Wanted: World Heritage status for, er, Benidorm

THINK for a moment about just a handful of the 1,007 #UNESCO World Heritage sites: there’s Australia’s Great Barrier Reef; Austria has Salzburg’s city centre; there are the Angkor temples in Cambodia; France has Chartes Cathedral; Scotland has the old and new towns of Edinburgh, and in England there is Bath, celebrated for its Roman baths and its 18th century Palladian architecture.

Would you add #Benidorm, the Spanish birthplace of Europe’s high-rise-hotel-sun-and-beach package tour industry, to the list? Many wouldn’t, but the town’s council thinks it should be up there with the world’s great natural and man-made wonders. It intends to apply for UNESCO World Heritage Site recognition.

It argues that because tourism is now one of the world's most important industries – whether viewed in terms of employment, cultural change, or environmental impact – and because the beach holiday is an especially significant component of tourism's growth, “pioneering” holiday destinations such as Benidorm deserve to be taken seriously.

What’s the Spanish for … you have got to be joking!

www.lovebenidorm.co.uk
www.en.visitbenidorm.es

Go Holiday news : www.govillasandcottages.co.uk

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Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42033648@N00/6162594254">Benidorm, Costa Blanca, Spain, 18 Sept. 2011</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)