Cultural Tourism and Sustainable Local Development

With the exponential rise in leisure mobility, tourism has increasingly become of great economic significance. Cultural heritage, such as museums, churches, historical landscapes, urban parks, and exhibitions attract many visitors and countries, regions and cities which house such historic-cultural amenities have seen increasingly large waves of tourists. While an avalanche of tourists has a positive impact on the local economy, such modern mass tourism also brings about negative externalities such as congestion, decline in quality of life, low access to cultural amenities and loss of local identity; to the extent that the sustainability conditions of a locality might be endangered. This tourism dilemma is particularly pronounced in cities with a rich cultural past, such as Venice, Naples and Amsterdam. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars from North America and Europe, this book examines the interface of local cultural resources and modern mass tourism from a sustainability perspective. It puts forward innovative methodologies and best case practice for future cultural conservation policies.

Contents: Preface; Narrow escapes: pathways to sustainable local cultural tourism, Luigi Fusco Girard and Peter Nijkamp. Part I Tourism Development as a Sustainable Strategy: Tourism, heritage and cultural sustainability: 3 'golden rules', David Throsby; Tourism and development: towards sustainable outcomes, Geoffrey Wall; Sustainable development and tourism: opportunities and threats to cultural heritage from tourism, Harry Coccossis; Valuing urban cultural heritage, Peter Nijkamp and Patrizia Riganti. Part II Policies on Sustainable Tourism and Cultural Resources: Cultural heritage, local resources and sustainable tourism:towards an operational framework for policy and planning, Christian Ost; Juridical and political tools for a sustainable development of tourism: present context and future perspectives, Guiliana Di Fiore; Cultural heritage, sustainable tourism and economic development: a proposal for Southern Italy, Antonio Saturnino; Sustainable tourism, renewable energy and transportation, Maria Giaoutzi, Christos Dionelis and Anastasia Stratigea. Part III Case Studies: Local government and networking trends supporting sustainable tourism: some empirical evidence, Francesco Polese; Cultural tourism, sustainability and regional development: experiences from Romania, Daniela L. Constantin and Constantin Mitrut; Tourism sustainability and economic efficiency: a statistical analysis of Italian provinces, Maria Francesca Cracolici, Miranda Cuffaro and Peter Nijkamp; Valorisation strategies for archaeological sites and settings of environmental value: lessons from the Adriatic coast, Donatella Cialdea; Utility and visitor preferences for attributes of art galleries, Ken Willis and Naomi Kinghorn. Part IV New Departures for Evaluation: Tourism, cultural heritage and strategic evaluations: towards integrated approaches, Luigi Fusco Girard and Francesca Torrieri; Restoring roadman’s houses in Sardinia, Italy: a multicriteria decision support system for tourism plannin

Luigi Fusco Girard is Professor of Conservation of Cultural and Environment Heritage at the University of Naples Federico 2, Italy and Peter Nijkamp is Professor of Spatial Economics at the Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.