Government and Local Communities in Participatory Processes Toward Sustainable Management of World Heritage Sites

The sustainable management of World Heritage Sites (WHS) has recently gained significant attention and the involvement of government and local communities in participatory processes is essential to ensure the preservation and protection of these sites for future generations. This chapter intends to investigate the participatory processes involving both public and private actors and aimed to the sustainable management of WHS by applying a place marketing approach – a set of persuasive activities, implemented by a strategic subject and aimed to induce internal and external customers to collaborate. The consideration of the strategic subjects, that represent the decision-making unit of the WHS, includes the distinctive role of public and private actors, and the conditions influencing a sustainable management of WHS. Then, the active forms of participation in the Italian WHS and, specifically, the negotiated planning – a technical form of implementation of local policies, based on an “agreed regulation” between public and/or private actors – are described. Negotiated planning has a number of benefits and limits for the achievement of territorial, social and economic development, and they include five different forms - territorial pacts, institutional program agreements, framework program agreements, area contracts, and program contracts.