Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe recognised interpretation as the central pillar for their development.
At the 14th Advisory Forum on Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe in Türkyie, heritage interpretation was placed as a central pillar and a cross-cutting priority for developing Cultural Routes across Europe and beyond. Drawing on the panel discussion to which IE contributed, this article highlights the Forum’s recommendations and what this means for heritage interpretation.
Set against the dramatic landscape of Cappadocia, Forum gathered over 350 participants to reflect on how Cultural Routes can strengthen heritage protection, sustainable tourism, and community engagement. Heritage interpretation as a cross-cutting skill can contribute to all these developmental needs of the Routes. Heritage interpretation was referred to in terms that Interpret Europe has been advocating for in recent years. This was due to some influential speakers, among whom were academics such as Mike Robinson and Chris Whitehead from the UK, and Peter Debrine from UNESCO, who represented our profession alongside IE’s director Helena Vičič.
In the panel on Heritage Interpretation, speakers emphasised that interpretation today is no longer simply about conveying information. It is about shaping relationships between people and place, between past and present, and across cultures. The Forum’s conclusions strongly echoed this shift, calling for innovative, inclusive, and values-based interpretation that emotionally resonates with audiences and brings human values to life through providing holistic interpretive experiences.
An equally important element of the conclusions paper was the recognition that interpretation must be co-created with communities, ensuring plural perspectives and acknowledging diverse, and at times contested, histories. Community interpretation restores the bond between residents and their heritage, and allows visitors to engage with authentic, lived experiences rather than curated narratives.
Interpreters are positioned not merely as communicators but as facilitators of dialogue, empathy, and intercultural understanding across transnational networks. The Forum’s encouragement to develop shared interpretive frameworks (across routes), collaborate with guide associations, and invest in training, marks a major step toward elevating interpretation as a professional field within the Cultural Routes programme.
The conclusions also carry significant implications for European cultural policy. By linking interpretation to urgent contemporary issues, such as climate change, migration, social inequalities, and environmental degradation, the Forum reframed interpretation as an action-oriented tool capable of inspiring societal change.
This positions interpreters as contributors not only to heritage management, but also to democratic participation and social cohesion, echoing the human-rights-based principles of the Faro Convention.
For the future of cultural routes, the Forum’s outcomes provide a clear blueprint. Interpretation is recognised as a driver of sustainable tourism, capable of deepening visitor engagement while helping to disperse heavy footfall away from overburdened destinations. It supports local economies by empowering residents to become guides and heritage ambassadors. And importantly, it reinforces landscape-based approaches that place communities at the heart of heritage protection.
As experienced during the discussions in Cappadocia, the momentum around heritage interpretation has rarely been stronger. The Forum’s conclusions reaffirm that interpretation is central to building a more inclusive, resilient, and meaningful cultural landscape across Europe. For Interpret Europe, this moment represents both a responsibility and an opportunity: to support Europe’s heritage sector in ways that speak to the challenges and hopes of our time, through training, networking, advocacy and policy work.
These recommendations signal a paradigm shift in the cultural sector that is underway. This new approach to interpretation is a guiding light of all IE progammes, including training, the Learning Landscapes initiative and the upcoming conference in Faro, Portugal, that will build on the spirit of the Faro Convention.
The IE News Team is led by Marie Banks, News Coordinator. She can be contacted at: marie.banks@interpret-europe.net.
Why not join the next IE conference in Portugal in April 2026 to discuss more about the Cultural Routes Forum and the wider implications of the recognition of interpretation. www.interpreteuropeconference.net.
To cite this article: Dimitrovska, Vasilka (2025) ‘Hands-on with the Romans: Re-imagining Stobi through live interpretation’ in Interpret Europe Newsletter 3-2025, p. 17.
Available online: Newsletter autumn 2025
