Zusammenfassung: This proceedings book explores future prospects of cultural, heritage, and religious tourism and how it can impact the socioeconomic complexity of a community and future developments. It includes chapters on contemporary digital age pilgrimage, digital interpretation as a management strategy, tourism in the era of digital communication, and the role of social media in conserving intangible cultural heritage. This book focuses on policies and mechanisms for heritage preservation. It includes cultural heritage tourism management, how the digitalization of data has impacted and further developed tourism, World Heritage classification in urban tourism destinations, cultural tourism products, and experiences. Moreover, it discusses the sustainable environment and geography in tourism. It covers topics such as ecotourism and rural sustainable development, heritage in socioeconomic sustainable development, and tourists' perceptions of tourism. Another part of the book explores the social and economic impacts of tourism. It includes chapters on cycling tourism along the Elbe, residents' perceptions of the socioeconomic benefits of restaurants, architecture of historical mosques, tourism as a driver of soft power, tourists' perceptions of service quality, tourism during the Covid-19 pandemic, gastronomic narratives in tourism, and residents' perceptions of festivals. Also, it pinpoints the focus on user interaction-based development. It includes chapters on the role of community-led initiatives in heritage revitalization and addressing connectivity issues between historical and natural touristic heritage sites. These research papers provide valuable insights into the multidimensional nature of cultural sustainable tourism, covering a wide range of topics and offering diverse perspectives on its development, management, and impact

This book includes research papers submitted to and presented during the first international conference on Cultural Sustainable Tourism (CST) that was held in Thessaloniki, Greece in November of 2017. Discussing complex relations between Culture, tourism, and the role of planners and architects in their maintenance, this conference was jointly organized by IEREK –International Experts for Research Enrichment and Knowledge Exchange- and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The conference was an attempt to shed a light on the significance of Culture and Heritage as two important factors attracting tourists and promoting economic growth and convey civilizations through tourism. Themes covered in this book give an overview on current research and topics of discussion that focus on Cultural sustainable tourism through several sections. The first section, titled “Art, Architecture and Culture”, discusses urban regeneration as a road to the preservation of cultural and tourist destinations and the importance of understanding and benefitting from our heritage to allow for modern day improvements. “Heritage Tourism”, the section 2 of the book, is more focused on offering nontraditional solutions and management plans to sustain cultural tourism and improve quality of life around historically significant areas. The third section on the “City and Rural Tourism” follows by providing sustainable strategies to attract tourists and promoting the use of existing resources. The last and final section with the title of “Sustainable Tourism, Development and Environmental Management” maneuvers around the different yet common environmental issues existing today and proposes new and innovative solutions for their elimination. Presenting a wide range of topics in chapters, this book provides the scientific community with a collection of unique and enlightening literature.

The book first explains the dynamics of cultural heritage with its authenticity underpinnings, marketing, and tourism, and proposes a strategic praxis drawn from core sustainable principles.

Today, tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing industries accounting for nearly 700 million people travelling all over the world and spending more than 7.4 trillion US dollars. Besides promoting people-to-people contacts, ethnic and cultural understanding, mutual appreciation and co-operation and thereby promoting peace, tourism provides unlimited opportunities for employment generation, social and economic upliftment of the people and contributing to the economies of the nations. Cultural heritage tourism has a number of objectives that must be met within the context of sustainable development such as; the conservation of cultural resources, accurate interpretation of resources, authentic visitors experience, and the stimulation of the earned revenues of cultural resources. Tourism is an important issue at world heritage sites. Most managers at natural sites regard it as a key issue. Important features of world heritage tourism are local protection, conservation and restoration. Such a tourism also requires special training management skills. Different visitor management strategies, interpretation and site promotional activities have to be organised. Culture and heritage have also become major forces in economic and urban revitalisation. As cultural tourism becomes an increasingly important factor for tourist destinations involved in developing their cultural capital in order to attract more international visitors, there is value in assessing how cultural and heritage tourists can be better understood and serviced through marketing, planning and programming with local and regional communities. This book also provides readers with global charters developed for promoting cultural tourism and for preserving heritage sites. Focus lies on ICOSM and WHC. World Heritage Sites, identified and conserved around the world, have been listed and the initiatives to preserve cultural sites and conserve heritage sites.

Culture and heritage tourism provide an important direction in sustainable funding and tourism. Assessing the potential of cultural and heritage assets, including physical and experiential values, is crucial for the sustainability of tourism attractions and regional development. Conservation and Promotion of Heritage Tourism is a collection of innovative methods and applications to utilize historical resources to increase tourism for long-term economic security and advancement. Highlighting a range of topics including cultural tourism, community development, and tourism branding, this book is ideally designed for historians, city planners, curators, business professionals, educators, engineers, managers, tourism researchers, graduate-level students, policymakers, and academicians seeking current research on the connections between culture, conservation, sustainable development, and tourism.

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.

Every place has a story to tell, often found in historic sites or cultural traditions of the people who settled or currently live in a community, city, region or state. When these stories and places are shared with visitors, this activity becomes what is known as cultural heritage tourism. Success and sustainability in this growing industry segment requires careful planning and adequate resources. Cultural Heritage Tourism: Five Steps for Success and Sustainability provides detailed instruction through a proven five-step process to help planners, managers and community leaders attract visitors and their spending to your cultural heritage site, attraction, event or destination. Learn how to assess, plan for, develop, market, fund, manage, and measure cultural heritage for growth and sustainability. Refer to the best practices and case studies from across the country as examples for replication and reference. Use the sample documents and resource lists to jumpstart your cultural heritage tourism program, and monitor and measure the efforts. This book walks you through every step, from inception to evaluation.