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Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 April 2022) | Viewed by 14751

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Prof. Dr. Jan van der Borg

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Division of Geography and Tourism, KU Leuven & Department of Economics, University Ca’Foscari Venice, 30123 Venice, Italy
Interests: urban and regional development; tourism economics; urban tourism; overtourism; visitor management
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Dear Colleagues,

The relationship between tourism and cultural heritage assets, being both extremely strong and controversial, is a very challenging one.

Extremely strong, potentially, because tourists are important users of material and immaterial cultural heritage. In fact, the presence of cultural heritage is one of the main reasons for tourists to choose their destinations, and destinations in their turn valorize cultural heritage to make themselves more attractive on the international tourism market. However, not all cultural heritage assets are optimally used, and this leads to a loss of economic and social development opportunities.

Controversial, because, on one hand, tourists generate plenty of positive energy and resources, that not only sustain local economies but may also be used to conserve the cultural heritage, but on the other hand, excessive pressure from tourism on destinations of cultural tourism might very well endanger the integrity of cultural heritage and the local society at large.

This apparent dilemma between under- and overutilization (or conservation and valorization) of cultural heritage by tourists can only be solved by an adequate cultural heritage policy. Cultural heritage management today suffers from the fact that the cultural sector has started to be interested in tourism rather recently and the dialogue between the tourism sector and the cultural sectors is, wrongly, still rather weak. This Special Issue of Sustainability on ‘’Tourism and Culture Heritage Management’’ might contribute to removing some of the conflicts that lead to the abovementioned dilemma.

Possible Themes:

Maximizing economic and social value of material and immaterial cultural heritage for tourism;
Tourism as a possible contributor to heritage conservation;
Can heritage conservation policies boosts tourism development?
Managing host-guest relations in view of heritage conservation and tourism development;
Achieving the sustainability of heritage tourism products;
Best and worst management practices in touristic heritage sites;
Valorization of heritage through educational efforts;
A recipe for actively using cultural heritage for identity, empathy, and citizenship development;
Contribution of heritage to meanings and memories, to a sense of place, and to other ingredients of intangible cultural heritage;
UNESCO’s recognition of world heritage: its impact on heritage tourism and how to use the label smartly;
The role of tourism in management of UNESCO WHS and WHC.

Prof. Dr. Jan van der Borg
Guest Editor

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Keywords

management
policy
cultural heritage
tourism
conservation
valorization
economic and social impact

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 753 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effect of Tourism Experience on Tourists’ Environmentally Responsible Behavior at Cultural Heritage Sites: The Mediating Role of Cultural Attachment

by Zhenfeng Cheng and Xin Chen

Sustainability 2022, 14(1), 565; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14010565 - 05 Jan 2022

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 7474

Abstract

With the rapid development of tourism and the explosive growth of tourist arrivals, the destructive effects of tourist activities on the ecological environment of tourist destinations are becoming increasingly severe, seriously restricting the sustainable development of these destinations. As one of the most important types of current tourist destinations, cultural heritage sites are in urgent need of a well-protected ecological environment. Environmental protection has already become an important task for their sustainable development. The behavior of tourists during visits, which plays a central role in tourist activities, has gradually become a key factor affecting the environment of tourist destinations. Therefore, approaches to effectively identify the mechanisms underpinning tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior have become a focus of both theoretical and practical domains. Based on a stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theoretical framework, our study established a mediation model based on cultural attachments, and explored the mechanisms affecting how cognitive, emotional, and cultural experiences influence tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior. The experience-attachment-behavior transmission mechanism was also considered. A structural equation model was applied to empirically test the 588 pieces of data collected from tourists involved in heritage tourism. The test results show that the cognitive, emotional, and cultural experiences delivered from tourist destinations of cultural heritage, positively affected tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior. Cultural attachment plays a partially mediating role between cognitive, emotional, cultural experiences and tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior. These study results not only support theoretical research on the relationship between tourism experiences and tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior, but also indicate the effective driving pathways of tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior at the practical level. As such, this research provides both theoretical reference and practical guidance for the sustainable development of tourist destinations with diverse cultural heritages. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management)

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23 pages, 1954 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Critical Analysis of a World Heritage Site in Terms of Conservation and Tourism Promotion: The Case of “Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture” (Ibiza, Spain)

by José Ramón-Cardona, David Daniel Peña-Miranda and María Dolores Sánchez-Fernández

Sustainability 2021, 13(23), 13250; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132313250 - 30 Nov 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2373

Abstract

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites (WHS) have great prestige. Each year, candidatures are presented by advocates seeking to raise awareness of the importance of certain cultural and natural sites, to achieve better protection and to make them known, which can promote tourism to benefit the surrounding regions. One of these cases is Ibiza, which, after a first rejection in 1986, obtained the inscription of “Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture” in 1999. This WHS is made up of various cultural and natural elements of the island, although the best known is the fortified Upper Town of Ibiza (Dalt Vila). Since then, important restoration and musealization actions have been carried out in the old town, and some tourism promotion events have been held, but there have been failures in its conversion into a tourist product: Both residents and tourists see this as complementary to the traditional offer (sun and beach tourism); confusion has been generated in communication, focusing on the old town and forgetting the other elements; tourist visits to the registered elements have not taken off and are concentrated in the summer months (the traditional high season); some decisions have been politicized, among other problems. Finally, different lines of tourism development are proposed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management)

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19 pages, 1190 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Brand Personality Traits of World Heritage Sites: Text Mining Approach

by Mohamed Abdalla Elsayed Hassan, Konstantina Zerva and Silvia Aulet

Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6142; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13116142 - 29 May 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3070

Abstract

UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs) must necessarily display Outstanding Universal Values (OUVs), as these play a vital role in constructing competitive brand personality (BP) in tourism marketing. However, how these WHS qualities are perceived by visitors still needs substantial investigation. Adopting a visitor-driven approach, this study seeks to explore the intangible attributes of WHSs and, for the first time, uses the BP concept to measure these attributes in cultural attractions. To investigate how visitors perceive WHS personality traits, 5579 visitor-generated reviews of 175 French (39), German (44), Italian (50), and Spanish (42) cultural WHSs on TripAdvisor were analysed using empirical, mixed methods. Results show that four personality dimension categories can be attributed to WHSs: Sophistication, Sincerity, Competence, and Excitement. Moreover, a novel BP lexical technique is presented along with a 222-item personality trait dictionary, which can be used to measure personality traits in cultural attractions. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management)

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