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Sustainability
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Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Balancing Preservation, Development and Visitor Experience
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Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Balancing Preservation, Development and Visitor Experience

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability in Geographic Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 April 2025 | Viewed by 5044

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lucrezia Lopez

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Geography, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Interests: human geography; tourism geography; heritage and heritage management; geography of pilgrimages and geography of sacred spaces; geo-humanities
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Antonietta Ivona

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Economy and Finance, University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Interests: economic geography; tourism; agriculture; heritage studies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In general terms, according to the UNWTO, sustainable tourism takes into account future economic, social, and environmental impacts, while preserving the needs of local communities and visitors. As a matter of fact, sustainable tourism is composed of three pillars: social justice, economic development, and environmental integrity. As far as sustainable cultural tourism is concerned, “culture” becomes the main driver for territorial sustainable development. In fact, it integrates the management of cultural heritage, tourism activities, and local communities. This mission implies relevant challenges, such as ensuring social and economic benefits for the involved agents and host communities, preserving the conservation of tangible and intangible heritage, and, no less important, designing policies and strategies aimed at connecting local actors and the needs of visitors.

Considering the outstanding importance of the development goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the present Special Issue aims to address the understanding and impact of cultural tourism in sustainable territorial development. It also intends to gather research that point out the relevance of governance policies in promoting sustainable cultural tourism as a local economic resource.

This Special Issue covers theoretical and empirical research on Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Balancing Preservation, Development and Visitor Experience. Contributions presenting case studies and policy implementation are also welcome. The result will be an up-to-date source on the following themes:

  • Sustainable tourism development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Best practices for cultural tourism sustainability.
  • Sustainable event tourism.
  • Sustainable urban tourism.
  • Sustainable tourism planning and regional development.
  • Consumer behaviour.
  • Carrying capacity.
  • Visitor experience and visitor management.
  • Overtourism/undertourism.
  • Community development and sustainable cultural tourism.
  • Sustainable cultural tourism and climate change scenarios.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Lucrezia Lopez
Dr. Antonietta Ivona
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable cultural tourism
  • tourism development
  • overtourism/undertourism
  • visitor experience and management
  • tourism policies and strategies in cultural tourism
  • climate changes scenarios
  • UN sustainable development goals (SDGs)

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 2070 KiB  
Article
Horticultural Overtourism in Tokyo: Coopetition for Successful Enticement of Visitors from Over- to Less Crowded Gardens
by Sho Shimoyamada
Sustainability 2024, 16(21), 9444; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16219444 - 30 Oct 2024
Viewed by 504
Abstract
Garden managers face the dilemma of promoting and preserving their gardens. Overtourism in popular gardens can be solved by cooperating to entice visitors to alternative, less popular gardens. However, such an enticement strategy may not be successful because garden managers not only cooperate [...] Read more.
Garden managers face the dilemma of promoting and preserving their gardens. Overtourism in popular gardens can be solved by cooperating to entice visitors to alternative, less popular gardens. However, such an enticement strategy may not be successful because garden managers not only cooperate with but also compete against each other (i.e., coopetition). How can garden management practitioners forge a coopetitive relationship to encourage visitors to move from over- to less crowded gardens? Addressing this question, this study aimed to propose a successful coopetitive strategy to redistribute visitors. This study was drawn primarily from semi-structured interviews with garden staff of an overcrowded national garden and multiple less crowded metropolitan gardens. A thematic analysis of qualitative data revealed a lack of cooperation between national and metropolitan gardens and highlighted the former’s aspirations for further growth despite perceived overtourism. This study proposes using the ambiguous cultural status of national and metropolitan gardens as a catalyst for coopetition between them, and contributes to the discourse on sustainable cultural tourism by broadening its scope and redressing the scholarly imbalance between an overemphasis on visitors’ behaviour and a dearth of attention on practitioners of (horti)cultural tourism. Theoretical contributions are detailed at the end of this article. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Balancing Preservation, Development and Visitor Experience)
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15 pages, 766 KiB  
Article
Study on Tourism Responsiveness and Habitat Environment-Influencing Factors of Traditional Villages in Huizhou Area
by Xin Wang, Jingjing Lai and Yanlong Guo
Sustainability 2024, 16(8), 3424; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16083424 - 19 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1368
Abstract
The tourism market for traditional villages in China is expanding, with the Huizhou region being particularly prominent. Traditional villages offer rich tourism resources. To ensure sustainable tourism development in the Huizhou region, this text explores the issues of tourism responsiveness and the sustainability [...] Read more.
The tourism market for traditional villages in China is expanding, with the Huizhou region being particularly prominent. Traditional villages offer rich tourism resources. To ensure sustainable tourism development in the Huizhou region, this text explores the issues of tourism responsiveness and the sustainability impacts on the human environment in the development of traditional villages. The entropy weight-TOPSIS method is used to analyze the evaluation index system of the tourism response in Huizhou. Based on the three criteria of village resource endowment conditions, local economic development environment, and regional tourism development environment, a set of twenty indicators has been selected to establish an evaluation system for the tourism responsiveness of traditional villages in Huizhou. Feasible suggestions have been proposed to address the existing problems and the results of the data analysis in order to further improve tourism responsiveness. This study offers fundamental research for the sustainable development of traditional villages in Huizhou and the enhancement of tourism services in these areas. The results of this study show the following. (1) The highest weighting coefficient of the guideline layer of the garden green area affects the development of village tourism. (2) The high density of cultural heritage in traditional villages is conducive to the improvement of the service level and quality of the traditional village tourism, which will make the traditional villages more culturally connotative. (3) By studying the proportion of the tertiary industry in the GDP of the Huizhou region and its trend of change, it is possible to assess and study whether the tertiary industry’s development is in line with the law of industrial structure evolution. This also helps us to optimize and adjust the important impact of the tourism industry structure in the Huizhou area. (4) The tourism reception can be based on the data concerning passenger flow and scenic spots to plan the number of tourists and excursion routes, as well as optimize the service facilities, in order to alleviate the overcrowding situation, improve the experience of the tourists and satisfy the needs of the tourists. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Balancing Preservation, Development and Visitor Experience)
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28 pages, 15469 KiB  
Article
An Evaluation Study on Tourists’ Environmental Satisfaction after Re-Use of Industrial Heritage Buildings
by Chenqi Han, Yimin Song and Yang Zhao
Sustainability 2024, 16(7), 3032; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16073032 - 5 Apr 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1601
Abstract
As a witness to history, industrial heritage embodies the cultural, technological, and economic values of a particular era. Transforming it into a cultural and creative park can imbue new functions and vitality, supporting and promoting sustainable urban development. This paper focuses on the [...] Read more.
As a witness to history, industrial heritage embodies the cultural, technological, and economic values of a particular era. Transforming it into a cultural and creative park can imbue new functions and vitality, supporting and promoting sustainable urban development. This paper focuses on the Mili Cultural and Creative Park in Quanzhou as its research subject. Through interviews and questionnaire analyses from the perspective of tourists, five evaluation factors are extracted: spatial environmental elements, social cultural elements, landscape and greening elements, supporting facilities elements, and transportation and location elements. An analysis of tourist satisfaction using the semantic differential method reveals a higher satisfaction with spatial environmental elements, social cultural elements, and landscape and greening elements, while satisfaction with supporting facilities elements and transportation location elements is low. Additionally, the modified IPA method is employed for the analysis, revealing poor overall performance in supporting facilities elements and transportation and location elements. In subsequent efforts, priority should be given to improving the quantity and reasonable distribution of garbage cans, organization of events in the park, traffic conditions outside the park, parking around the park, and park accessibility. The aim is to further optimize the environment after the reuse of industrial heritage, enhance tourist satisfaction, and promote urban sustainability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Balancing Preservation, Development and Visitor Experience)
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