Loving diversities, correcting inequalities. A proposal for a World Heritage tax

The aim of this paper is to cope with the imbalances affecting World Heritage Sites as to the conditions of their conservation and the resources available for their valorisation. We propose a policy mechanism divided into three phases. The first one aims at providing an objective approach to measure the needs and diversity of World Heritage Sites. The second phase presents valorisation strategies to generate new economic resources, in particular from cultural tourism. The third one illustrates the tax mechanism based on collecting resources through an earmarked tax on tourist activities and redistributing these resources at a regional scale. Our proposal is a contribution to the growing literature on Unesco World Heritage sites and it may be useful to ground the decision making of the recently formed Unesco Centres aimed at raising funds for the World Heritage conservation.