Assessing cultural heritage potential: A framework to incorporate incentives programme into heritage management strategies

As the understanding of heritage changes and the scope of it widens to include the living heritage, the involvement of communities in the conservation areas has become more and more critical. In terms of cultural heritage conservation, only a few studies have combined the importance of incentives programme into the heritage management strategies. There has been little research into the nature and impact of these incentives and how they might be integrated into the socio-economic development of a country. This study will highlight the relevant literature of the existing incentives policy in Asia and around the world. The focus of this study is to discover the potential of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage; examine how incentives act as a driver to the communities development. The later part of this study moves on to describe in details the integrated framework by which to access the cultural heritage significance that encompasses the tangible and intangible heritage and takes into consideration the effectiveness of any current incentives policy and its governance. By doing so, this methodology aims to contribute as well as to enable that the inclusive engagement can be successful among communities. Despite the increasing focus on incentives provision in cultural heritage management strategies, an investigation into whether these incentives policy actually "work" remains in part as an open question.