Effective Heritage Management Planning: Addressing Contemporary Challenges Using a Five-Dimensional Framework

Heritage management plans for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage properties frequently employ comprehensive, yet static approaches that either fail to be fully implemented or to adequately address some of the most pertinent issues affecting places of significance. These impacts increasingly include climate change, geopolitical shifts, stakeholder complexity, and failures borne out of inequitable participation. Using a design-thinking research approach, the authors posit a five-dimensional framework—strategic clarity, flexibility in implementation, contextual systems thinking, inclusive governance and implementation capacity—which is revised and articulated through a detailed literature review. Through the interpretive analysis of the literature, this paper articulates the presence of persistent problems including rigid plan formats preventing adaptation, failure to prioritise objectives, single-agency focus that at times overlooks other key stakeholders, contextual isolation, and episodic planning. Reflecting on this problem definition, the authors argue that a fundamental reconceptualisation of heritage management planning is required—one that moves beyond rigid, document-centred approaches, towards dynamic, process-oriented frameworks or management systems capable of responding to interconnected contemporary challenges and presented in more integrated and accessible formats.