Tourism: A good servant, A bad master

The Getty Lecture Series

The World Heritage site of the Mogao Grottoes is China’s preeminent ancient Buddhist site on the Silk Road, comprising nearly 500 cave temples (4^th and the 14^th centuries) with magnificent wall paintings and sculpture.  The Getty Conservation Institute has been working with the Dunhuang Academy since 1989 on strategies to conserve and manage the site.  Having flourished for a thousand years and survived abandonment for four centuries, the site faces a new threat from mass tourism – a threat that was not even conceivable thirty years ago. A national policy that identifies tourism as a pillar industry, along with pressure from local authorities and businesses to encourage tourism, risks becoming an unsustainable situation for management and an uncomfortable and unsatisfying experience for visitors,  as well as causing irreparable damage to the fragile ancient Buddhist art. This was the basis for a comprehensive approach to managing visitation and establishing a visitor impact and capacity study beginning in 2000. Although successful in many respects, the visitor capacity has been revised many times and the ever changing and unrelenting demands of tourism to the site have required continuous adaptation and response.

About the Speakers

• Martha Demas

Martha Demas is a senior project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute. She received her doctorate in archaeology and master's degree in historic preservation planning. Since 1990 when she joined the GCI, she has been involved in many of the institute's international field projects in China, Egypt, the Mediterranean, Belize, and Tanzania, and in developing methodologies, guidelines, and training courses, with a principal interest in conservation and management of archaeological sites, and a recent focus on visitor management and carrying capacity. She is co-author of the 2015 publication focused on carrying capacity and visitor management, Strategies for Sustainable Tourism at the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, China. Currently, she is involved in master planning for the archaeological site of Paphos in Cyprus and in developing regional guidelines for Buddhist grotto sites on the Silk Road in Gansu Province in collaboration with the Dunhuang Academy.

• Neville Agnew

Neville Agnew is a senior principal project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI). He holds a doctorate in chemistry and has taught at universities in South Africa and Australia. Before joining the GCI in 1988 he headed the conservation department at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane where he worked on both natural history collections and historic and palaeontological  sites. At the Getty his initial work was in earthen architectural preservation research, and he then became responsible for many of the early field projects of the institute in China, Egypt, and other sites in many countries. He is completing the project for the conservation of the tomb of King Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings and exploring ways to develop an extensive network of professionals and private enthusiasts for the protection and of promotion of rock art as a neglected global heritage. Neville Agnew has worked to lead the GCI’s work in China for 30 years.

Refreshments from 5.30pm

Held in partnership with the College of Arts, Law and Education and Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority.