19 November 2018


Third Regional Conference of the OWHC Asia-Pacific Region

The Third Regional Conference of the OWHC Asia and Pacific Region was held from 29th of October to 1st of November on the topic of “Heritage and Sustainable Tourism” in Suzhou, People’s Republic of China. Around 300 city delegates from the World Heritage Cities in the Region and experts from across the world attended to the meeting.

On the first day of the Conference, the experts were gathered to share scientific background and develop tools that the cities can use while they plan or implement their projects for sustainable tourism. The discussions and tools from the Expert’s Workshop were transmitted to the delegates during the Mayor’s Workshop.

Programs of the Conference were designed to give insights to the participants to deal with the ongoing issues regarding the sustainable tourism in the World Heritage Cities. The programs are evaluated being very fruitful and also helpful to design appropriate strategies in this rapidly changing era.

At the last day of the Conference, the working meeting of OWHC took place. Both General Secretariat and Regional Secretariat reported on ongoing and future projects and asked for continuous interest of participants. The member cities also voted for the host city of the 4th Regional Conference, and the city of Vigan, Philippines was selected as the one.

The Regional Secretariat thanks especially all delegates and experts who made this conference to be successful and Suzhou, the host city, who was generous and helpful.