Heritage conservation and the limitation of public-private partnerships

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, different governments face serious challenges related to the conservation of their heritage assets. Therefore, the necessity emerged to look for other alternatives beyond the traditional ones, where PPP is one of these substitutions. Nevertheless, the implementation of PPP in heritage conservation is still restricted. Thus, this research tries to fill the void in the knowledge gap by investigating the potential pitfalls that would undermine PPPs in heritage conservation. This has been fulfilled through analysing the case of Varaždin County Palace in Croatia, whereby a semi-structured interview is used for data collection. This research has identified a group of five main pitfalls that prohibit the effective implementation of PPPs in built heritage, namely political commitment, a lack of understanding of the nature of PPPs among public bodies, the lack of a sound economic environment, the non-competitive characteristics of private operators, and misrepresentation of PPPs in Croatia.

KEYWORDS:

• Public-private partnerships
• heritage conservation
• pitfalls
• Varaždin palace
• Croatia

Acknowledgements

The author of this research would like to give many thanks to all the research participants who generously contributed to this research which is a part of the author’s PhD research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).