restricted potential for

domestic capital formation and a very real need to improve the standard of liv-

ing of its citizens. However, in countries like Laos, with authoritarian political

systems that have limited responsiveness to pressure from ordinary citizens,

where investment approval decisions are often obscure, and where corruption

is a common problem, perceptions of what is useful development may varybetween political elites and ordinary people. Foreign investment in a big hotel

on the banks of the Mekong may appear to be good development to the Lao po-

litical elite, which tallies up the dollar figures of the bricks and mortar erected

and the number of tourists attracted, but to the farmers who used to grow their

crops onwhat was onceone of the best areas of urban recession flood plain agri-

culture in the region, it is just another example of destructive dispossession.

The most important source of development pressure in heritage sites is, of

course, tourism. In the case of Luang Prabang tourist numbers have increased


37. For analysis of the various dam projects and their potential impacts in Laos and its region, seeOsborne 2004.


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dramatically since world heritage listing, facilitated by the growing number of

international flights to the city (it is even possible to buy airline tickets to Luang

Prabang from 7Eleven stores in Bangkok!).Worldheritage listing functions asa

kind of tourism branding, which is precisely why many governments seek to

have sites listed. But tourism, especially international tourism, is notoriously

difficult to control. The tourismsystemincluding travel companies, hotel and

guesthouse operators, restaurant owners, tour operators, government agen-

cies, tourism site managers, and so onis complex, involves small and large

businesses, government and private organizations. It is subject to the exigen-

cies of local, provincial, and national tourism, economic and infrastructureplanning policies. It is vulnerable to factors over which governmentsespe-

cially local and provincial governmentshave little control, such as exchange

rate fluctuations, pandemic disease, and terrorist threats, or even theattentions

of the international media. It should be obvious that the heritage planning con-

trols implemented in particular heritage sites can have little influence over

many of these factors, even when governments are committed to them, and that

is not always the case.

In the end world heritage listing is only as effective as the protective mecha-

nisms implemented and enforced by the host country. Unesco has no ability todirectly intervene in themaking or implementation of national heritage laws, al-

though it requires that they be in existence before a site can be listed on the

world heritage list. It can threaten a World Heritage in Danger designation, or

even remove sites from the list altogether, but such actions are uncommon and

rarely done without the consent of States Parties. We do not argue here that the

Lao government is not committed to the preservation of Luang Prabang. Our

point is that in order to cope with the many and substantial pressures on the

heritage of Luang Prabang a more expansive understanding of what heritage

means and an accordingly altered approach to its protection is required.

In the Luang Prabangcase, thismeans asa first stepanexpansion of its identi-fied significance,or Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), to fully incorporate the

lessons of the cultural landscapes approach. When Luang Prabang was in-


Fig. 4. Aerial view ofpresent-day Luang

Prabang takenfrom Mount Phousi,

overlooking the RoyalPalace enclosure,

the commercial andcultural buildings precinct

of the city, andthe Mekong River.

(Credit: K. Reeves)


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scribed on the World Heritage List in 1995 there was no requirement for a full

statementof OUV. Accordingly, thenominationdocumentsdidnotprovide one,

although an assessment by the International Council on Monuments and Sites

(Icomos) outlined the key significance values. These focused on architectural

significance, although there was some cursory reference to gardens and river-

bank cultivation. The need for a more comprehensive statement of the cityssignificance is now acknowledged. The Lao governments 2003Periodic Report

(a regular monitoring and reporting exercise required under the World Heri-

tage Convention) provided a new statement of significance, identifying a

number of aspects besides the architectural features, including riverbanks,

green space, a large number of ponds and several landmarks such [as] Phousi

Mount, Pu Thao and Phu Nang Mountains as well as living cultures [that are]

rich, diversified and still vibrant.38

The 2007 Unesco mission correctly recom-

mended that

there would be considerable scope for the drafting of a new, comprehen-

sive Statement of Outstanding Universal Value which would integrate

consideration for all the elementsof the historicurban landscape ofLuang

Prabang, and not only focus on the architectural aspects. These should in-

clude green areas within and adjacent to the city, which are an integral

component of the traditional settlement system, but also the wider natu-

ral context which provided the raison dtre of the town (paddy fields and

water networks) and were associated to spiritual practices and beliefs of

the Lao culture (e.g., main mountain peaks, linked to mythological fig-

ures). Moreover, consideration should be given to the living heritage, and

the related social aspects, whichform an integral part of its cultural signifi-cance and are essential to ensure the material sustainability of the world

heritage property.39

The Luang Prabang case provides an important lesson about world heritage

site designation processes and how designation can shape the way these sites

are managed and evolve. As already mentioned, the original designation of

Luang Prabang focused on its architecture and tangible urban form. The signifi-

cance identified in the Icomos assessment report reads:

Luang Prabang represents to an exceptional extent the successful fusion

of the traditional architectural and urban structures and those of the Euro-pean colonial rulers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its unique

townscape is remarkably well preserved, illustrating a key stage in the

blending of two distinct cultural traditions.40

Further, the world heritage inscription bound the city in fairly constrained

boundaries, excising it from its broader cultural landscape and ignoring other

key cultural practices. The original world heritage designationdid not include a

buffer zone, an absence that is not permitted in more recent listings. The 2007

Icomos missionrecommended that a buffer zone be implemented and this pro-


38. Cited in Boccardi and Logan 2007, 8.39. Boccardi and Logan 2007, 8.40. Icomos 1995.


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vides an opportunity to remedy some of the current exclusions. It will be

interesting to see, though, how the various proposed developments, including

the new town and bridges, affect the delineation of any buffer zone: will the Lao

authorities riskdevelopment opportunities to imposestrictheritage protection

measures? To a considerableextent the answer to this question is likely to be de-

termined by the authorities conceptions of the citys heritage. A limited,traditional view of heritage as largely architectural can, to a considerableextent,

be accommodated within a broader pro-development approach. But such an

approach is likely to have long-term deleterious effects. We suggest that a more

sophisticated approach that incorporates the tangible and intangible heritage

will produce a better result for the preservation of Luang Prabangs heritage in

its broadest sense, for the people that give that heritage its meaning, and for the

long-term social and economic viability of the city.

We have arguedthat in thepreservationandmanagement of heritage tourism

sites in developing countries the political, economic, and social context cannot

be ignored. In the case of Luang Prabang, heritage preservation and tourism for

broader social policy goals must be integrated concerns. In any heritage strat-

egy in Luang Prabang it is important that a balance be foundbetween preserving

the traditional cultural heritage values (particularly the intangible heritage) of

the old city and poverty alleviation. We suggest again that the traditional ap-

proach to heritage place management, which emphasizes architectural and

built form controls, is of only limited value for such a task and should be re-

placed with a cultural landscapes approach, which clearly connects built and

natural landscapes with human agency and seeks to better recognize intangible

cultural expressions. Such a frameworkis particularly useful as it allows empha-sis to be placed on a multiplicity of cultural heritage themes. This, in turn,

strengthens communities and enables local inhabitants to better identify with

and understand their region, providing them in the process with a sense of

place within their community. The framework is also effective as a public policy

concept as it enables a diverse range of stakeholder views to be expressed and

can form part of a consensus-building process.

It is important to recognize here thatwe do not advocateneglect of the archi-

tectural and tangible heritage. Considerable evidence demonstrates that world

heritage listinghas led toa renewed emphasison the preservation or renewal ofinterest in intangible heritage in Luang Prabang. In 1999, Frances Engelmann

commented that key cultural festivals such as the procession of the Phra Bang,

the paladin of the former Kingdom of Lan Xang, have recovered their former

spirit.41

Engelmann,a member of the Unesco missions that prepared the listing

of the Luang Prabang World Heritage Site, recognized that the cultural renais-

sance goes on hand in hand with the longer term job of preserving the citys

architectural standards, which has been a concern for the last decade.42

How-

ever, almost a decade later, in early 2008, the emphasis on maintenance of


41. Engelmann 1999, 44.42. Ibid., 4445.


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architectural standards continues while the status of the intangible heritage of

Luang Prabang remains problematic. Notwithstanding the efforts of cultural

heritage practitioners, the unprecedented boom in tourismhas impacted upon

the maintenance and preservation of traditional life and practices in the city.

One initiative that addresses the need to interpret built and living heritage is

the Heuanchan, situated in Luang Prabang. Heuanchan, a Lao word that literallytranslates as moon house, was a result of an initiative by Unesco, Maison du

Patrimoine, andtheTokyo Instituteof Technology entitled Application of Infor-

mation Technology to World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang. The aim of the

initiative was to facilitate better heritage management.43

Despite these lofty in-

tentions Heuanchans focus was on architectural drawings of the Luang

Prabang streetscapes in the almost complete absence of consideration of the lo-

cal community and its associated intangible cultural heritage. While the

Heuanchan emphasizes the role of information technology in preserving world

heritage, it is also one of the few places in Luang Prabang to actively promoteawareness that intangible and living heritage need the same sort of resources as

thehistoricalbuilt environment. At theHeuanchan there is an exhibition where

visitors can view the historic, cultural, and social features as well as search a her-

itage database. Although there is something of a tension between the twin

emphases on architectural heritage and intangible heritage as the Heuanchan

attempts to promote Luang Prabang as a community and tourist destination

with a strong commitment to conservation and sustainable development,44

nonetheless in acknowledging the various historical layers of Luang Prabang


Fig. 5. Novice monks bathing on the Nam Khan River. Notethe traditional farming terraces in the banks behind the bath-ers. (Credit: A. Dillon)

43. Heuanchan 2006, 56.44. Ibid.


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heritage (in a manner similar to reading a cultural landscape), the Heuanchan

highlights thecomplexity of identifyingand interpreting thecultural heritage in

the present day.

Conclusion

The cultural landscape model, in enabling a polysemic understanding of LuangPrabangs historical layers, would move interpretation of the site beyond a nar-

rowly defined inscription on largely architectural grounds to one that also

places emphasis on understanding and interpreting the intangible, particularly

living, heritage.45While acknowledging that there is no comprehensive system

to document and preserve entire historical landscapes, the cultural landscape

model provides a method of historical analysis that enables a multiplicity of his-

torical voices to be appreciated and heritage themes about Luang Prabang to be

considered.46

Its chief importance, though, lies in the way that it allows heritage

site managers and policy-makers to position the places for which they have re-

sponsibility in a broader context; to fully identify and explain heritage site

significance; to protect allthe values of heritage sites, tangible and intangible;

and to engage local communities in the identification and management of the

heritage values of importance to them. While the pressures from development

remain difficult to resist, a deeper understanding of heritage significance based

on the cultural landscapes approach is more likely to ensure that the protection

of Luang Prabang is not confined to an architectural approach that renders the

city a prettified backdrop for tropical sojourns for the well-to-do. Seeing Luang

Prabang as a cultural landscape should provide those committed to the protec-

tion of its cultural integrity with stronger arguments to resist poorly thought-out schemes such as the new town on the west bank of the Mekong. In the end,

however, a cultural landscapes approach will be successful only if its insights are

manifested not just in the ideas of heritage practitioners but in statutory mea-

sures that provide real, enforceable means of heritage protection and that

elevate heritages status relative to large-scale, culturally and environmentally

destructive development projects.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This article is an output of the Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia andthe Pacific, Deakin Universityled Australian Research Council project Remembering

Places of Pain and Shame. Financial and research support was provided by the Austra-lian Academy of Humanities Traveling Fellowship, the University of Melbourne ECRscheme, the University of Melbourne Faculty of Arts seeding grant, and the Monash Re-search Fellowship Scheme. The authors thank SNV Laos, Mary Menis, and VanessaKredler for their assistance at Unesco, and Claire Merlo and Antoinette Dillon for theirin-country research support. Thanks to Tim Winter for permission to reproduce his im-age for this article: p. 13.

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