heritage tourism product development

Through our community-based approach, we design tourism experiences to support tradition-bearers and to ensure their communities benefit from having their cultural heritage shared with the world.

The Cultural Heritage Tourism Initiative uses research and presentation methods from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival to curate engaging, inclusive, and sustainable community-based tourism experiences. We help hosts convey their heritage by working together to create extraordinary experiences—both immersive and unforgettable—instilling a sense of place and leaving travelers with enduring memories.

Our process prioritizes an equitable relationship in order to ensure communities directly benefit from sharing their cultural heritage worldwide. Our work in tourism leverages other synergistic initiatives, such as the Center’s work with artisans and the Festival. Activities include cultural heritage documentation, participatory community engagement, destination assessment and asset inventory, experience design and product development, workshops and trainings, enterprise development, market access and linkages, policy reform, and strategic planning.

UPLIFT North Carolina

The Center’s partnership with UPLIFT North Carolina provides participatory workshops and mentorship, working with partners to support and develop festivals and cultural heritage tourism experiences that benefit both visitors and communities. Our partnership is focused on strengthening rural economies through bolstering quality tourism experiences. The two-year project began in July 2023.

UPLIFT supports tourism through community-driven efforts in rural North Carolina. This team works regionally—across county borders—to support local tourism leaders and practitioners in realizing their vision for tourism in their community. Their work supports natural, recreational, cultural, agricultural, culinary, built, and additional areas of tourism.

At the nexus of North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, Tunisia is a confluence of history and culture. Thousands of archaeological and cultural sites, including UNESCO-recognized Carthage, El Jem, and Kairouan, are a visual testament to its diverse heritage. Tunisia’s living culture is also vibrant, from medinas bustling with artisanal production to the traditional practices of Indigenous Amazigh communities. However, despite this abundance of cultural heritage, tourists visiting Tunisia seldom leave its low-cost Mediterranean beach resorts.

In 2021, we launched a partnership with the USAID Visit Tunisia Activity to research and document Tunisia’s living culture and develop equitable and sustainable models of community-based cultural heritage tourism. Our work includes training, mentorship, and exchange for local festival organizers and research-based product development to share Tunisia’s living culture with visitors and the world.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Situated in southeastern Europe, where Eastern and Western cultures meet, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a rich history of religious, natural, and cultural diversity. We partnered with USAID Turizam to highlight the contemporary cultural life of Bosnia and Herzegovina—experienced through music, dance, food, and craft. In 2021, we led workshops for more than a hundred cultural festival organizers, sharing best practice and case studies from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In 2022, we led workshops for more than a hundred tourism enterprises to share our approach to community-centered, research-based cultural heritage tourism product development, incorporating cultural practices into tourism experiences that promote cultural sustainability and exchange.

Prior to 2015, most visitors to Armenia stayed in the capital and ventured out only to visit iconic natural landscapes and built heritage sites. This model limited interaction and exchange between visitors and local people and concentrated tourism spending in the capital, Yerevan. With USAID Armenia, we co-created the My Armenia Cultural Heritage Tourism Program, a seven-year program that piloted a new, community-centered, and research-based approach to experiential tourism. The program concluded in December 2021, but the impact remains—a radically different approach to tourism and more than 150 resilient tourism and artisan enterprises.

By Rachel Barton

Layers of Armenia’s fascinating cultural heritage are embedded in the country’s pristine landscapes, which are dotted with ancient cave dwellings, mountain monasteries, fortresses, and Armenian  khatchkars  (cross-stones).

By Jackie Flanagan Pangelinan

Vahagn Hambardzumyan and Zara Gasparyan are the husband-and-wife team behind Sisian Ceramics. Founded in 2010, the studio they named for their hometown is located in Armenia’s Syunik Province.

By Tony Cohn

The oldest known evidence of winemaking was discovered in the Areni-1 cave complex. It’s this very site in southern Armenia that has had a major impact on how archeologists understand humanity’s earliest civilizations.

By Rebecca Wall

What makes a wine Armenian? Irina Ghaplanyan and Vahe Keushguerian emphasize the unique grape varietals indigenous to Armenia and the country’s exceptional  terroir .

By Halle Butvin

In October 2018, the My Armenian program hosted the second annual My Handmade Armenia Festival in Yerevan and celebrated the official launch of FestivAr Association of Armenian Festivals.

By Yuri Horowitz

In August 2020, Yerevan Magazine printed a special issue featuring opportunities to travel within Armenia, based on My Armenia research and collaborations.

Donors & Local Partners

• Ferring Pharmaceuticals USAID

Local Partners

• Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia Teryan Cultural Center

Email powered by MailChimp ( Privacy Policy , Terms of Use )

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, cultural heritage tourism — opportunities for product development: the barcelona case.

Tourism Review

ISSN : 1660-5373

Article publication date: 1 January 2006

A theoretical framework and a practical case is presented, which introduce a new methodology for the creation of tourism products based on cultural heritage. After discussing selected definitions of cultural tourism, a first approach towards classifying cultural heritage based tourism is defined. The author emphasizes that one of the most crucial component of tourism development is policy, which has been analysed in order to shed light on the most important issues related to it. Thus, a conceptual chart on the creation of tourism products is drafted, outlining the elements that have to be taken into consideration in order to successfully stimulate ‘cultural consumption’ or exchange between hosts and guests. A case study shows the opportunities to create new tourism products using cultural heritage resources: “Barcelona's Cultural Identity Itinerary”, which is based on cultural centres and associations as the basic cultural resources, but also includes among others, museums, art galleries, historic sites and monuments within the itinerary.

Datzira‐Masip, J. (2006), "Cultural heritage tourism — opportunities for product development: The Barcelona Case", Tourism Review , Vol. 61 No. 1, pp. 13-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb058466

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles

We’re listening — tell us what you think, something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

Models of Heritage Tourism Sustainable Planning

• First Online: 29 January 2019

Cite this chapter

• Ana Mrđa 18 &
• Hrvoje Carić 19  

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

1574 Accesses

6 Citations

The study is based on the theory models of heritage tourism sustainable planning that act as a catalyst for the destinations’ market positioning. From the spatial-planning point of view, the competitiveness of the destination is based on the specific cultural experiences, environmental quality and scenic landscape, that positions destination as a quality place for living, working and investing as result of (positive) tourism–heritage interaction. Models of heritage tourism sustainable planning imply the harmony and balance between the global tourism standards and the preservation of the cultural identity of the destination. They are comprised of two main components: an autochthonous place with its cultural–social–economic characteristics and a viable tourism scenario with its sustainable cultural product. The research, based on the visual perception questionnaire, reinforces the paradigm that the heritage tourism sustainable planning models should aim to support the development of tourism without jeopardizing the spatial and socio-economic characteristics of both natural and anthropogenic features of the area and without creating social or economic difficulties for the local community. At the same time, they should be empowered to regulate the tourism/visitor issues consistent with the destinations’ lifescape image and cultural tourism experience.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Cultural tourists are motivated to travel for different reasons than other tourists and, therefore, feel that motivation must be considered an important element when defining cultural tourism (Richards 1996 ).

In the case of cultural tourism, the issue is that of the ‘wise exploitation’ of the heritage for tourist use (Russo and van der Borg 2002 ).

In 1998, Hall and Piggin conducted a survey of 44 World Heritage Sites, in which over two-thirds of the site managers reported there had been an increase in visitor numbers after their site gained World Heritage status.

Abu Hassan Z, Bin Jailani M, Rahim AF (2014) Assessing the situational analysis of heritage tourism industry in Melaka. Procedia—Soc Behav Sci 130:28–36

Article   Google Scholar  

Boer B, Wiffen G (2006) Heritage law in Australia. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, p 43

Google Scholar  

Brown G (2005) Mapping spatial attributes in survey research for natural resource management: methods and applications. Soc Nat Resour 18(1):17–39

Chhabra D (2009) Proposing a sustainable marketing framework for heritage tourism. J Sustain Tourism 17(3):301–320

Croatian Bureau of Statistics (2017) Statistical yearbook of the Republic of Croatia. Retrieved 21 March 2017. Web site: http://www.icomos.org/tourism/ , https://www.dzs.hr/Hrv_Eng/ljetopis/2017/sljh2017.pdf

Davenport MA, Anderson DH (2005) Getting from sense of place to place based management: an interpretive investigation of place meanings and perceptions of landscape change. Soc Nat Resour 18:625–641

Drost A (1996) Developing sustainable tourism for World Heritage Sites. Ann Tourism Res 23(2):479–492

Farid SM (2015) Tourism management in world heritage sites and its impact on economic development in Mali and Ethiopia. Procedia—Soc Behav Sci 211:595–604

Farina A (2000) The cultural landscape as a model for the integration of ecology and economics. Bioscience 50(4):313–320

Garrod B, Fyall A (2000) Managing heritage tourism. Ann Tourism Res 27(3):682–708

Herbert D (2001) Literary places, tourism and the heritage experience. Ann Tourism Res 28(2):312–333

Ho P, McKercher B (2004) Managing heritage resources as tourism products. Asia Pac J Tourism Res 9(3):255–266

Huang C, Tsaur J, Yang C (2012) Does world heritage list really induce more tourists? Evidence from Macau. Tour Manag 33:1450–1457

ICOMOS (1997) Charter for cultural tourism. Retrieved 9 March 2017. Web site: http://www.icomos.org/tourism/

Jacobsen J, Steen K (2007) Use of landscape perception methods in tourism studies: a review of photo-based research approaches. Tourism Geographies 9(3):234–253

Jamal T, Hil S (2004) Developing a framework for indicators of authenticity: the place and space of cultural and heritage tourism. Asia Pac J Tourism Res 9(4):353–372

Kaltenborn BP, Bjerke T (2002) Associations between landscape preferences and place attachment: a study in Roros, Southern Norway. Landscape Res 27(4):381–396

Kaufman P (1997) Community values in cultural landscape decision making: developing recommendations for ensuring planning processes include differing expectations of communities of interest. Historic Environ 13(3 and 4):57–62

Ko TG (2005) Development of a tourism sustainability assessment procedure: a conceptual approach. Tour Manag 26(3):431–445

Leask A, Fyall A (2006) Managing world heritage sites. Butterworth-Heinemann, MA, USA

Book   Google Scholar  

Lee SL (1996) Urban conservation policy and the preservation of historical and cultural heritage: the case of Singapore. Cities 13(6):399–409

Li M, Wub B, Cai L (2008) Tourism development of World Heritage Sites in China: a geographic perspective. Tour Manag 29:308–319

Lim C (2006) A survey of tourism demand modeling practice: issues and implications. In International handbook on the economics of tourism. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham

Maessen R, Wilms G, Jones-Walters L (2008) Branding our landscapes: some practical experiences from the LIFESCAPE project. In: 8th European IFSA symposium, Clermont-Ferrand (France), pp 551–561

Maharjan M (2013) Conflict in World Heritage Sites of Kathmandu Valley: a case study on the conservation of private houses in three durbar squares. Nepal Tourism Dev Rev 2(1):87–104

Maikhuri RK, Nautiyal S, Rao KS, Saxena KG (2001) Conservation policy-people conflicts: a case study from Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (a world heritage site), India. Forest Policy Econ 2(3):355–365

McCain G, Ray NM (2003) Legacy tourism: the search for personal meaning in heritage travel. Tour Manag 24:713–717

McIntosh A, Prentice R (1999) Affirming authenticity: consuming cultural heritage. Ann Tourism Res 26:589–612

McKercher B, Hoa PSY, du Crosb H (2005) Relationship between tourism and cultural heritage management: evidence from Hong Kong. Tourism Manag 26:539–548

Moy LYY, Phongpanichanan C (2014) Does the status of a UNESCO World Heritage City make a destination more attractive to Mainland Chinese tourists? A preliminary study of Melaka. Procedia—Soc Behav Sci 144:280–289

Mrđa A (2015) Method for determining tourism carrying capacity in spatial planning. Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb, Zagreb

Mrđa A, Bojanić Obad Šćitaroci B (2014) The importance of the concept of tourism carrying capacity for spatial planning—previous research, development and methodological approaches. Prostor 22(2):212–227

Mrđa A, Bojanić Obad Šćitaroci B (2016) Heritage touristscapes: a case study of the Island of Hvar. Annales-Anali za Istrske in Mediteranske Studije-Series Historia et Sociologia 26(3):553–572

OECD (2009) The impact of culture on tourism. Retrieved 4 October 2016. Web site: http://www.oecd.org/cfe/tourism/theimpactofcultureontourism.htm

Pendlebury J, Short M, While A (2009) Urban World heritage sites and the problem of authenticity. Cities 26(6):349–358

Poria Y, Butler R, Airey D (2003) The core of heritage tourism. Ann Tourism Res 30(1):238–254

Richards G (1996) Production and consumption of European cultural tourism. Ann Tourism Res 23(2):261–283

Richards G (2013) Tourism development trajectories: from culture to creativity. In: Smith M, Richards G (eds) The Routledge handbook of cultural tourism. Routledge, London, pp 297–303

Russo AP, van der Borg J (2002) Planning considerations for cultural tourism: a case study of four European cities. Tourism Manag 23:631–637

Saarinen J (2006) Traditions of sustainability in tourism studies. Ann Tourism Res 33(4):1121–1140

Silberberg T (1995) Cultural tourism and business opportunities for museums and heritage sites. Tour Manag 16(5):361–365

Stebbins RA (1996) Cultural tourism as serious leisure. Ann Tourism Res 23(4):948–950

Swarbrooke J (2002) Heritage tourism in UK—a glance from things to come. From http://www.insights.org.uk/article.aspx?title=Heritage+Tourism+in+the+UK+a+Glance+at+Things+to+Comeandtype=7andlang=en_usandoutput=json

The Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (2005) UN Environmental program. UNEP/MAP, Atena

Tunbridge J, Ashworth G (1996) Dissonant heritage: the management of the past as a resource in conflict. Wiley, London

Wager J (1995) Developing a strategy for the Angkor world heritage site. Tour Manag 16(7):515–523

Wang Y, Bramwell B (2012) Heritage protection and tourism development priorities in Hangzhou, China: a political economy and governance perspective. Tour Manag 33:988–998

WHC (2005) Retrieved 5 October 2016. Web site: http://whc.unesco.org/

Yang CH, Lin HL, Han CC (2010) Analysis of international tourist arrivals in China: the role of World Heritage Sites. Tour Manag 31(6):827–837

Zhang X, Zhou L, Wu Y, Skitmore M, Deng Z (2015) Resolving the conflicts of sustainable world heritage landscapes in cities: fully open or limited access for visitors? Habitat Int 46(91):91–100

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Institute of Tourism, Zagreb, Croatia

Hrvoje Carić

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ana Mrđa .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Department of Urban Planning, Spatial Planning, Landscape Architecture, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Mladen Obad Šćitaroci

Bojana Bojanić Obad Šćitaroci

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Mrđa, A., Carić, H. (2019). Models of Heritage Tourism Sustainable Planning. In: Obad Šćitaroci, M., Bojanić Obad Šćitaroci, B., Mrđa, A. (eds) Cultural Urban Heritage. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10612-6_14

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10612-6_14

Published : 29 January 2019

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-10611-9

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-10612-6

eBook Packages : Earth and Environmental Science Earth and Environmental Science (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

UN Tourism | Bringing the world closer

Competitiveness.

• Market Intelligence
• Policy and Destination Management

Product Development

Share this content.

• Share this article on facebook
• Share this article on twitter
• Share this article on linkedin

As defined by UN Tourism, a Tourism Product is "a combination of tangible and intangible elements, such as natural, cultural and man-made resources, attractions, facilities, services and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the destination marketing mix and creates an overall visitor experience including emotional aspects for the potential customers. A tourism product is priced and sold through distribution channels and it has a life-cycle".

Rural tourism

UN Tourism understands Rural Tourism as "a type of tourism activity in which the visitor’s experience is related to a wide range of products generally linked to nature-based activities, agriculture, rural lifestyle / culture, angling and sightseeing.

Gastronomy and Wine Tourism

As global tourism is on the rise and competition between destinations increases, unique local and regional intangible cultural heritage become increasingly the discerning factor for the attraction of tourists.

Mountain Tourism

Mountain Tourism  is a type of "tourism activity which takes place in a defined and limited geographical space such as hills or mountains with distinctive characteristics and attributes that are inherent to a specific landscape, topography, climate, biodiversity (flora and fauna) and local community. It encompasses a broad range of outdoor leisure and sports activities".

Urban Tourism

According to UN Tourism, Urban Tourism is "a type of tourism activity which takes place in an urban space with its inherent attributes characterized by non-agricultural based economy such as administration, manufacturing, trade and services and by being nodal points of transport. Urban/city destinations offer a broad and heterogeneous range of cultural, architectural, technological, social and natural experiences and products for leisure and business".

Sports Tourism

Tourism and sports are interrelated and complementary. Sports – as a professional, amateur or leisure activity – involves a considerable amount of traveling to play and compete in different destinations and countries. Major sporting events, such as the Olympic Games, football and rugby championships have become powerful tourism attractions in themselves – making a very positive contribution to the tourism image of the host destination.

Shopping Tourism

Shopping Tourism is becoming an increasingly relevant component of the tourism value chain. Shopping has converted into a determinant factor affecting destination choice, an important component of the overall travel experience and, in some cases the prime travel motivation.

• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 19 July 2021

Joint development of cultural heritage protection and tourism: the case of Mount Lushan cultural landscape heritage site

• Zhenrao Cai 1 ,
• Chaoyang Fang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6695-7169 1 , 2 , 5 ,
• Qian Zhang 1 &
• Fulong Chen 3 , 4  

Heritage Science volume  9 , Article number:  86 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

8098 Accesses

31 Citations

Metrics details

A Correction to this article was published on 08 November 2021

This article has been updated

The joint development of cultural heritage protection and tourism is an essential part of sustainable heritage tourism. Mount Lushan in China is such a site which in the past has had shortcomings in heritage protection and heritage tourism marketing. The present research addresses this issue by using digital technologies such as oblique aerial photography, 3D laser scanning technology, and 360 degrees panorama technology to digitize the Mount Lushan cultural landscape heritage site, integrating all elements to create a virtual tourism subsystem. It provides users with a virtual experience of cultural landscape heritage tourism and promotes cultural landscape tourism marketing. In addition, tourist flow and environmental subsystems were built through the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and analytical models. The tourist flow subsystem can help managers to regulate tourist flow according to the tourist carrying capacity threshold. Managers can also conduct environmental health assessment and management through the "pressure-state-response" model provided by the environmental subsystem. Finally, a comprehensive platform was developed based on the system concept, which integrated the three subsystems and their functions, and developed different versions to provide a visual platform for tourists and managers. This study provides a new model for the joint development of cultural heritage protection and tourism activities.

Introduction

Cultural heritage tourism is an increasingly prominent form of tourism globally, bolstered by heritage listings of UNESCO [ 1 ]. Built environment or other forms of heritage are often regarded as a focus of social and economic development [ 2 ], and the tourism industry can be a driving force to promote heritage protection. Cultural heritage management departments generally assume asset ownership and daily management tasks, while the tourism industry is responsible for product development and marketing [ 3 ]. However, poor management of cultural heritage may lead to its degradation. Heritage sites may be damaged by fire or natural disasters, or by human-induced factors [ 4 ]. For example, the large flow of people typical of popular tourist destinations may indirectly damage the principal tangible and intangible cultural value of a heritage site [ 5 ]. It is thus imperative to strengthen the protection and management of heritage. The Internet has become an important marketing tool for tourism promotion [ 6 ], mainly because it can speed up information dissemination. However, whether the website efficiently conveys travel information or effectively promotes destinations is often uncertain as designers tend to focus on aesthetics rather than content [ 7 ]. In addition, the quantity and quality of information will affect the time it takes for users to visit the website pages, thereby further restricting the development of the tourism industry.

The "digitalization" of heritage can provide a suitable way to address these issues. Field surveys and mapping, photo files, and data collection are traditional methods of acquiring cultural heritage data, and these results have become an essential foundation for heritage protection [ 8 ]. Novel and advanced technologies, such as digital photogrammetry and spectral imaging, are becoming more widely employed in heritage science and are often used to comprehensively record, understand and protect historical relics and artworks [ 9 ]. Some examples of these advances include the use of drones to obtain high-resolution images and using the data for 3D modeling [ 10 ]; using 360 degrees panorama technology to obtain panoramic photos [ 11 ]; or using terrestrial laser scanners to obtain point clouds. Such observations can be used to generate highly accurate models or drawings [ 12 ]. GIS also plays a vital role in protecting and utilizing cultural heritage. Using the Web and mobile GIS support, cultural heritage data, such as text, audio, or video stories, location information, and images, can be obtained through portable devices. GIS has unique advantages for data collection, storage, and manipulation of datasets [ 13 ]. By integrating historical building information models and 3D-GIS attribute data, the visibility and interactivity of the information models used in cultural heritage sites can be enhanced [ 14 ]. Virtual reality (VR) technology also has exceptional value in tourism marketing and cultural relic protection, involving computer graphic rendering, artificial intelligence, networks, and sensor technology, and can virtually reconstruct and simulate cultural heritage. These are examples of effective "digital protection" of cultural heritage [ 15 ] which can also assist in attracting more tourists [ 16 ].

In addition to the digitization of heritage resources, the flow of visitors and its associated impact to the environment of heritage sites is also intimately related to heritage protection and tourism development, and this factor may also be assisted by advanced technology. The Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to monitor and manage the tourist flow, for example, beam sensors can be employed to count the number of tourists and use these numbers to improve tourist management [ 17 ]. The adoption of video monitoring technology in combination with GIS can be used to analyze and visualize the spatial distribution of pedestrian numbers and flow in different areas, providing a strong foundation for tourist flow management [ 5 ]. Ground laser scanning technology, sensor monitoring technology, and digital photography can be used to monitor and manage the local environment [ 18 , 19 , 20 ], and IoT technology can dynamically evaluate whether environmental conditions are suitable to protect cultural heritage.

Such digital technologies have helped to promote the modernization of heritage tourism. Many studies have considered these issues from discrete and separated aspects such as heritage protection, tourism marketing, and tourism management, but less attention has given to the integration of heritage protection and tourism development. Cultural heritage protection and tourism are interdependent by nature [ 21 ], and a holistic approach to cultural heritage protection and tourism management is likely to be more effective for all concerned [ 22 ]. This research will explore a sustainable development model of cultural heritage to construct a bridge between cultural heritage protection and tourism development via an integrated platform approach.

Mount Lushan (29°28'-29° 40' N, 115°50'-116°10' E) is located in Lushan County, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, China. Figure  1 shows the location and main attractions of Mount Lushan. It has a rich cultural and natural heritage and is known for its beautiful and unique scenery. The mountains, rivers, and lakes of Mount Lushan blend into landscape tapestry, and Buddhist, Taoism, Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam coexist here. It is known as a mountain of culture, education, and politics. Historically, it has inspired artists, philosophers, and thinkers and inspired many famous works of art. Thirty churches and schools built in the 1920s remain, and 600 villas are influenced by the architectural styles of 18 countries. It is a site of historical importance to the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party, and many major meetings are still held here. It is a world-famous cultural landscape heritage site and one of the spiritual centers of Chinese civilization. Its main area covers 30,200 hectares, and its buffer area is greater than 50,000 hectares. Ontological areas and buffer zones include ancient buildings, ruins, modern villas, stone carvings, alpine plants, waterfalls, and streams. Mount Lushan in its entirety for the conservation of the subtropical forest ecosystem and historical sites [ 23 ]. These elements fully demonstrate the cultural and natural elements of the Mount Lushan World Heritage Site. Mount Lushan is listed as one of the top ten most famous mountains in China in 2003 and was rated as a national 5A Tourist attraction (5A is the highest level of China's tourist scenic spots, representing the level of China's world-class quality scenic spots) in 2007. These accolades have stimulated the rapid development of tourism in Mount Lushan, attracting tens of millions of tourists every year.

Geographical location and main attractions of Mount Lushan

However, online and field research on Mount Lushan has revealed significant obstacles to the sustainable development of cultural heritage tourism in this area. On one hand, Mount Lushan promotes and displays the cultural heritage landscape through tourism websites, such as the "China Lushan Network" ( http://www.china-lushan.com/ ). This approach only introduces this heritage site in a two-dimensional way (through pictures and text). Although there is a virtual tour section, tourists can only browse a few scenic spots via panoramic views. The possible immersion and interaction, and thus, the virtual experience, is not adequate or conducive to tourism marketing in the heritage site. On the other hand, the increased influx of tourists has given rise to a series of ecological and environmental problems [ 23 , 24 ]. There is a lack of equipment to monitor the flow of passengers and environmental quality, and there is little visual management information or monitoring capability of tourist flow and environmental information. The quantity and quality of information available at a heritage site directly affects the time spent by users visiting the website and also affects the satisfaction of users (or tourists) [ 25 , 26 ].

Technologies and models

In the method of system thinking [ 27 ], a cultural heritage tourism system can be divided into cultural heritage tourism resource elements, tourist flow elements, and environmental elements. Here we construct subsystems for each of these elements. Our approach involves the digitization of cultural landscape resources to realize a virtual cultural heritage tourism and marketing system. This subdivision into a virtual tourism subsystem, tourist flow subsystem, and environment subsystem build a complete foundation for cultural heritage protection and tourism development. The technical flow chart of the holistic construction of these three subsystems is shown in Fig.  2 .

Technical process of the subsystems in the holistic cultural heritage protection and tourism development

Digitalization technologies

Different digital technologies were adopted for cultural tourism information, such as macro-topographic scenes, ancient buildings, panoramic views which considered the complex landscape composition, diverse tourism elements, and the wide geographical diversity of Mount Lushan. The comprehensive application of multiple digitization technologies avoids the deficiencies associated with a single digitization technology and allows large cultural landscape heritage sites to be comprehensively and systematically digitized.

For the large-scale terrain scene of Mount Lushan, it was necessary to purchase 350 km 2 of digital orthophoto map (DOM) data and digital elevation model (DEM) data from the government and use image processing technology to process the original data.

We used an integrated production technology process of 3D models, digital line graphs (DLG), DEM, and digital orthopedic maps (TDOM). The flow chart of this process is shown in Fig.  3 . First, aerial photography was used to obtain oblique photography images [ 28 ]. The flight route and altitude of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were planned, the aerial photography area was delineated, and then the UAV was equipped with a digital oblique camera, and stereo images were then extracted from the UAV videos for aerial triangulation [ 29 ]. Next, 3D models were constructed by creating point clouds, constructing irregular triangulations, and performing texture mapping. The 3D model results were edited to obtain the digital surface model (DSM) results and TDOM results. The DEM results were then obtained by editing the DSM results, and the original DLG data were collected from the 3D models. The DLG data were further supplemented and improved, and were redrawn through field surveys to improve their accuracy. Finally, contour lines and elevation points were generated to supplement the line elements in the DLG supported by the DEM results.

Flow chart of the integrated production technology process

Terrestrial laser scanners allow rapid scans of measured objects. They can directly obtain high-precision scanning point clouds, efficiently carrying out 3D modeling and virtual reproduction of historic buildings [ 30 ]; here, we applied this approach to obtain point clouds of historical buildings in Mount Lushan. Using the point cloud data, the Smart3D software was used to perform fine 3D modeling.

360 degrees panorama technology can yield a 360 degrees horizontal viewing angle and a 180 degrees vertical viewing angle, and can integrate 360 degrees panoramas in a virtual environment [ 11 ]. We employed this technology, using a digital camera to take initial images, then using Photoshop for image stitching to form spherical and cube panoramas.

This study also used traditional data collection methods such as digital photography, digital video shooting, digital recording, image, and text scanning, and interview records to collect cultural heritage resource information. We additionally employed a mobile collection method, using personal digital assistants (PDAs) to obtain real-time wireless communication with the back-end system through the wireless data transmission network, and sent the collected cultural heritage coordinate data to the back-end system in real-time [ 31 ].

Monitoring technologies

We employed IoT technology to monitor and manage the flow of tourists and the environmental conditions in the cultural heritage landscape. Video surveillance technology and electronic ticket checking technology were used to monitor travel traffic, and Internet technology was used to visualize surveillance data. First, cameras were set up at the entrance and exit of the scenic spot and near its main attractions to monitor the flow of tourists. Electronic ticketing technology was used to measure the total number of tourists entering the scenic spot. Then, an established tourist flow subsystem was used to process tourist video data and obtain statistics of the flow of tourists in real-time. In addition, we used wireless sensor technology for environmental monitoring in scenic spots [ 32 ]. We installed sensors to measure the levels of harmful oxygen ion concentrations, sulfur dioxide, temperature, and humidity. Finally, we connected the environmental data with the established environment subsystem to display the environmental status of the cultural heritage site in real-time.

To fully exploit the monitoring data, we applied several analytical models to strengthen cultural landscape management. Specifically, we combined a spatial carrying capacity model with the tourist flow monitoring data and the "pressure-state-response" (PSR) model for environmental monitoring of the cultural landscape heritage site.

The spatial carrying capacity model was adopted to represent the tourist carrying capacity of Mount Lushan. The model refers to the number of tourist activities that can be effectively accommodated by tourism resources within a certain period and still maintain the quality of the resource. It can also reflect the capacity of the cultural heritage landscape, which can be measured from the aspects of planar capacity and linear capacity.

The planar calculation method applies to areas with relatively flat terrain and relatively uniform distribution of scenic spots and reception facilities [ 33 ], expressed as:

where C 1 is the spatial carrying capacity (persons/day, i.e., the number of persons suitable for the scenic spot every day), A is the scenic spot (m 2 ), A 0 is the reasonable area occupied per capita (m 2 ), and T is the average daily opening time (hours). Although the scenic spot is open 24 h per day, tourists are mainly visiting during the daytime, so T is set for 8 h in our study. t 0 is the average time required for visitors to visit the scenic spot (h).

The linear capacity calculation method is suitable for tourism sites along a path, with the resource space capacity expressed as:

If the path is incomplete and the entrance and exit are in the same position, tourists can only return by retracing their steps on the original path. In this case, the spatial carrying capacity formula becomes:

In Eqs. ( 2 ) and ( 3 ), C 2 and C 3 both refer to spatial carrying capacity (persons /d). L is the length of the path (m), L 0 is the length of reasonable possession per capita (m), and t 1 is the return time along the original route (h). The total number of tourists calculated using the area method and the line method constitutes the resource space capacity of the cultural heritage landscape.

The PSR model was first proposed in 1979 to study environmental problems. It has become a commonly used model to evaluate environmental quality [ 34 ]. In the PSR model, "P" refers to the pressure index, which is used to describe the pressure applied to the ecological environment under the influence of human activities. "S" refers to the state index, which is used to describe the status of the ecological environment. "R" refers to the response indicator, which describes the positive management actions taken by human beings towards the ecological environment. The PSR model answers three basic sustainable development questions: what happened, why it happened, and what will happen in the future.

Our study used this comprehensive evaluation index to reflect the ecosystem quality of Mount Lushan. A weighted summation method was used to perform the calculation [ 35 ]:

where Z represents the comprehensive evaluation index, X i is the normalized value of a single index, and Y i is the normalized weight of the evaluation index.

Case study verification

Heritage digitization and visualization, multiple types of digitization.

Digitized results are shown in Fig.  4 a–i. For the 350 km 2 DOM, image fusion, color uniformity, stitching, and resampling were used to generate DOM data with a resolution of 0.2 m (Fig.  4 a shows the spring scene in Guling). Using oblique aerial photography, we made 3D models of White Deer Cave Academy, Donglin Temple, Guling, and Mao Zedong Poetry Garden. The generated large-scale scene 3D model has high accuracy, for example, the accuracy of the 3D model of Donglin Temple is 0.06 m (Fig.  4 b). The DLG data collected only has a small margin of error that satisfies the accuracy of a 1/1000 scale map (such as White Deer Cave Academy shown in Fig.  4 c).

Digitization results for selected spots in Mount Lushan

Education, politics, architecture, natural scenery, religion, and other elements of typical cultural heritage landscapes were considered when conducting the digital modeling process. This process was based on 3D laser scanning, 3D modeling, 360-degree panoramas, and other technologies. These results are shown in Fig.  4 d–f. 3D laser scanner was used to model ancient buildings such as the White Deer Cave Academy, Mao Zedong Poetry Garden, and Xianren Cave and obtain delicate point clouds of the buildings. The point clouds contain important appearance features (as shown in Fig.  4 d), such as the characteristic feature lines. The elevation, plan, and cross-sectional views of ancient buildings generated from the point clouds were combined with the collected DLG data to generate a 3D model with fine texture and spatial characteristics (Fig.  4 e). These 3D models can provide accurate and detailed information for cultural heritage protection. UAVs and ground collection equipment were used to obtain aerial and ground panoramas of the cultural landscape heritage site in each season, and a total of 304 main scenic spots in Mount Lushan were collected (Fig.  4 f).

We collected and digitized materials from Taoist and Buddhist cultures, including ancient poems and paintings, ancient books, ancient cultural relics, historical narratives, and written accounts by using traditional data collection methods. Figure  4 g shows a stone carving, which is a poem (its title is "Peach Blossoms in Dalin Temple") written by a famous ancient Chinese poet. Other data on the heritage site (scenic spots, traffic, shopping, accommodations, entertainment, tourist facilities, geological data, vertical zonal soil profiles, plant communities) were collected and digitized using mobile data collection. Figure  4 h displays 7,128 geographical names and addresses covering an area of about 350 km 2 were collected. Figure  4 i shows major geological and geomorphologic features of Xiufeng Mountain.

Virtual tourism of Mount Lushan

From the digitized results, a fundamental geographic information database and a cultural heritage resource database were constructed. The SuperMap software was then used to develop the virtual tourism subsystem. This software can manage a large amount of data, can support directly imported data, has high-quality rendering capabilities, and can optimize the scene. The Lushan virtual tourism subsystem was developed into a display platform integrating sound, text, images, 3D models, maps, and various human–computer interaction technologies.

This subsystem has the following functions of 3D scene browsing:

Generation of a 3D terrain scene: the high-resolution DEM data of about 350 km 2 superimposes with the multi-temporal DOM to generate a 3D terrain scene of Mount Lushan. The "majestic, peculiar and beautiful" natural landscape features of the cultural heritage site can clearly be seen in Fig.  5 a.

Browsing the virtual scene of the virtual tourism subsystem

Generation of 3D architectural scenes: the original files of the oblique photography model data included many fragmented files, and the amount of data was enormous. We used SuperMap to process oblique photography models, including generating configuration files, compressing textures, simplifying models and type conversion, meeting the needs of viewing oblique photography models on web pages, and achieving a smooth browsing experience. We located and integrated the processed 3D model of Donglin Temple into the scene (Fig.  5 b). For the 3D model generated by laser scanning, we imported the constructed model data into the data engine provided by SuperMap and integrated it into the scene (Fig.  5 c).

Integration of different types of 3D models: the oblique photographic and geometric modeling data were imported into the terrain scene and accurately matched. By controlling the visibility of layers under different viewing angles, seamless switching between terrain scenes and 3D model data was realized. When users viewing the model from a distance, the subsystem can display the DSM; when viewing it at a close distance, the oblique photographic model is displayed on the periphery, and the internal core building is loaded with an intricately detailed 3D model (see Fig.  5 d). Users can also continue to zoom in to view the fine texture formed by the laser scan data (Fig.  5 e). The subsystem also sets the number of objects and layers in the scene under different viewing angles to reduce the memory and video memory usage of the system to ensure the fluency and stability of the subsystem and speed up the browsing speed of the scene.

Assisted by GIS, the subsystem has the functions of query, recommendation, and popular science. When the user opens the subsystem interface and enters the query keyword through the interactive interface, the result is displayed on the left sidebar and in the 3D scene. The query results will be introduced in pictures and texts (for example, Fig.  5 f, which shows a picture of a stone carving, and its poem). Based on the collected geological geomorphology and vegetation ecological data (Fig.  4 i), we set up the query and positioning function of geological relics, vegetation, and other attribute information in the subsystem, providing 3D elements, pictures, text, and other display elements, which is helpful to popularize the natural background knowledge of the heritage site to tourists. The subsystem provides an automatic roaming function for famous scenic spots and designed several common roaming routes. When performing automatic roaming, it will be supplemented by voice introduction. A "virtual tour guide" is implemented, and the user can control the broadcast process of the route at any time. Figure  5 b shows a roaming scene, and the roaming operation symbol can be seen in the lower right corner. The subsystem can also simultaneously integrate panoramas. By clicking on the panoramic location in the scene, the 360 degrees panoramas of the current position is displayed as a pop-up (see Fig.  5 g). Using the scenic spot location data displayed in Fig.  4 h, we set up multiple travel planning routes in the subsystem (Fig.  5 h). When the user clicks on a specific route, the subsystem will display the route direction and scenic spots on the map to provide convenience for tourists with travel intentions.

The subsystem can provide a unique virtual experience through rich visual content. It can interact with users through query, tourism recommendations, science popularization, and other functions. It can allow to know Mount Lushan in advance, making it an effective marketing tool.

Monitoring and management of tourist flow and environment

When tourists enter a heritage site, they induce environmental pressure. Using our system, tourists can interact virtually before travelling without exerting direct pressure on the cultural heritage site. The virtual tourism subsystem can also help managers improve the protection of the heritage site and carry out tourism marketing. This system can provide better monitoring of tourist flow and the environment of the site, which can greatly assist managers with tourism management and heritage protection. The three subsystems share GIS data to provide a strong data-based foundation for visualization services. These processes are shown schematically in Fig.  6 .

Interaction of the three subsystems that improve the management of tourist flow and environmental monitoring of the cultural heritage site

Monitoring and regulation of tourist flow

We used video surveillance technology and electronic ticket checking technology to collect tourist information, built a tourist database, and integrated it with geographic information data (including the location and entrance of the scenic spots and major tour paths). The database is used to record and manage data and to calculate the number of people entering and leaving the scenic spot and the number of people staying in the scenic spot in real-time. We then developed s tourist flow subsystem, which mainly provides services for managers.

Managers can use the subsystem to monitor and manage the tourist flow of the cultural heritage site visually and provide travel services. When visitors buy tickets, their ID number and name will be associated with the identity of the e-ticket. The scope of their travel will be identified in the scenic area. When visitors enter the video surveillance area, face recognition information will be collected by the monitoring equipment, so the general location of the travelers can be identified through the ticket information and video information, and missing tourists can be quickly located to ensure safety.

The determination of tourist capacity thresholds can be vital to the scientific regulation and management of tourist flows within the cultural heritage site. We selected the main scenic spots and routes of Mount Lushan for analysis, and the parameters and results are shown in Tables 1 and 2 . The capacity of general scenic spots should be 100–400 square meters per person (based on the "Standards for the Master Planning of Scenic Spots" issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development of China [ 36 ]). Guling is a tourist destination, but it is also a town with permanent residents, so we here assume that its reasonable per capita area is 100 m 2 /person. For other spots, we assume that the reasonable per capita living area is 400 m 2 /person. Using these assumptions, the tourist capacity of these scenic spots in Mount Lushan is 46,472 persons/d (Table 1 ). Since the Guling scenic spot has 21,400 permanent residents, the remaining capacity for visitors is thus 25,072 persons/d. The per capita area of tour routes calculated by the linear capacity calculation method is 5–10 m 2 /person. We choose a value in the middle of this range, 8 m 2 /person for our further analyses. The total tourist capacity of the three paths is 4734 persons/d according to this approach (Table 2 ).

The tourist flow subsystem integrates the number of tourists and GIS data and displays the number of people in each scenic spot by way of map visualization. Similarly, the tourist capacity threshold data of each scenic spot is displayed in the subsystem, and managers can compare the tourist flow real-time data with the tourist capacity threshold data. When the number of tourists in each route and scenic spot exceeds the tourist capacity threshold, the cultural heritage site manager can temporarily restrict ticket sales for overcrowded attractions and guide visitors to other areas. The tourist capacity threshold subsystem thus provides a strong data-based foundation for heritage protection and tourist flow pressure.

Monitoring and evaluation of the environment

We used IoT technology, wireless sensors, and GIS technology to monitor the environment. We first determined the geographic location of the monitoring site and installed the sensor to obtain atmospheric and environmental data through General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) data transmission equipment. Then we established an environmental database to integrate and manage various data resources to develop an environment subsystem that can analyze and express data and realize serving managers.

The subsystem provides a real-time visual management platform for managers that provides a visual map. Managers can use this map to monitor and understand the environment and weather conditions of each scenic spot in real-time to address any possible emergency environmental events in a timely manner.

This tool can also assist with longer-term management. The environmental database stores monthly or longer-period monitoring data and social and economic data. The subsystem can then integrate socio-economic data and annual monitoring data into the PSR model. Table 3 shows the original data of the PSR model, and the analysis results calculated by Eq. ( 4 ). As compared with 2017, the comprehensive index of environmental health in 2018 was higher (0.64) because the comprehensive index of response in 2018 was higher than in 2017. However, the pressure index in 2018 was lower than that in 2017. This is attributed to an increase in the number of permanent residents and tourists in 2018, as well as an increase in sulfur dioxide emissions; the combination of both factors has put more pressure on the environment. Future adjustment of the population capacity and better control of the discharge of pollutants could likely improve the comprehensive environmental index.

The analysis results of the PSR model (environmental health index) can be visualized in detail by the environmental subsystem for managers. The comprehensive evaluation results of the environment can play an important role in feedback and early warning. It encourages managers to carry out annual environmental assessments and take corresponding measures, which is conducive to the long-term environmental protection of the heritage site.

Construction of a comprehensive platform

Concept and method of construction.

The relationship between heritage and tourism is problematic and intricate, and considering these factors separately is insufficient [ 37 ]. Synergies should be developed between tourism and heritage protection [ 38 ]. Our integrated system that considered virtual tourism, tourist flow, and environment subsystems is constructed by the integration of different data sources, which have the functions of tourism marketing, digital protection, and information service, and environment management. The interactivity of these different functions improve the overall tourism development and heritage protection. The effective integration of all subsystems allows the construction of a complete platform, detailed in Fig.  7 , which displays the path of "data integration-subsystems integration-functions integration-effects integration", thus our system integrates discrete data and subsystems to yield a comprehensive platform for cultural heritage tourism.

Path of the comprehensive platform construction

Products and a new mode

Our first step was to build a comprehensive database. We classified and selected multi-source data, set up a cultural heritage resource database, a GIS database, a tourist and environment database, and a tourism management database to realize the unified storage and management of the data in the cultural heritage tourism comprehensive database. This provided a seamless data interface which includes different types of essential service data for the construction of a comprehensive platform.

The comprehensive platform for Mount Lushan cultural heritage tourism using this complete database is displayed in Fig.  8 . It uses multiple display media (e.g., personal computer, smartphones, LED displays), multiple content presentation forms (3D models, maps, charts, text, audio), and multi-subsystem and multi-functional integration forms (virtual tourism subsystem, tourist flow, environment monitoring subsystem, tourist service subsystem, and corresponding functions), providing comprehensive cultural heritage services for tourists and management.

Information of each version

The functions displayed by different media terminals can meet the individual needs of users at different times and places. The Web version is intended for tourists to use before traveling, functioning as a virtual tourism subsystem. It can introduce the cultural heritage site, and can "educate" users to have a more responsible and respectful relationship with the cultural heritage site. It can help to attract potential tourists, as they can “virtually experience” the site before traveling. The LED version of the product is intended for managers, integrating the tourist flow subsystem and the environment subsystem. Managers can monitor tourists and the environment through the LED screen and can visually operate and manage the tourist capacity and environmental health based on the results of the tourist capacity model and PSR model. The smartphone-based application product is intended for tourists during and after travel. It integrates components of the functionality of both the Web-based and LED products to facilitate tourists in obtaining and sharing heritage site information. Tourists can get an overview of the heritage site, navigate the site via the maps and receive tourist recommendation services. They can also find information on the total number of tourists and environmental and weather information of heritage sites. Tourists can then arrange effective plans for their visit based on these functions. It also provides post-tour services such as evaluation of tourist attractions. These functions enrich the experience and satisfaction of tourists.

The comprehensive cultural heritage tourism platform and its corresponding products demonstrate a new paradigm of cultural heritage tourism. Our model can coordinate and integrate multiple key elements to improve the sustainable development of cultural heritage tourism through the combination of in-person and virtual tourism, the combination of service and management to meet the needs of different users, and the combination of heritage protection and tourism.

Results and discussion

The digitization of cultural heritage is becoming more critical, including intangible heritage [ 39 ], historical sites [ 40 ], archaeological sites [ 41 ]. We here developed and described a cultural heritage tourism subsystem, which applies a variety of technologies and methods (such as computer technology, IoT, photogrammetry, geographic information technology, VR technology, and environment assessment methods). We obtained a series of digital results and developed several digital products for tourism marketing and heritage protection.

We also integrated environmental assessment models to provide real-time and long-term assessment and management plans. We accounted for cultural heritage protection, tourism marketing, and management, and the development of cultural heritage tourism digital products. These products show the geographical characteristics of the heritage area, which is conducive to improved heritage protection and the sustainable development of tourism.

The salient point of our research is "integration", which is manifested by integrating multiple subsystems, and connecting themes of different perspectives (including cultural heritage protection, tourism marketing, management, and services) to provide a holistic system. Our important results and finding are now summarized.

(1) Through the use of comprehensive and diverse digital technologies, we obtained a wealth of digital results, including 3D large-scale terrain scenes, 3D cultural relic images, 360-degree panoramas, and pictures. This information was used to create a virtual tourism subsystem to display the regional characteristics of cultural landscape heritage sites through 3D scenes, popular science, and tourism recommendations to improve tourism marketing.

(2) IoT technology was combined with a tourist carrying capacity model and a PSR model to construct tourist flow and environmental subsystems. The tourist flow subsystem allows managers to monitor and manage the tourist flow using capacity models. The environmental subsystem allows the monitoring and management of the environment in real-time and non-real-time using an integrated PSR model.

(3) Finally, a new model of cultural heritage tourism was proposed, and a comprehensive platform for cultural heritage tourism was constructed. We developed products for Web, smartphone, and LED formats, integrating heritage protection and tourism development functions. The platform has rich visual content, including 3D models, maps, charts, and text.

Each subsystem in our comprehensive platform plays a fundamental role. The virtual tourism subsystem can be used before the actual visit to attract more tourists and to provide personalized tourism planning which can improve the virtual experience. Our approach provides a sound foundation, but the continued improvement of this part of the platform is an essential future task [ 42 ]. The environmental management subsystem is also an important result of our approach, however, the integrated tourist capacity threshold used here only considered capacities of single scenic spots at a time. Future directions of study could extend the tourist capacity model to multiple entry/exit areas and scenic spots and could set model parameters and thresholds that meet the unique particularity of each scenic spot. Additionally, while our approach demonstrated the effectiveness of many novel elements, the model and parameters employed here were relatively simple and static. In the future, more attention should be paid to the practicality of the model, such as by setting a dynamic tourist capacity threshold, and how this information can be used to implement efficient evacuation plans in case of sudden emergencies. Finally, since the tourist flow subsystem integrates tourist identity information the privacy of users’ needs to be considered in greater detail in the future.

The study has provided a sustainable model of cultural heritage tourism using digital tools. It considered the Lushan cultural landscape heritage site as a case study, and designed a holistic mode of cultural heritage protection and tourism by the comprehensive use of various digital technologies and the development of digital products. We designed and built a digital framework of a large-scale cultural heritage landscape and built a virtual tourism subsystem that integrates 3D model browsing, popular science, and tourism route recommendation functions to meet the needs of tourism marketing.

We proposed and demonstrated a heritage management method that integrates IoT technology with a tourist carrying capacity model and a PSR model to assist in protecting the environment and ensuring the environmental health of the heritage site. The comprehensive cultural heritage tourism platform developed here can provide valuable services for different target audiences (e.g., tourists and managers) through a variety of visualization technologies, and provides a novel demonstration for future development of cultural heritage protection and tourism that can be applied at other heritage sites worldwide.

Availability of data and materials

The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article is included within the article.

Change history

08 november 2021.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-021-00613-1

Abbreviations

Virtual reality

Internet of things

Digital orthophoto map

Digital elevation model

Digital line graphic

True digital orthophoto map

Unmanned aerial vehicle

Digital Surface Model

Pressure-state-response

General Packet Radio Service

Light-emitting diode

Bak S, Min C-K, Roh T-S. Impacts of UNESCO-listed tangible and intangible heritages on tourism. J Travel Tour Mark. 2019;36(8):917–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2019.1658034 .

Article   Google Scholar  

Timothy DJ. Contemporary cultural heritage and tourism: development issues and emerging trends. Public Archaeology. 2014;13(1–3):30–47. https://doi.org/10.1179/1465518714z.00000000052 .

Zhang C, Fyall A, Zheng Y. Heritage and tourism conflict within world heritage sites in China: a longitudinal study. Curr Issue Tour. 2015;18(2):110–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2014.912204 .

Ryu H-C. Cultural Heritage Management System and Improvement of the Limits - focused on establishing the tangible cultural heritage on-site management organization. 2013;54:183–214.

Google Scholar  

Zubiaga M, Izkara JL, Gandini A, et al. Towards smarter management of overtourism in historic centres through visitor-flow monitoring. Sustainability. 2019;11(24):7254. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247254 .

Law R, Qi SS, Buhalis D. Progress in tourism management: A review of website evaluation in tourism research. Tour Manage. 2010;31(3):297–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.11.007 .

Li J, Whitlow M, Bitsura-Meszaros K, et al. A preliminary evaluation of World Heritage tourism promotion: comparing websites from Australia, China, and Mexico. Tourism PlanDevelop . 2016;13(3):370–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2015.1101393 .

Shah K. Creation of cultural heritage inventories: case of the historic city of Ahmadabad. J Cult Heritage Manag Sustain Develop. 2016;6(2):166–94. https://doi.org/10.1108/jchmsd-02-2016-0011 .

Adamopoulos E, Bovero A, Rinaudo F. Image-based metric heritage modeling in the near-infrared spectrum. Heritage Sci. 2020;8(1):53. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00397-w .

Dasari S, Mesapam S, Kumarapu K, et al. UAV in Development of 3D Heritage Monument Model: A Case Study of Kota Gullu, Warangal, India. J Indian Soc Remote Sensing. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-020-01250-0 .

Walmsley AP, Kersten TP. The imperial cathedral in Konigslutter (Germany) as an immersive experience in virtual reality with integrated 360 degrees panoramic photography. Appl Sci Basel. 2020;10(4):1517. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10041517 .

Davis A, Belton D, Helmholz P, et al. Pilbara rock art: laser scanning, photogrammetry and 3D photographic reconstruction as heritage management tools. Heritage Sci. 2017;5:25. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-017-0140-7 .

Hadjimitsis D, Agapiou A, Alexakis D, et al. Exploring natural and anthropogenic risk for cultural heritage in Cyprus using remote sensing and GIS. Int J Digital Earth. 2013;6(2):115–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2011.602119 .

Ma Y-P. Extending 3D-GIS district models and BIM-based building models into computer gaming environment for better workflow of cultural heritage conservation. Appl Sci Basel. 2021;11(5):2101. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11052101 .

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Zhong H, Wang L, Zhang H. The application of virtual reality technology in the digital preservation of cultural heritage. Comput Sci Inf Syst. 2021;18(2):535–51. https://doi.org/10.2298/csis200208009z .

Frey BS, Briviba A. A policy proposal to deal with excessive cultural tourism. Eur Plan Stud. 2021;29(4):601–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1903841 .

Jones, T.E., Y. Yang, and K. Yamamoto, Comparing Automated and Manual Visitor Monitoring Methods: Integrating Parallel Datasets on Mount Fuji's North Face. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, 2018. 36(1): p. 22–38. https://doi.org/10.18666/jpra-2018-v36-i1-7976 .

Campiani A, Lingle A, Lercari N. Spatial analysis and heritage conservation: Leveraging 3-D data and GIS for monitoring earthen architecture. J Cult Herit. 2019;39:166–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2019.02.011 .

Constantinidis D. GIS for managing the analysis and protection of archaeological remains in the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area. Archaeol Ocean. 2009;44(2):112–8. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4453.2009.tb00054.x .

Lombardo L, Parvis M, Corbellini S, et al. Environmental monitoring in the cultural heritage field. Eur Phy J Plus. 2019;134(8):411. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2019-12800-2 .

Lai LWC. Sustainable development of heritage conservation and tourism: A Hong Kong case study on colonial heritage. Sustain Dev. 2020;28(5):1181–8. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2067 .

Iliopoulou-Georgudaki J, Theodoropoulos C, Konstantinopoulos P, et al. Sustainable tourism development including the enhancement of cultural heritage in the city of Nafpaktos - Western Greece. Int J Sust Dev World. 2017;24(3):224–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2016.1201021 .

Hui W, Ceming T, Wen X, et al. Vascular plants in the tourist area of Lushan National Nature Reserve, China: status, threats and conservation. Eco Mont J Protected Mountain Areas Res. 2020;12(1):60–3. https://doi.org/10.1553/eco.mont-12-1s60 .

Xie DM, Huang QH, Xu S, et al. Assessment of surface water quality in Lushan: a world heritage sites in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res. 2020;27(15):18934–48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08304-3 .

Yassierli V, MSS Mohamed. The Importance of Usability Aspect in M-Commerce Application for Satisfaction and Continuance Intention. Makara J Technol. 2018. 22(3): 149–158. Doi: https://doi.org/10.7454/mst.v22i3.3655 .

Bastida U, Huan TC. Performance evaluation of tourism websites’ information quality of four global destination brands: Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei. J Bus Res. 2014;67(2):167–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.10.008 .

Roxas FMY, Rivera JPR, Gutierrez ELM. Framework for creating sustainable tourism using systems thinking. Curr Issue Tour. 2020;23(3):280–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1534805 .

Wang JJ, Zhu S, Luo XG, et al. Refined micro-scale geological disaster susceptibility evaluation based on UAV tilt photography data and weighted certainty factor method in Qingchuan County. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2020;189: 110221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2019.110005 .

He H, Chen T, Zeng H, et al. Ground control point-free unmanned aerial vehicle-based photogrammetry for volume estimation of stockpiles carried on barges. Sensors. 2019;19(16):3534. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19163534 .

Pavlidis G, Koutsoudis A, Arnaoutoglou F, et al. Methods for 3D digitization of cultural heritage. J Cult Herit. 2007;8(1):93–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2006.10.007 .

Zhou Y, Lobo NF, Wolkon A, et al. PGMS: a case study of collecting PDA-based geo-tagged malaria-related survey data. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2014;91(3):496–508. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.13-0652 .

Agbota H, Mitchell JE, Odlyha M, et al. Remote assessment of cultural heritage environments with wireless sensor array networks. Sensors. 2014;14(5):8779–93. https://doi.org/10.3390/s140508779 .

Zhao GL, Deng ZJ, Shen J, et al. Carrying capacity and its implications in a Chinese ancient village: the case of Hongcun. Asia Pacific J Tour Res. 2018;23(3):260–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2017.1421566 .

Rapport DJ, Singh A. An ecohealth-based framework for state of environment reporting. Ecol Ind. 2006;6(2):409–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2005.05.003 .

Zhang J, Zhang Y. Assessing the low-carbon tourism in the tourism-based urban destinations. J Clean Prod. 2020;276: 124303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124303 .

Standards for the Master Planning of Scenic Spots. 2019. http://www.mohurd.gov.cn/wjfb/201903/t20190320_239842.html . Accessed 1 MAR 2021.

Chang-Vargas GV. Between discourse and practice: heritage and cultural tourism in the ICOMOS charter. Pasos-Revista De Turismo Y Patrimonio Cult. 2019;17(2):389–408. https://doi.org/10.25145/j.pasos.2019.17.027 .

PargaDans E, P Alonso Gonzalez, R OteroEnriquez. The social value of heritage: Balancing the promotion-preservation relationship in the Altamira World Heritage Site, Spain. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management. 2020. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2020.100499 .

Deng X, Kim IT, Shen C. Research on Convolutional Neural Network-Based Virtual Reality Platform Framework for the Intangible Cultural Heritage Conservation of China Hainan Li Nationality: Boat-Shaped House as an Example. Math Probl Eng. 2021;2021:5538434. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5538434 .

di Filippo A, L Javier Sanchez-Aparicio, S Barba et al. Use of a Wearable Mobile Laser System in Seamless Indoor 3D Mapping of a Complex Historical Site. Remote Sensing. 2018. 10(12): 1897. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10121897 .

Tanasi D, Hassam S, Kingsland K, et al. Melite Civitas Romana in 3D: Virtualization Project of the Archaeological Park and Museum of the Domus Romana of Rabat. Malta Open Archaeology. 2021;7(1):51–83. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2020-0126 .

Broderick M, Cypher M, Macbeth J. critical masses: augmented virtual experiences and the Xenoplastic at Australia’s cold war and nuclear heritage sites. Archaeol J World Archaeol Congress. 2009;5(2):323–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-009-9110-3 .

Download references

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Xiao Xin and Adam Thomas Devlin of Jiangxi Normal University for their technical and linguistic help.

This work was supported by the National Key Technologies R&D Program of China under Grant 2015BAH50F03; Major project of Art Science of the National Social Science Foundation of China under Grant 19ZD27; Cultural Arts and Tourism Research Project under Grant xxhfzzx201907; Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant No. XDA19030502.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, 330022, China

Zhenrao Cai, Chaoyang Fang & Qian Zhang

Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, 330022, China

Chaoyang Fang

Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100094, China

Fulong Chen

International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST) Under the auspices of UNESCO, Beijing, 100094, China

Nanchang Base, International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST) under the auspices of UNESCO, Nanchang, 330022, China

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

ZC, CF: Wrote this article; QZ, FC: Reviewed the whole paper and put forward suggestions for improvement. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chaoyang Fang .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The original version of this article was revised: the author names were transposed and a funding note was added.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Cai, Z., Fang, C., Zhang, Q. et al. Joint development of cultural heritage protection and tourism: the case of Mount Lushan cultural landscape heritage site. Herit Sci 9 , 86 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-021-00558-5

Download citation

Received : 08 March 2021

Accepted : 06 July 2021

Published : 19 July 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-021-00558-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Heritage protection
• Tourism sustainability
• Heritage site

• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 15 August 2023

People’s perspectives on heritage conservation and tourism development: a case study of Varanasi

• Ananya Pati 1 &
• Mujahid Husain 2  

Built Heritage volume  7 , Article number:  17 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

2765 Accesses

1 Altmetric

Metrics details

The conservation of heritage and heritage-based tourism are interrelated activities in which the development in one can lead to the growth of the other and vice versa. In recent years, people have become increasingly aware of the importance of heritage and the necessity of its conservation. People’s knowledge and preservation of their roots and emotional attachments to traditions and places are beneficial for heritage conservation activities. Heritage places are also considered a growth point for the tourism industry that supports small- and medium-scale industries as well as numerous cottage industries. However, with the development of tourism and related industries in heritage areas, the local community may face difficulties in performing their day-to-day activities in the area. In many cases, local communities need to relocate and people must leave their residences due to the demand for tourism development. A case study of Varanasi City was conducted to obtain a detailed understanding of the impact of a recent tourism development programme (the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Project) and people’s perception of it through a review of newspaper articles. It was found that people had mixed reactions regarding the development programme. The immediate residents of the area who were directly affected by the process in terms of emotional, economic and social loss were opposed to the project, while tourists and other residents of the city were pleased with the development activities. This paper attempts to identify the changes that occurred in the area due to the project and to capture people’s perspectives regarding the corridor project of Varanasi.

1 Introduction

The heritage of a country is a symbol of its national pride and produces cohesiveness and unity among the people. The importance of heritage and culture has increased significantly in recent years, particularly in the tourism sector. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), ‘Cultural heritage is, in its broadest sense, both a product and a process, which provides societies with a wealth of resources that are inherited from the past, created in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations’ (UNESCO 2014 ). Most importantly, it includes not only tangible but also natural and intangible heritage. As Our Creative Diversity notes, however, these resources are a ‘fragile wealth’. As such, they require policies and development models that preserve and respect their diversity and uniqueness since they are ‘nonrenewable’ once lost. Modernisation and urbanisation spread rapidly worldwide during the past century, but people are now leaning towards their heritage to maintain the individuality and uniqueness of their communities and to present this uniqueness to the otherwise modern and developed world (Napravishta 2018 ). People have recognised the enormous potential of heritage and culture in the tourism industry and for economic and social development. Numerous industries consider heritage and culture to be a significant growth point for development and economic benefits (Xing et al. 2013 ). Although the growth of tourism may be considered beneficial for selected groups, in many cases, development and changes made with the goal of tourism development create significant negative effects on the host community, its culture and the heritage itself (Erbas  2018 ). The concept of heritage is based on its historical architecture and monuments, but it is also the heritage values and culture of the residents that have become part of their daily life. This combination of tangible and intangible heritage, called ‘fields of heritage’, is considered a capital stock worthy of conservation (Al-hagla 2010 ). In several cases, excessive tourist influx forces the local community to change its way of life and disrupts the day-to-day activities of the community. In other cases, a complete change of landscape due tourism development creates environmental and cultural degradation. One of the problems of tourism development is that it fails to maintain a balance between the goal of achieving an increased number of tourists and its impact on the existing heritage and the community (Erbas  2018 ). In planning for heritage cities, urban development dynamics and tourism development are equally important factors. In areas with historical backgrounds, the conservation of the existing environment must be the primary concern (Erbas  2018 ).

1.1 Aim and objective

This paper conducts a study of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor project using an analysis of culture-led tourism and heritage conservation. The Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor project is considered a perfect case study to analyse conflicts between the host community (local dwellers) of the city and the development programme aimed towards the betterment of the pilgrims and tourists who come to the heritage city. The main objective of the study is to assess the perspective of the local community on tourism-led development. A second objective is to understand the pros and cons of tourism-led developments in a heritage city.

While the case study in this paper is based on a recent occurrence, there has been little research on the effects of the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Project. Although this development project affects only a small portion of the city, the area is heavily populated; therefore, the effects on the locals are significant. This situation must be addressed from the perspectives of the diverse groups who benefited or were harmed by the development initiative.

1.2 The project details

The project of the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor aimed to connect the Vishwanath Temple with the Ghats of Ganges. The pathway would connect the Manikarnika and Lalita ghat to the temple (Fig.  1 ), and the temple would be visible from the river front (Singh 2018 ). The temple, which is located 400 m from the ghats, was accessible to visitors only by narrow lanes (gali) through a crowded neighbourhood. The project mainly focused on building a wider and cleaner road and stairs with bright lights from the ghats to the temple. Because tourists and pilgrims come to Varanasi mainly to visit the older part of the city (i.e., the ghats of Ganges and the Vishwanath Temple), a connecting corridor would be of great use to them. By making the temple accessible to pilgrims and tourists through waterways, tourists could reach the temple ghat from the Khidkiya ghat and Raj ghat via a boat ride. The project also aimed to build stairways and escalators to reach the temple (Pandey and Jain 2021 ). This major makeover of the Vishwanath temple was the first since 1780. The Maratha queen of Indore, Ahilyabai Holker, renovated the Vishwanath temple and its surroundings, but no major changes have occurred in this area since then.

Kashi Vishwanath Corridor after Completion, 12 December 2021 (Source: NDTV.com)

The project was launched in 2018, and the work was initiated in March 2019. The project known as Kashi Vishwanath Mandir Vistarikaran-Sundarayakaran Yojana (Kashi Vishwanath Temple extension and beautification plan) was estimated at Rs. 400 crore. According to the plan for redevelopment, an area of 43,636 sq. m was cleared by demolishing all the construction between the river and the ancient shrine (Ghosh 2018 ). A development board was created to accomplish the plan. To create this huge space, 314 properties were bought and demolished by the board. A total of Rs. 390 crore was spent to acquire the properties that were selected for the project in the area. Of this Rs. 390 crore, a sum of Rs. 70 crore was allotted for the rehabilitation of the 1,400 people living in this area, who were mainly encroachers, vendors and shopkeepers (Tiwari 2021 ).

The narrow lanes and the surroundings that were demolished for the project were known as Lahoritola, Neelkanth and Brahamanal (Singh 2018 ). The neighbourhood of Lahoritola is one of the oldest parts of Varanasi City. The first settlers migrated to this place from Lahore during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Currently, the sixth generation of the original settlers are living in this area, but as the area was cleared for the project, they had no other option but to settle somewhere else (Ghosh 2018 ). The project has specific planning for people affected by it. According to the authorities, rehabilitation houses are to be built at Ramnagar on eight acres of government land. Shopkeepers affected by the process are to be allotted shops near the temple after the completion of the project (Singh 2018 ).

The project aims not only to create a wide corridor connecting the temple to the ghat but also to develop several buildings for various tourism purposes. The Kashi Vishwanath temple complex will have 23 new structures after the completion of the plan. Along with the construction of a new temple chowk, these structures will include a tourist information centre, salvation house, city gallery, guest house, multipurpose hall, locker room, bhog shala, tourist facilitation centre, Mumukshu Bhaban, vedic kendra, city museum, food court, viewing gallery, and restroom (Tiwari 2021 ). The Ganga View gallery will provide a clear panoramic view for tourists. According to officials, the Mandir Chawk will be a place for pilgrims to relax and meditate (Pandey and Jain 2021 ). After the completion of the corridor and other proposed buildings, the temple complex will have 50,000 sq. ft. of space, which is approximately 200 times larger than the previous area of the temple complex. According to authorities, the space of the entire temple complex will be able to manage 50,000 to 75,000 pilgrims at a time, compared to a few hundred previously. The project has also considered the importance of green cover, and it was decided that 70% of the total 5.50 lakh sq. ft. will be green (Tiwari 2021 ). With the completion of the project, it is believed that there will be a boost in tourism, and the attraction of the heritage of the city will increase substantially.

2 Literature review

Since the 1980s, sustainable development has become an important concept worldwide. In the case of heritage tourism, Sustainable Tourism Development (STD) has become an important issue. STD includes developmental policies and the protection of the local environment. The common dilemma faced by all interested parties in tourism development is finding a sustainable tourism development plan that will conserve heritage while influencing the positive growth of tourism and tourism-related economic activities (Xing et al. 2013 ). When discussing sustainable tourism, the main focus is economic and environmental sustainability. The issue of social sustainability is overlooked, although it should be considered with equal importance. Exponential growth in a tourism location does not ensure the betterment of the local community, the prevention of community migration, or tangible benefits from tourism (Sirima and Backman 2013 ).

The tourism development process has both negative and positive impacts on heritage cities. While the negative impacts regarding the conservation of the area are concerning, the positive impacts of tourism cannot be ignored. The present-day commodification of heritage assets poses a serious question regarding the extent to which the development and modification of heritage areas is sustainable. Increased tourism activities and an influx of national and international tourists may expand the economy of the area and create job opportunities, but in the commodification of tourism, the heritage site may lose its aesthetic value and become artificial, and its originality may fade (Al-hagla 2010 ). In many cases, the benefits received by heritage locations through increased tourism activities may eventually be overshadowed by the negative long-term effects of the process (Benur and Bramwell 2015 ). To ensure that future generations inherit a resource base that is sufficient to fulfil their needs and wants, sustainability necessitates that such assets be prudently managed. The goal of this paper is to investigate how sustainability principles might be used most effectively in the context of heritage tourism with a focus on the administration of historic homes and gardens (Fyall and Garrod 1998 ).

‘Over tourism’ is defined as ‘destinations where hosts or guests, locals or visitors, feel that there are too many visitors and that the quality of life in the area or the quality of the experience has deteriorated unacceptably’. The condition of ‘over tourism’ is the opposite of the expected condition of ‘responsible tourism’. Responsible tourism is a tourism practice by which the tourism destination ascends to a better condition that benefits both the host and the tourists (Goodwin 2017 ). When tourism-related changes are introduced by persons external to the local community, the possibility of social conflict arises because of the fluctuating relationship between the stakeholder authorities and the host community (Yang et al. 2013 ).

Studies on the entangled relationships between stakeholders are just as important as studies ofthe growth of historic tourism, which have also been the subject of research. Conflicts of interest arise when the local community participates in the tourism development process without being guaranteed equitable involvement by the stakeholders. These complex scenarios must be studied to fully comprehend the implications of heritage site development initiatives (Li et al. 2020 ). The aim of using a cultural heritage space in a consumer-dominant space may lead to the complete commercialisation or ‘touristification’ of the area (Nasser 2003 ). This term is used to describe the particular forms and functions that take place due to the increased growth of tourism activity. The effect of ‘touristification’ is particularly prominent in the parts of historical cities that tourists use most (historic tourist cities) (Hernández et al. 2017 ). Developmental activities in heritage cities may lead to conflicts regarding land acquisition if the local community does not participate in planning (Porter and Salazar 2005 ). To prevent potential conflicts, it is imperative to focus on the interests, needs, and concerns of the local community at all phases of decision-making (Erbas  2018 ). The host community of the location must be included in planning for tourism development; otherwise, it will lead to ‘zoo syndrome’, where the local community is negatively affected by the development plans (De Ascaniis et al. 2018 ). Bill Bramwell and Bernard Lane ( 1993 ) attempted to explain the connection between the interpretation and sustainable development of natural and heritage sites of the world. According to these authors, the host community’s involvement in interpreting and promoting cultural heritage is beneficial for sustainable tourism development. The paper also suggests that ‘historic and natural features [are] to be retained wherever possible, not swept away by new developments’. Tourism in urban areas has started to create different types of problems in local communities (Hernández et al. 2017 ).

The influx of tourists has recently increased at a spectacular rate, particularly in urban tourist destinations. A study by María García-Hernández noted that historic urban landscapes are more affected by being tourism destinations (García-Hernández et al. 2017 ). Tourism development in these places is only sustainable when socioeconomic, physical and cultural characteristics are unharmed in the tourism process. The tourism development planning of a historic city must be based on the ‘historic urban landscape approach’. To address community aspects, the development needs to be comprehensive and must address different perspectives with sincerity and humanity. In addition to the physical conservation and protection of the heritage, the social and economic aspects of the preservation and conservation area are equally important (Al-hagla 2010 ). An essential component of the growth of the tourism industry is the preservation of a heritage site's aesthetic value. A site's high aesthetic value may be a major factor in the growth of the tourism business, particularly in developing nations, and the tourism sector can convert this aesthetic value into economic benefit. In contrast, a site's deteriorating aesthetic value will worsen the quality of life for the people who live there. At the Rio meeting, more than 20 nations agreed that maintaining heritage sites’ aesthetic value is crucial for sustainable development (Zhang et al. 2023 ). Because the locations were regarded as the core or centre of the cultural area, contemporary developments were prevented in several areas of the old heritage towns. For millennia, the unique social structures, customary pastimes, and street layouts of these areas remained unaltered. The heart of the cultural areas consists of a uniform collection of tangible and intangible assets. Several cities throughout North Africa and the Middle East have such examples. These ancient cities have not changed since the Arab civilisation's Middle Ages. These cultural centres, which include religious structures, paths, and gathering places, frequently serve as a main attraction for tourists, gathering places for pilgrims, and a source of revenue for nearby businesses (Bigio and Licciardi 2010 ).

At the UNESCO world heritage site Hampi in India, conflicts between the local community and the authorities pose challenges to the overall growth of the tourist site. A lack of communication between the government and locals, negligence in community involvement and participation and inequality in power distribution hinder the social sustainability of the heritage site (Nair et al. 2022 ). Similar features can be found in the older parts of Varanasi, where the ghat area, narrow alleys and surroundings of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple have remained unchanged for centuries. Thus, sudden reconstruction in the long-unchanged part of the city will have a significant impact on the neighbourhood.

Several regions of the world have conducted heritage reconstruction projects similar to the corridor project. The ancient town of Skopje in Macedonia, also known as the Old Bazaar, which consists of small stores, streets, independent businesses, and historic cultural establishments, has descended into social instability and dire economic conditions. To improve the condition of the area, a project was started in 2010. The project's primary goal was to implement better amenities and commercial development, which would in turn contribute to improved citizen livelihoods and improved tourism activity. According to the study, since the beginning of the project, the number of business establishments in the Old Bazaar has increased by 50% and its daily revenue has grown by 80%. Furthermore, the daily number of tourists increased by approximately 90% in the city. Jordan offers another illustration of this sort. The artistic mosaic creations have made Madaba, an ancient city with a rich heritage and culture, particularly well known. To address the city’s physical deterioration, population growth and encroachment, and poor maintenance, the World Bank launched a redevelopment project in the city of Madaba. After the project was finished, the city saw a significant rise in tourists within a period of two to three years (Throsby 2015 ).

The physical and socioeconomic regeneration of urban areas is prominent after tourism development. The assimilation of the local community in the process, as a source of heritage value and the inheritors of the heritage space, can result in sustainable tourism development.

2.1 Methodology

Each historically significant building has value or cultural heritage significance, and different stakeholders have varied perspectives on what those values are. Currently, determining the historical relevance of a site depends not only on professionals but also on the public at large. The need for public participation in cultural conservation initiatives is widely acknowledged in the literature (Bakri et al. 2015 ). The information for this study was gathered from newspaper articles published between 2018 and 2022 during the demolition of houses and the construction of new structures according to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor Project plans. The newspapers used for this study were in English and were published in digital media. The source of the newspapers was reliable national news agencies. Thirteen such articles were used for this study, and nine of them are cited in this article.

In addition to news articles, Google Earth Pro software was used to evaluate change detection within the study area. Google Earth Pro software has very fine resolution and is regularly used in research papers on urban development. To show the urban sprawl and changes over time, Google Earth Time Series Images were used, and area delineation was performed using the polygon tool in ArcMap software (Boussema et al. 2020 ).

In this paper, the polygon creation method was used to demarcate the study area within which the demolition of old structures and development of new structures have occurred. A landscape change analysis was performed using Google Earth images from three different years. The Google Earth images of different stages of the project provide a visual understanding of the changes that occurred in only 5 years. This paper includes images of the area before the commencement of the project (2018), during the project (2019) and after the completion of the project (2022). Following flow chart explains the various materials and methodology used in the present study (Fig.  2 ).

Research Methodology Flow Chart (Source: the author)

2.2 The heritage of Varanasi

The city of Varanasi, popularly known as Varanasi or Kashi, is situated on the left bank of the mighty Ganges in the district of Uttar Pradesh. The city has been a centre of religious practices and devotion and a pilgrimage site. Varanasi or Kashi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. Varanasi recorded its first human settlement in approximately 1000 BCE (before the Christian Era), although the city mainly developed during the 18th century. Other ancient cities worldwide have hardly survived after imperial and colonial forays, whereas the city of Varanasi continued to thrive through the ages. The city has successfully retained its ancient charms and rich culture even in the era of modernisation. During the 8th century, Adi Shankara started the worship of Shiva in this place. Later, in 1780, the temple of Kashi Vishwanath was built by queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore. This is also known as the golden temple and is one of the most famous temples of Varanasi.

The main iconic attraction of Varanasi City is its riverbanks and ghats with stairways. The riverfront heritage area spreads approximately 200 m inwards from the river and 6.8 km along the Ganges River. This heritage part of the Ganges Riverbank has a crescent shape and is located between the confluence of Ashi Nala in the south and Varana River in the north. A total of 84 ghats are located within this inherited river front. The ghats are overlooked by enormous old buildings, shrines and temples built mainly under the patronage of kings and lords between the 18th and 20th centuries. The ghats of Varanasi hold a special significance as they connect heritage with everyday life. Centuries-old ghats and neighbouring monuments are part of the everyday life of local residents as well as tourists and pilgrims. The river front also serves as an intangible part of cultural heritage as it is a necessary part of every ritual and festival of the city. All rituals start at the ghats with a sacred bath in the Ganges River. Although the city of Varanasi is not yet inscribed as a world heritage site, ‘ The Riverfront and Old City Heritage Zone of Varanasi ’ is being presented to UNESCO as a potential world heritage site (Singh and Rana 2015 ). Another creative proposal has recently been revealed for the renovation and rebuilding of the Kashi ghats, known as the River Front Development Project. The riverfronts and ghat areas are projected to undergo significant modification as a result of this project. On the other side of the river from the ghats, the project includes a four-lane elevated road that will be eight kilometres long. According to the project, three additional bridges will be constructed. It is anticipated that after this project is finished, tourism will flourish (Seth 2022 ).

2.3 The landscape change

As discussed earlier, an area of 43,636 sq. m. was selected, and the existing properties were demolished. The clearance of the area was planned to make space for building up the new structures decided according to the project. This particular area has experienced a significant change in landscape within a couple of years. From being a congested agglomeration of houses, shops and unplanned built-ups to narrow lanes filled with tourists, pilgrims and locals, it turned into a clean modern wide-spaced corridor. Modern construction also contains new buildings to facilitate tourists.

Google Earth images were taken in different years to compare the landscape changes that took place in the area of the project. Three images were selected: November 2018 (Fig.  3 ), November 2019 (Fig.  4 ), and January 2022 (Fig.  5 ).

The original settlement pattern around the temple, November 2018 (Source: Google Earth)

a The project area (cyan colour boundary) after demolishing the settlements, November 2019 (Source: Google Earth). b Demolition work in full swing for the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Project, 20 January 2019 (Source: the Hindu). c Properties being demolished for the project, 8 March 2019 (Source: the wire). d Temples amidst destruction, 13 May 2021 (Source: the Print)

The project area (orange colour boundary) after the construction of new structures, January 2022 (Source: Google Earth)

The first figure (Fig.  3 ) was selected from the time when the area was unchanged, and all the existing built-ups were intact. It is clear from the image that the Kashi Vishwanath Temple was surrounded by closely spaced compact settlements, and the only way to access the temple was through narrow alleys. Varanasi is particularly famous for these old narrow alleys, through which one could reach the ghats of Ganges and the Vishwanath Temple. Some of these alleyways were also market areas with numerous shops. The range of goods sold in those areas ranges from religious goods and decorative items to food stalls. This area, known as Lahori Tola, is a residential area with numerous shops and businesses.

The figure (Fig.  4 ) was selected from 2019, when the whole area under project was cleared by demolishing the properties. The barren land in the image clearly shows the parts where complete demolition has been done. The space between the Vishwanath Temple and the Ghat of Ganges appeared to be unhindered and waiting to be transformed into a tourism-based landscape.

In the third and final figure of 2022 (Fig.  5 ), the new constructions are visible, which were built according to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple extension and beautification plan. The whole area has changed from a compact residential space to a space for tourists and pilgrims within a couple of years. The existing properties were mostly private properties, temples, and shops. Although the private properties were demolished, the temples remained unharmed.

2.4 People’s perspectives

2.4.1 perspective of the residents.

The opinion of the public regarding the project is divided. Despite the restoration of religious glory and decongestion of the surroundings of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the situation of the locals who have lost their homes is painful and devastating. The locals of the area have discussed their loss and destruction with news reporters (Press Trust of India- PTI 2021 ). The people who were living in the area have clearly expressed their anguish about losing their homes and businesses. People have voiced their disagreement regarding the amount of compensation paid to them and have stated that the close proximity of their homes to the temple was an additional advantage that they lost due to this project. The locals stated that this tourism project has significantly affected them, not only economically but also emotionally (Ghosh 2018 ). Many people who had homes in the area selected for the corridor project recalled memories of their homes and the old neighbourhood. While many of the residents of Varanasi were enthusiastic about the ambitious project of redevelopment, many others grieved the loss of their family homes, where their families had lived for more than a hundred years. Many stated that extended families living in these old houses were broken up after the property was demolished. Family members became segregated and began living separately in different places in Varanasi (PTI 2021 ).

2.4.2 Perspective of shop owners

All the businesses operating in the area have been closed (Ghosh 2018 ). Many people who had shops in the area face the loss of their businesses due to complete demolition and relocation as shifting shops does not shift customers to new locations (PTI 2021 ). Several residents of the area had shops on the ground floor of the houses, and they lost their shops along with their residential properties during the demolition.

2.4.3 Perspective of the authorities

In an interview with the chief executive officer (CEO) of Shri Kashi Viswanath Temple Trust, Vishal Singh, who was in charge of implementing the project on the ground, the perspective of the stockholders was showcased more clearly. When he was asked about the disruption caused by the corridor project and how the people’s displeasure was handled, he replied that the clearance of the temple area was envisaged for 10 − 15 years, but the plan was implemented very recently. The problems faced by pilgrims were the key consideration in planning. Providing ‘Suraksha aur Suvidha’ (security and facilities) to pilgrims is the main focus of the corridor project. When asked about the residents of the area who had to leave due to the project and how they were compensated, he said, ‘We have paid every family, every household living here, including tenants. We have paid every single person who has been shifted out of this place’ (Basu 2019 ).

According to the authorities, the main reason behind the planning of the expansion of the temple complex was to provide facilities to tourists and pilgrims. On special occasions, the temple expects 4–5 lakh visitors in a day, and pilgrims must wait in a long queue, sometimes for more than a day. The aim of developing an extended temple complex was to provide basic amenities such as toilets, drinking water, first aid and medical care to visitors in need (Basu 2019 ). The authorities of the project applied a positive perspective to the situation and confirmed that every problem associated with the evacuation of the area was treated with a humanitarian approach (Basu 2019 ). According to the authorities, rehabilitation and compensation were not only for real owners of the area; other permanent settlers, such as tenants and people living illegally, were also included in the planning (Tiwari 2021 ).

Many people stated their opinions in support of the development project. Many supported the decision to remove the temple area encroachment. In some people’s opinions, most of the rightful owners of the neighbourhood in question did not live there. The people who were displaced due to the project were mostly tenants or had unauthorised occupancy (Ghosh 2018 ). According to the authorities, the process of purchasing property from the owners was the most difficult task. The real owners of the area were descendants of the kings or wealthy people of the past. Most of the properties were given to the shebait or caretakers, who looked after the property and temples. The shebait of the properties started to expand the buildings using every kind of construction, some of which were illegal and unsafe. Shebait began renting the rooms to tenants. Finally, when the properties were bought and vacated, the authorities had to compensate the real owners of the property, the shebait who looked after the property, the tenants and some illegal encroachers (Basu 2019 ).

Despite all the disputes regarding the acquisition of the properties, there is no pending case in the court (Tiwari 2021 ). The CEO of Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust has confirmed that Rs. 262 crore was paid to the owners of the property, and another Rs. 16.54 crore was paid to the tenants, including illegal encroachers (Basu 2019 ).

2.4.4 Perspective of the Tourists

The experiences of the tourists and pilgrims who visited Vishwanath Temple in its previous condition were not very positive. Slow-moving traffic around the temple and a long queue to enter the temple were regular affairs. Due to overcrowding, people could obtain only a glimpse of the deity before being forced to move ahead even after waiting in the queue for hours or days. It is expected that after the completion of the project, this situation will improve (Pandey and Jain 2021 ). Tourists visiting Kashi again after several years are surprised by the changed landscape of the temple. A visitor from Kolkata who was visiting Kashi after seven years was astonished by the wide space at the entrance of the temple instead of narrow and cramped lanes. The visitor shared his experience from his last visit when he had a ‘tough time’ reaching the temple through a narrow, crowded lane (Pandey 2019 ). The tour companies shared great joy in the news reports about the completion of the corridor project as they predicted an enormous increase in tourism business in Kashi. According to the president of a tour company, they had already witnessed a 10% increase in travellers interested in travelling Kashi. According to another president of a renowned tour company, along with the increased interest in visiting the Kashi temple, tourists show interest in visiting Sarnath Temple and river cruises (Bhuniya 2022 ). It can be inferred that with the rejuvenation of the Vishwanath temple, other surrounding attractions of Kashi will also benefit from the tourism business.

2.4.5 Other perspectives

According to historians, some parts of the neighbouring area of the temple that were demolished for the new construction were as old as the temple itself (Ghosh 2018 ). Families have stated that they had their own temples at their family homes that were also old and had beautiful carvings, but those too were demolished along with the remaining property. Structures that were demolished for the project, such as old family temples, houses and dharamshalas, were 250–300 years old. The locals stated that these structures were equally important parts of the heritage of the old city, but they are now lost due to the tourism development project. A police officer who chose to remain anonymous shared his grief regarding the destruction of heritage buildings for the project. According to this officer, some of the iconic buildings of the area were destroyed in the process. Although he admitted that the new structure looked beautiful, the loss of old stone carvings and structures was absolutely tragic. He stated that development at the cost of heritage is never acceptable (PTI 2021 ). Demolition for the Kashi Vishwanath corridor has disrupted the balanced harmony that existed between the Vishwanath Temple and the Gayan Vapi Mosque: ‘Such exposure, and particularly the haunting sight of the object remains – detritus, scraps of the city’s fabric and broken deities – led to protest and debates…’. The residents of the area have also stated their powerlessness in fighting the government project and saving the neighbourhood from destruction (Lazzaretti 2021 ) .

3 Implication: rediscovering the ancient temples

Conservation of the ancient temples can be considered one of the positive aspects of the corridor project (Singh 2018 ). While clearing the settlements for the projected corridor, more than 40 ancient temples were rediscovered. These temples were surrounded by dense settlements; in some cases, they were completely engulfed and new settlements were built around them, covering the ancient temples. The Archaeological Survey of India has confirmed that none of the temples that were found during the destruction of personal and commercial properties along the project site were older than the 17th century (PTI 2021 ). According to the architect of the project, the goal was to increase facilities for tourists by connecting the temple with the ghat of Ganges without changing the existing formation of the temple. The architect also stated that the aim was not to tamper with the original structure of the temple and to maintain it as it was. According to Atul Tripathi of Banaras Hindu University, ‘The corridor will give glimpses of the sculptural art and architectural history of temples over 300 years because the 41 temples, which were found among the buildings purchased and demolished, have been preserved’ (Indo-Asian News Service—(IANS), 2023 ).

Rediscovering the ancient temples on which illegal construction was performed has become one of the important reasons for many people to support the project (Ghosh 2018 ). During the demolition of houses in the area, numerous old temples were found inside the properties. Religious sentiment was given priority in this case, and the temples were not demolished. The plan of the project was revised due to the discovery of the old temples. The location of the guest house and the Vedic centre were changed to accommodate these temples within the temple complex. All the temples were incorporated into the plan and restored to their former glory (Tiwari 2021 ).

4 Discussion and conclusion

A limitation of this study is that a field survey would have enhanced the quality of the work. Unfortunately, when the project was in progress, there were several restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the chance of possible health risks from a field survey were also considered. There is future potential to continue this work by interviewing the affected residents and obtaining a broader perspective of how their lives changed after the completion of the project.

The case study of Varanasi City with regard to the newly developed Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Project provides a clear view of the existing conflicts between heritage conservation planning and the affected community. The opinions of the people are clearly divided based on their gains or losses from the development project. Temple-centric tourism development, increased facilities and amenities for tourists and pilgrims have pleased a great number of devotees. Larger space around the temple, less congestion, and the elimination of long queues to visit the deity have created a positive effect, especially for pilgrims and tourists as well as many other residents of Varanasi. For visitors, this development project will help to provide a better experience while visiting the holy temple, but outsiders will not realise the actual effect resulting from the redevelopment of the area. The complete demolition of private properties and the loss of businesses and means of income will no doubt cause socioeconomic damage to the people of the area. Although the people received compensation for their loss, several reports have confirmed the locals’ disappointment as the sum was not sufficient to compensate what they lost. In addition to the socioeconomic damage, the loss of heritage that took place in the process is undeniable. The area was one of the oldest parts of Varanasi and was part and parcel of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. The locals, along with many others around the country, have revealed their anguish about losing heritage in the name of tourism development. Some damages are measurable in terms of economic value, whereas some damages are completely unfathomable. The emotional and sentimental loss suffered by the residents due to their attachment to this area cannot be compensated.

Varanasi, now known as Kashi, is a city of incredible heritage value and is one of the oldest living cities in the world. The importance of heritage in Kashi cannot be confined to heritage structures; it spreads to the people, culture, and values of the place. The area that was demolished was considered a residential area, and the properties were not declared heritage buildings or may not have contained significant heritage monuments or architecture, but the heritage value of the space was undeniable. Areas with various historical, architectural, local, artistic and aesthetic characteristics incorporated into natural urban landscapes, when taken collectively, are more valuable than their individual values. The clustering of various aspects of tangible and intangible heritage value existing in the area that was lost in the process of tourism development is the only drawback for the otherwise ambitious project.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

Sustainable Tourism Development

Before the Christian Era

Press Trust of India

Chief Executive Officer

Indo-Asian News Service

Al-hagla, K.S. 2010. Sustainable urban development in historical areas using the tourist trail approach: A case study of the Cultural Heritage and Urban Development (CHUD) project in Saida. Lebanon. Cities 27 (4): 234–248.

Article   Google Scholar  

Bakri, A. F., N. Ibrahim, S. S. Ahmad, and N. Q. Zaman. 2015. Public perception on the cultural significance of heritage buildings in Kuala Lumpur. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 202: 294–302.

Basu, J. 2019. Vishwanath Corridor will be ready by June 2021: CEO of Kashi Temple Trust. e-paper The Sunday Guardian .

Benur, A. M., and B. Bramwell. 2015. Tourism product development and product diversification in destinations. Tourism Management 50: 213–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.02.005 .

Bhuniya, A. 2022. Tourists flock to Kashi Vishwanath Corridor . New Delhi: The Media India.

Google Scholar  

Bigio, A. G., and G. Licciardi. 2010. The urban rehabilitation of medinas: the World Bank experience in the Middle East and North Africa . Washington: The World Bank.  https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/21285a69-9361-5d55-8a31-bc9e2e8b810c/content .

Boussema, S. B. F., F. K. Allouche, A. Bekaoui, Y. Khalifa, and H. M’Sadak. 2020. Using Google Earth™ And Geographical Information System data as method to detect Urban Sprawl and Green Spaces for better wellbeing case of a coastal landscape. International Journal of Research 8 (9): 266–276.

De Ascaniis, S., M. Gravari-Barbas, and L. Cantoni. 2018. Tourism Management at UNESCO world heritage sites. ISBN 978-88-6101-018-5

Erbas, A. E. 2018. Cultural Heritage Conservation And Culture-Led Tourism Conflict Within The Historic Site In Beyoğlu, Istanbul. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment  217: 647–659. https://doi.org/10.2495/SDP180551 .

Fyall, A., and B. Garrod. 1998. Heritage tourism: At what price? Managing Leisure 3 (4): 213–228.

García-Hernández, María, Manuel De la Calle-Vaquero, and Claudia Yubero. 2017. Cultural Heritage and Urban Tourism: Historic City Centres under Pressure. Sustainability 9 (8): 1346. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9081346 .

Ghosh, B. 2018. Beautification plan destroys oldest neighbourhoods in Varanasi. The Hindu , December 9.

Goodwin, H. 2017. The challenge of overtourism. Responsible Tourism Partnership 4: 1–19.

IANS. 2023. Varanasi's corridor of change seamlessly merges past with future. Indo-Asian News Service. https://ians.in/index.php/iansin/d2J0bg .

Lane, B. B. 1993. Interpretation and Sustainable Tourism: The Potential and the Pitfalls. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 1: 2.

Lazzaretti, V. 2021. The boundary within: Demolitions, dream projects and the negotiation of Hinduness in Banaras. In  Spaces of Religion in Urban South Asia ,edited by István Keul. London: Routledge.

Li, Y., C. Lau, and P. Su. 2020. Heritage tourism stakeholder conflict: A case of a World Heritage Site in China. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 18: 267–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/14766825.2020.1722141 .

Nair, B. B., S. Sinha, M. R. Dileep. 2023. Who Owns the Heritage? Power and Politics of Heritage Site Management in Tourism, Hampi, India. Archaeologies 19: 276–298. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-022-09459-w .

Napravishta, F. 2018. The Fragility of Cultural Heritage in the Era of Globalization: Skanderbeg Square Modernization. Paper presented at IFAU 2018 - 2nd International Forum on Architecture and Urbanism, Pescara, Italy, November 8–10.

Nasser, N. 2003. Planning for Urban Heritage Places: Reconciling Conservation, Tourism, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Planning Literature 17 (4): 467–479.

Pandey, N. and J. Parveen. 2021. Kashi Vishwanath makeover races to meet Nov Dadeline, blending heritage with the modern. The Print .

Pandey, S. 2019. Corridor for Kashi tourists proves a bane for locals . Varanashi: The Deccan Herald.

Porter, B. W., and N. B. Salazar. 2005. Heritage Tourism, Conflicts and the Public Interest : An Introduction. International Journal of Heritage Studies 11: 361–370.  https://doi.org/10.1080/13527250500337397 .

PTI. 2021. Kashi corridor: Section of locals unhappy over 'lost homes', demolition of iconic buildings e-paper. The Indian Express . https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/ .

Seth, M. 2022. An 8-km elevated road, 3 ‘finger bridges’ to ghats: UP govt comes up with plan to transform Ganga riverfront . Lucknow: The Indian Express.

Singh, R. P. 2015. Varanasi, the Cultural Capital of India: Visioning Cultural Heritage and Planning. SANDHI, A Journal of Interfacing Science-Heritage and Technology-Tradition of India IIT Kharagpur, India 1 (1): 100–122.

Singh, S. 2018. Kashi Vishwanath Pathway: over 100 houses to be demolished, rehabilitation in Ramnagar. The Economic Times .

Sirima, A., and K. F. Backman. 2013. Communities’ displacement from national park and tourism development in the Usangu Plains.  Current Issues in Tourism  16 (7–8): 719–735. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2013.785484 .

Throsby, D. 2015. Investment in urban heritage conservation in developing countries: Concepts, methods and data , 1–6. City: Culture and Society.

Tiwari, O. M. 2021. Marvel of Kashi Vishwanath Corridor: 314 buildings acquired, Rs 390 crore paid to owners, but zero litigation. News Nine .

UNESCO. 2014. UNESCO Culture for Development Indicators: Methodology Manual . Paris: UNSCO. www.unesco.org/creativity/cdis .

Xing, H., A. Marzuki, and A.A. Razak. 2013. Conceptualizing a Sustainable Development Model For Cultural Heritage Tourism in Asia. Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management 8 (1): 51–66.

Yang, J., C. Ryan, and L. Zhang. 2013. Social conflict in communities impacted by tourism. Tourism Management 35: 82–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2012.06.002 .

Zhang, S., K. Xiong, G. Fei, H. Zhang, and Y. Chen. 2023. Aesthetic value protection and tourism development of the world natural heritage sites: A literature review and implications for the world heritage karst sites. Heritage Science  11: 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00872-0 .

Download references

Acknowledgements

Authors are very thankful to the Google Earth Pro for providing the open access to download the real time satellite imageries.

No fund received during this research work.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Geography, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, 110025, India

Ananya Pati

BIM Plus Plus Project Consultants L.L.C, Lynx Tower, Dubai Silicon Oasis, 341041, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Mujahid Husain

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

First author’s contribution: writing Abstract, Literature review, Discussion and conclusion. Second Author’s contribution: Modification/Rewrite Abstract and literature review. News agencies’ reporting photos of study area. Study area Google Earth Pro work, Study area delineation and calculation in ArcMap software. Common work: Throughout the communication with the editor of the Journal Built Heritage . Both authors did revision of manuscript with discussion and common understanding in every suggestion that were received from the reviewers. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mujahid Husain .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Pati, A., Husain, M. People’s perspectives on heritage conservation and tourism development: a case study of Varanasi. Built Heritage 7 , 17 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43238-023-00098-w

Download citation

Received : 25 November 2022

Accepted : 23 July 2023

Published : 15 August 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s43238-023-00098-w

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Conservation
• Development

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here .

Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Exploring the relationships between heritage tourism, sustainable community development and host communities’ health and wellbeing: A systematic review

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Translational Health Research Institute, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, United Kingdom

* E-mail: [email protected]

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Translational Health Research Institute, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Program, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia

• Cristy Brooks, 
• Emma Waterton, 
• Hayley Saul, 
• Andre Renzaho

• Published: March 29, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319
• Reader Comments

Previous studies examining the impact of heritage tourism have focused on specific ecological, economic, political, or cultural impacts. Research focused on the extent to which heritage tourism fosters host communities’ participation and enhances their capacity to flourish and support long-term health and wellbeing is lacking. This systematic review assessed the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development, as well as the health and wellbeing of local communities. Studies were included if they: (i) were conducted in English; (ii) were published between January 2000 and March 2021; (iii) used qualitative and/or quantitative methods; (iv) analysed the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development and/or the health and wellbeing of local host communities; and (v) had a full-text copy available. The search identified 5292 articles, of which 102 articles met the inclusion criteria. The included studies covering six WHO regions (Western Pacific, African, Americas, South-East Asia, European, Eastern Mediterranean, and multiple regions). These studies show that heritage tourism had positive and negative impacts on social determinants of health. Positive impacts included economic gains, rejuvenation of culture, infrastructure development, and improved social services. However, heritage tourism also had deleterious effects on health, such as restrictions placed on local community participation and access to land, loss of livelihood, relocation and/or fragmentation of communities, increased outmigration, increases in crime, and erosion of culture. Thus, while heritage tourism may be a poverty-reducing strategy, its success depends on the inclusion of host communities in heritage tourism governance, decision-making processes, and access to resources and programs. Future policymakers are encouraged to adopt a holistic view of benefits along with detriments to sustainable heritage tourism development. Additional research should consider the health and wellbeing of local community groups engaged in heritage tourism. Protocol PROSPERO registration number: CRD42018114681.

Citation: Brooks C, Waterton E, Saul H, Renzaho A (2023) Exploring the relationships between heritage tourism, sustainable community development and host communities’ health and wellbeing: A systematic review. PLoS ONE 18(3): e0282319. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319

Editor: Tai Ming Wut, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, HONG KONG

Received: April 29, 2022; Accepted: February 14, 2023; Published: March 29, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Brooks et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Tourism, heritage, and sustainable development go hand in hand. Socio-economically, tourism is considered a vital means of sustainable human development worldwide, and remains one of the world’s top creators of employment and a lead income-generator, particularly for Global South countries [ 1 ]. For most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), tourism is a key component of export earnings and export diversification, and a major source of foreign-currency income [ 1 ]. In 2019, prior to the international travel restrictions implemented to contain the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), export revenues from international tourism were estimated at USD 1.7 trillion, the world’s third largest export category after fuels and chemicals with great economic impacts. Tourism remains a major part of gross domestic product, generating millions of direct and indirect jobs, and helping LMICs reduce trade deficits [ 1 ]. It accounts for 28 per cent of the world’s trade in services, 7 per cent of overall exports of goods and services and 1 out of 10 jobs in the world [ 1 ]. Given this, it is anticipated that tourism will play a strong role in achieving all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but particularly Goals 1 (No poverty), 8 (Decent work and economic growth), 12 (Responsible consumption and production), 13 (Climate action) and 14 (Life below water).

To ensure tourism’s continued contribution to sustainable development efforts, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has established the T4SDG platform in order to “to make tourism matter on the journey to 2030” [ 2 ]. Likewise, in recognition of the relationship between heritage, tourism, and sustainable development, UNESCO launched the World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme, which was adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 2012. This Programme encapsulates a framework that builds on dialogue and stakeholder cooperation to promote an integrated approach to planning for tourism and heritage management in host countries, to protect and value natural and cultural assets, and develop appropriate and sustainable tourism pathways [ 3 ].

The addition of ‘heritage’ creates an important sub-category within the tourism industry: heritage tourism. This study adopts a broad definition of ‘heritage’, which encompasses the intersecting forms of tangible heritage, such as buildings, monuments, and works of art, intangible or living heritage, including folklore, cultural memories, celebrations and traditions, and natural heritage, or culturally infused landscapes and places of significant biodiversity [ 4 ]. This encompassing definition captures ‘heritage’ as it is understood at the international level, as evidenced by two key UNESCO conventions: the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage , which protects cultural, natural, and mixed heritage; and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage , which protects intangible heritage. Although the identification, conservation and management of heritage has traditionally been driven by national aspirations to preserve connections with history, ancestry, and national identity, the social and economic benefits of heritage tourism at community levels have also been documented [ 5 ].

Heritage tourism, as one of the oldest practices of travelling for leisure, is a significant sector of the tourism industry. It refers to the practice of visiting places because of their connections to cultural, natural, and intangible heritage and is oriented towards showcasing notable relationships to a shared past at a given tourism destination [ 4 ]. It contributes to global interchange and inter-cultural understanding [ 4 ]. Heritage tourism places economic and political value on recognised heritage resources and assets, providing additional reasons to conserve heritage further to the cultural imperatives for its maintenance [ 5 ]. By drawing on the cultural and historical capital of a community, heritage tourism can contribute to the flourishing of local communities and their positive sustainable development. However, as this systematic review will demonstrate, when applied uncritically and without meaningful engagement with the needs of local stakeholder, heritage tourism can also elicit damaging effects on community health and wellbeing.

First published in 1987, the classic report ‘ Our Common Future’ , more commonly known as the Brundtland Report, conceptualised sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [ 6 ]. Although this definition still works for many purposes, it emphasised the critical issues of environment and development whilst turning on the undefined implications of the word ‘needs’. In the report, the concept of sustainable development thus left unspecified the assumed importance of distinct cultural, political, economic, and ecological needs as well as health needs. Drawing on the work of globalization and cultural diversity scholar, Paul James [ 7 ], in this study we have defined ‘positive sustainable development’ as those “practices and meanings of human engagement that make for lifeworlds that project the ongoing probability of natural and social flourishing”, taking into account questions of vitality, relationality, productivity and sustainability.

Study rationale

For many years, the impact of heritage tourism has predominantly been viewed through ecological [ 8 , 9 ], economic and cultural [ 10 , 11 ] or political [ 12 ] lenses. For example, it has often been assumed that the conservation of historic, cultural, and natural resources, in combination with tourism, will naturally lead to sustainable local economies through increases in employment opportunities, provisioning of a platform for profitable new business opportunities, investment in infrastructure, improving public utilities and transport infrastructures, supporting the protection of natural resources, and, more recently, improving quality of life for local residents [ 13 – 15 ].

Similarly, the impact of heritage tourism on health and wellbeing has tended to focus on visitors’ wellbeing, including their health education and possible health trends, medical aspects of travel preparation, and health problems in returning tourists [ 16 – 18 ]. It has only been more recently that host communities’ health needs and wellbeing have been recognised as an intrinsic part of cultural heritage management and sustainable community development [ 19 ]. In this literature, it has been hypothesised that potential health implications of heritage tourism are either indirect or direct. Indirect effects are predominantly associated with health gains from heritage tourism-related economic, environmental, socio-cultural, and political impacts [ 20 ]. In contrast, health implications associated with direct impacts are closely associated with immediate encounters between tourism and people [ 20 ]. Yet, little is known of the overall generative effects of heritage tourism on sustainable community development, or the long-term health and wellbeing of local communities. For the first time, this systematic review identified and evaluated 102 published and unpublished studies in order to assess the extent to which heritage tourism fosters host communities’ participation and, consequently, their capacity to flourish, with emphasis placed on the long-term health impacts of this. The primary objective of the review was to determine: (1) what the impacts of heritage tourism are on sustainable community development; as well as (2) on the health and wellbeing of local host communities. Understanding the relationship between heritage tourism, sustainable community development and health is essential in influencing policies aimed at improving overall livelihood in local host communities, as well as informing intervention strategies and knowledge advancement.

This systematic review adhered to the guidelines and criteria set out in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 statement [ 21 ]. A protocol for this review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42018114681) and has been published [ 22 ].

Search strategy

In order to avoid replicating an already existing study on this topic, Cochrane library, Google Scholar and Scopus were searched to ensure there were no previous systematic reviews or meta-analyses on the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development and the health of local host communities. No such reviews or analyses were found. The search then sought to use a list of relevant text words and sub-headings of keywords and/or MeSH vocabulary according to each searched database. Derived from the above research question, the key search words were related to heritage tourism, sustainable community development, and health and wellbeing of local host communities. A trial search of our selected databases (see below) found that there are no MeSH words for heritage and tourism. Therefore, multiple keywords were included to identify relevant articles.

To obtain more focused and productive results, the keywords were linked using “AND” and “OR” and other relevant Boolean operators, where permitted by the databases. Subject heading truncations (*) were applied where appropriate. The search query was developed and tested in ProQuest Central on 22 November 2018. Following this search trial, the following combination of search terms and keywords, slightly modified to suit each database, was subsequently used:

(“Heritage tourism” OR tourism OR “world heritage site” OR ecotourism OR “heritage based tourism” OR “cultural tourism” OR “diaspora tourism” OR “cultural heritage tourism” OR “cultural resource management” OR “cultural heritage management” OR “historic site”)

(“Health status” [MeSH] OR “health equity” OR health OR community health OR welfare OR wellbeing)

(“sustainable development” [MeSH] OR sustainab* or “community development” or “local development” or “local community” or “indigenous community”)

The search covered the following bibliographic databases and electronic collections:

• Academic Search Complete
• Australian Heritage Bibliography (AHB)
• Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)
• CAB Abstracts
• ProQuest Central
• Science And Geography Education (SAGE)
• Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure

In addition, grey literature were also sourced from key organisation websites including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and the Smithsonian Institution.

Where the full texts of included articles could not be accessed, corresponding authors were contacted via e-mail or other means of communication (e.g., ResearchGate) to obtain a copy. A further search of the bibliographical references of all retrieved articles and articles’ citation tracking using Google Scholar was conducted to capture relevant articles that might have been missed during the initial search but that meet the inclusion criteria. For the purposes of transparency and accountability, a search log was kept and constantly updated to ensure that newly published articles were captured. To maximise the accuracy of the search, two researchers with extensive knowledge of heritage tourism literature (EW and HS) and two research assistants with backgrounds in public health and social sciences implemented independently the search syntax across the databases and organisations’ websites to ensure no article was missed.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Criteria used in this systematic review focused on the types of beneficiaries of heritage tourism, outcomes of interest, as well as the intervention designs. The outcomes of interest were sustainable community development and evidence for the overall health and wellbeing of local host communities. In this systematic review, sustainable community development was defined in terms of its two components: ‘community sustainability’ and ‘development’. Community sustainability was conceptualised as the “long-term durability of a community as it negotiates changing practices and meanings across all the domains of culture, politics, economics and ecology” (pp. 21, 24) [ 23 ].

In contrast, development was conceptualised as “social change—with all its intended or unintended outcomes, good and bad—that brings about a significant and patterned shift in the technologies, techniques, infrastructure, and/or associated life-forms of a place or people” (p. 44) [ 7 ]. To this, we added the question of whether the development was positive or negative. Thus, going beyond the Brundtland definition introduced earlier and once again borrowing from the work of Paul James, positive sustainable development was defined as “practices and meanings of human engagement that make for lifeworlds that project the ongoing probability of natural and social flourishing”, including good health [ 23 ].

Health was defined, using the World Health Organisation (WHO) definition, as “overall well-being” and as including both physical, mental and social health [ 24 ]. While there is no consensus on what wellbeing actually means, there is a general agreement that wellbeing encompasses positive emotions and moods (e.g., contentment, happiness), the absence of negative emotions (e.g., depression, anxiety) as well as satisfaction with life and positive functioning [ 25 ]. Therefore, wellbeing in this systematic review was conceptualised according to Ryff’s multidimensional model of psychological wellbeing, which includes six factors: autonomy; self-acceptance, environmental mastery, positive relationships with others, purpose in life, and personal growth [ 26 ].

In terms of intervention and design, this systematic review included peer-reviewed and grey literature sources of evidence [ 27 , 28 ] from quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies. Intervention designs of interest were observational studies (e.g. longitudinal studies, case control and cross-sectional studies) as well as qualitative and mixed-methods studies. The following additional restrictions were used to ensure texts were included only if they were: (i) written in English; (ii) analysed the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development and health and/or wellbeing of local host communities; (iii) research papers, dissertations, books, book chapters, working papers, technical reports including project documents and evaluation reports, discussion papers, and conference papers; and (iv) published between January 2000 and March 2021. Studies were excluded if they were descriptive in nature and did not have community development or health and wellbeing indicators as outcome measures.

The year 2000 was selected as the baseline date due to the signing of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by Member States in September of that year. With the introduction of the MDGs, now superseded by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there was an increase in commitment from government and non-governmental organizations to promote the development of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism [ 29 , 30 ]. Editorials, reviews, letter to editors, commentaries and opinion pieces were not considered. Where full text articles were not able to be retrieved despite exhausting all available methods (including contacting corresponding author/s), such studies were excluded from the review. Non-human studies were also excluded.

Study selection and screening

Data retrieved from the various database searches were imported into an EndNote X9 library. A three-stage screening process was followed to assess each study’s eligibility for inclusion. In the EndNote library, stage one involved screening studies by titles to remove duplicates. In stage two, titles and abstracts were manually screened for eligibility and relevance. In the third and final screening stage, full texts of selected abstracts were further reviewed for eligibility. The full study selection process according to PRISMA is summarised in Fig 1 . A total of 5292 articles from 10 databases and multiple sources of grey literature were screened. After removal of duplicates, 4293 articles were retained.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.g001

Titles and abstracts were further screened for indications that articles contain empirical research on the relationship between heritage tourism, sustainable community development and the health and wellbeing of local host communities. This element of the screening process resulted in the exclusion of 2892 articles. The remaining 1401 articles were screened for eligibility: 1299 articles were further excluded, resulting in 102 articles that met our inclusion criteria and were retained for analysis. Study selection was led by two researchers (EW and HS) and one research assistant, who independently double-checked 40% of randomly selected articles (n = 53). Interrater agreement was calculated using a 3-point ordinal scale, with the scoring being ’yes, definitely in’ = 1, ’?’ for unsure = 2, and ’no, definitely out’ = 3. Weighted Kappa coefficients were calculated using quadratic weights. Kappa statistics and percentage of agreement were 0.76 (95%CI: 0.63, 0.90) and 0.90 (95%CI: 0.85, 0.96) respectively, suggesting excellent agreement.

Data extraction

Data extraction was completed using a piloted form and was performed and subsequently reviewed independently by three researchers (AR, EW and HS), all of whom are authors. The extracted data included: study details (author, year of publication, country of research), study aims and objectives, study characteristics and methodological approach (study design, sample size, outcome measures, intervention), major findings, and limitations.

Quality assessment

To account for the diversity in design and dissemination strategies (peer-reviewed vs non-peer-reviewed) of included studies, the (JBI) Joanna Briggs Institute’s Critical Review Tool for qualitative and quantitative studies [ 31 ], mixed methods appraisal Tool (MMAT) for mixed methods [ 32 ], and the AACODS (Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, Significance) checklist for grey literature [ 33 ] were used to assess the quality of included studies. The quality assessment of included studies was led by one researcher (CB), but 40% of the studies were randomly selected and scored by three senior researchers (AR, EM, and HS) to check the accuracy of the scoring. Cohen’s kappa statistic was used to assess the agreement between quality assessment scorers. Kappa statistics and percentage of agreement were 0.80 (95%CI: 0.64, 0.96) and 0.96 (95%CI: 0.93, 0.99) respectively, suggesting excellent interrater agreement. The quality assessment scales used different numbers of questions and different ranges, hence they were all rescaled/normalised to a 100 point scale, from 0 (poor quality) to 100 (high quality) using the min-max scaling approach. Scores were stratified by tertiles, being high quality (>75), moderate quality (50–74), or poor quality (<50).

Data synthesis

Due to the heterogeneity and variation of the studies reviewed (study methods, measurements, and outcomes), a meta-analysis was not possible. Campbell and colleagues (2020) [ 34 ] recognise that not all data extracted for a systematic review are amenable to meta-analysis, but highlight a serious gap in the literature: the authors’ lack of or poor description of alternative synthesis methods. The authors described an array of alternative methods to meta-analysis. In our study we used a meta-ethnography approach to articulate the complex but diverse outcomes reported in included studies [ 35 ]. Increasingly common and influential [ 36 ], meta-ethnography is an explicitly interpretative approach to the synthesis of evidence [ 36 , 37 ] that aims to develop new explanatory theories or conceptualisations of a given body of work on the basis of reviewer interpretation [ 37 ]. It draws out similarities and differences at the conceptual level between the findings of included studies [ 37 ], with the foundational premise being the juxtaposition and relative examination of ideas between study findings [ 37 ]. Resulting novel interpretations are then considered to transcend individual study findings [ 36 ].

Originating with sociologists Noblit and Hare [ 36 , 38 ], and adopted and expanded upon by other researchers [ 36 , 37 ], meta-ethnography involves a 7-stage process of evidence synthesis and concludes with the translation and synthesis of studies [ 38 ]. The approach centres around the emergence of concepts and themes from included studies that are examined in relation to each other and used to synthesise and communicate primary research findings. In meta-ethnography, the diversity of studies such as the heterogeneity and variation of included studies in the present review, is considered an asset opposed to an issue in synthesis or translation of research findings [ 37 ].

Common threads, themes and trends were identified and extracted from both qualitative and quantitative narratives to generate insight on the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development and health. In order to increase reproducibility and transparency of our methods and the conclusions drawn from the studies, the narrative synthesis adhered to the “Improving Conduct and Reporting of Narrative Synthesis of Quantitative Data” protocol for mixed methods studies [ 39 ]. One of the primary researchers (CB) summarised the study findings and narrated the emerging themes and subthemes. The emerging themes were discussed with all authors for appropriateness of the content as well as for consistency. All studies were included in the synthesis of evidence and emergence of themes. The meta-ethnographic approach involved the following processes:

Identifying metaphors and themes.

Included studies were read and reviewed multiple times to gain familiarity and understanding with the data and identify themes and patterns in each study. As noted above, data was extracted from each study using a piloted template to remain consistent across all studies. The aims and/or objectives of each study was revisited regularly to validate any extracted data and remain familiar with the purpose of the study. Themes and, where relevant, sub-themes were identified, usually in the results and discussion section of included studies.

Determining how the studies were related.

Studies were grouped according to WHO regions (see Table 1 ). Thematic analysis was compared across all included studies regardless of region to identify common themes and/or sub-themes to determine how studies were related to one another. Although this review included a widely varied and large number of studies (n = 102), the findings of each study nonetheless had a common underpinning theme of heritage-based tourism. This enabled the identification of communal categories across the studies indicating their relatedness. For example, there were common themes of socio-cultural, socio-economic, community health, wellbeing, and empowerment factors and so on.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.t001

Translation and synthesis of studies.

Themes and, where relevant, sub-themes within each study were considered and compared to the next study in a process repeated for all included studies. Such translation of studies compares and matches themes across a corpus of material, and usually involves one or more of three main types of synthesis: reciprocal translation, refutational translation, and line of argument [ 37 ]. Themes were condensed and streamlined into main thematic areas, in addition to outlining common topics within those thematic areas. The primary researcher (CB) undertook this process with discussion, validation and confirmation of themes and topics from three other researchers (EW, HS and AR). Translation between studies and the resulting synthesis of research findings followed the process of the emergence of new interpretations and conceptualisation of research themes. A line of argument was also developed, and a conceptual model produced to describe the research findings, which is shown in Fig 2 . Both the line of argument and conceptual model were agreed upon by all authors.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.g002

A total of 102 studies were included in the analysis. Of these, 25 studies were conducted in the Western Pacific region, 23 in the African region, 20 in the Region of the Americas, 17 in the South-East Asia region, 12 in the European region, and 1 in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The remaining 4 studies reported on multiple regions. This may at first seem surprising given the prominence of European cultural heritage on registers such as the World Heritage List, which includes 469 cultural sites located Europe (equivalent to 47.19% of all World Heritage Properties that are recognised for their cultural values). However, any studies focusing on Europe that did not also examine sustainable community development and the overall health and wellbeing of local host communities were screened out of this systematic review in accordance with the abovementioned inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results of the data extraction and quality assessment across all included studies are presented in Table 1 . Of the included studies, 24 used a mixed methods design, 22 studies were qualitative, 36 were quantitative and 20 were grey literature (see Table 1 for more detail regarding the type of methods employed). Of these, 48 studies were assessed as high quality (>75), 32 as moderate quality (50–74) and 22 as poor quality (<50).

The major health and wellbeing determinant themes emerging from the included studies were grouped according to social, cultural, economic, and ecological health determinants. Fig 3 presents the proportion of included studies that investigated each of the four health determinants when assessed by WHO region. A large proportion of economic studies was shown across all regions, although this focus was surpassed by the social health determinant in the South-East Asia region ( Fig 3 ). Studies on the social health determinant also yielded a strong proportion of studies across most other regions, although notably not in the African region. This was closely followed by an ecological focus among the Americas, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions. The Americas had the highest proportion of cultural studies, with the European region being the lowest proportionally ( Fig 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.g003

More specifically, for studies focused on Africa, 100% of the publications included in this review explicitly investigated the economic benefits of tourism on wellbeing (74% of them exclusively), with European-focused studies reflecting a similarly high interest in economic wellbeing (91% of publications). Across the Americas, economic determinants of wellbeing were investigated in 86% of publications and in the Western Pacific, methods to investigate this variable were built into 80% of included studies. By comparison, this research demonstrates that only just over two thirds of articles reporting on the South-East Asia region shared this focus on economic determinants (65% of publications). Instead, social determinants of wellbeing form a stronger component of the research agenda in this region, with 76% of publications investigating this theme in studies that also tended to consider multiple drivers of health. For example, in 47% of publications reporting on the South-East Asia context, at least three themes were integrated into each study, with particular synergies emerging between social, economic and ecological drivers of wellbeing and their complex relationships.

Similarly, 47% of publication reporting on the Americas also included at least three health determinants. Research outputs from these two regions demonstrated the most consistently holistic approach to understanding wellbeing compared to other regions. In Africa, only 13% of the papers reviewed incorporated three or more themes; in the Western Pacific, this figure is 32% and in Europe only 8% of research outputs attempted to incorporate three or more themes. It seems unlikely that the multidimensional relationship between socio-economic and ecological sustainability that is always in tension could be adequately explored given the trend towards one-dimensional research in Africa, the Western Pacific and particularly Europe.

The associated positive and negative impacts of heritage tourism on each of the health and wellbeing determinants are then presented in Table 2 , along with the considered policy implications. Some of the identified positive impacts included improved access to education and social services, greater opportunities for skill development and employment prospects, preservation of culture and traditions, increased community livelihood and greater awareness of environmental conservation efforts. Negative impacts of tourism on host communities included forced displacement from homes, environmental degradation and over-usage of natural resources, barriers to tourism employment and reliance on tourism industry for income generation and economic stability, dilution and loss of cultural values and practices, civil unrest and loss of social stability, increased rates of crime and disease and lack of direct benefit to local communities. Both positive and negative impacts across each health and wellbeing determinant had acknowledged implications on policy development, many of which revolved around governance and ownership of tourist activities, participation of the local community in tourism sectors and active management of environmental protection programs. Such themes are shown in Table 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.t002

Recent thematic trends can be observed in Table 3 , whereby the percentage of research outputs that investigate economic drivers of health and wellbeing produced since 2019 are shown. In Africa, Europe and the Americas, the proportion of outputs investigating economic health determinants since 2019 is the smallest ( Table 3 ), being 17% in Africa and the Americas, and 36% in Europe, respectively. On the contrary, 50% of Western Pacific region studies since 2019 had research focused on the economic drivers of wellbeing in relation to heritage tourism. Moreover, 65% of studies included economy-focused research in South-East Asia, with more than half of those outputs produced in the last two years ( Table 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.t003

The proportion of research outputs where local community members were asked to give their opinions as participants is presented in Table 4 , where they were invited to co-lead the research but were excluded from data production. In the Western Pacific region, there was a relative lack of participation (either as researchers or stakeholders) by local communities in the studies included in this review. Meaningful modes of community participation in the South-East Asian region can be calculated to 65%, more closely in line with Africa, Europe and the Americas ( Table 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.t004

This systematic review is the first of its kind to explicitly consider the relationships between heritage tourism and host communities; specifically, the impact of tourism on host communities’ capacity to flourish and support long-term health and wellbeing. Such impacts were found to be both positive and negative, with either direct or indirect consequences on the development of local governance policies. Our synthesis revealed that there are important regional variations in the way that determinants of health–social, cultural, economic or ecological–drive tourism research agendas. They commonly included considerations of social dynamics, access and health of the local community, empowerment and participation of host communities in tourism-based activities and governance, employment opportunities, preservation or erosion of culture, and environmental influences due to tourism promotion or activity.

Economic impacts represented the strongest focus of the studies include in this review, often to the detriment of other cultural or environmental considerations. With the exception of South-East Asia, studies focused on all other WHO regions (Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Western Pacific) were overwhelmingly built around attempts to understand economic variables as determinants of health and wellbeing, and in some instances were likely to focus on economic variables in lieu of any other theme. Given the steady growth of an interest in economic variables in South-East Asia since 2019, it is plausible that this will soon represent the largest concentration of studies in that region, too.

This trend towards emphasis on economic influences is problematic given that some of the emerging impacts from tourism-related practices identified in this review were found to be common across multiple determinants of health and thus not limited to economic health alone. For example, the limitation placed on access to prime grazing land for cattle belonging to local residents was perceived to be a negative impact both ecologically and economically [ 60 , 141 ]. This may be considered detrimental from an environmental standpoint due to the alteration of the local ecosystem and destruction of natural resources and wildlife habitat, such as the building of infrastructure to support the development of tourist accommodation, transport, and experiences.

Economically, the loss of grazing land results in reduced food sources for cattle and consequently a potential reliance on alternative food sources (which may or may not be accessible or affordable), or in the worst-case scenario death of cattle [ 92 ]. In turn, this loss of cattle has an adverse impact on the financial livelihood of host communities, who may rely on their cattle as a sole or combined source of income. Considered in isolation or combination, this single negative impact of tourism–reduced grazing access–has flow-on effects to multiple health determinants. Therefore, it is important to consider the possible multifactorial impacts of tourism, heritage or otherwise, on the host communities involved (or at least affected) given they may have a profound and lasting impact, whether favourable or not.

The potential interrelationships and multifactorial nature of heritage tourism on the health and wellbeing of host communities were also identified among a number of other studies included in this review. For example, a study from the Western Pacific Region explored connections between the analysis of tourism impacts, wellbeing of the host community and the ‘mobilities’ approach, acknowledging the three areas were different in essence but converging areas in relation to tourism sustainability [ 125 ]. That said, the cross-over between social determinants was not always observed or presented as many studies primarily focused on a single health domain [ 43 – 51 , 53 , 55 – 57 , 59 , 61 , 71 , 74 , 86 – 90 , 103 , 104 , 108 – 110 , 118 , 130 , 134 – 136 , 138 – 140 ]. Some studies, for instance, focused on poverty reduction and/or alleviation [ 134 , 135 ], while others focused solely on cultural sustainability or sociocultural factors [ 109 , 110 , 118 ], and others delved only into the ecological or environmental impacts of tourism [ 86 , 89 ]. As noted above, the majority of studies that focused on a single health determinant considered economic factors.

A common theme that spanned multiple health domains was the threat of relocation. Here, local communities represented in the reviewed studies were often at risk of being forced to relocate from their ancestral lands for tourism and/or nature conservation purposes [ 41 , 60 , 80 , 131 ]. This risk not only threatens their way of life and livelihood from an economic perspective, but will also have social implications, jeopardising the sustainability and longevity of their cultural traditions and practices on the land to which they belong [ 41 , 60 , 80 , 131 ]. Moreover, it may have ongoing implications for the displacement of family structures and segregation of local communities.

Importantly, this systematic review revealed that cultural determinants of health and wellbeing were the least explored in every region and were in many instances entirely omitted. This is at odds with the increasingly prevalent advice found in wider heritage and tourism academic debates, where it is argued that cultural institutions such as museums and their objects, for example, may contribute to health and wellbeing in the following ways: promoting relaxation; providing interventions that affect positive changes in physiology and/or emotions; supporting introspection; encouraging public health advocacy; and enhancing healthcare environments [ 142 – 144 ]. Likewise, Riordan and Schofield have considered the cultural significance of traditional medicine, citing its profound importance to the health and wellbeing of the communities who practice it as well as positioning it as a core element of both local and national economies [ 145 ].

Of greater concern is the finding of this review that of the relatively small number of papers investigating cultural health determinants, many recorded profoundly negative and traumatising outcomes of tourism development, such as a rise of ethnoreligious conflict, loss of ancestral land, a dilution of cultural practices to meet tourist demands, and a loss of cultural authenticity [ 41 ]. Consequently, comparative studies that focus on cultural determinants, in addition to economic and environmental determinants, are currently lacking and should therefore be prioritised in future research. In fact, only one fifth of those papers included in this review adopted the qualitative approach needed to probe the socio-cultural dimensions of health. Novel qualitative research methods to investigate community health are therefore a major research lacuna.

Just as solely equating community health and wellbeing with economic flourishing is problematic, so too is assuming that health is reducible only to clinical care and disease [ 146 ], given that "[i]deas about health … are cultural” [ 146 ]. Early indications of an acceptance that culture and heritage might be central to community health and wellbeing can be found in UNESCO’s 1995 report, Our Creative Diversity : Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development [ 147 ]. More recently, this notion is evidenced in the 2019 Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention [ 148 ] and the 2020 Operational Directives for UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage [ 149 ], both of which indicate the need for a major shift in research foci towards cultural determinants of health and wellbeing if research is to keep pace with assumptions now operating within international policy [ 148 , 149 ].

Although Africa, Europe and the Americas are the three regions with the highest proportion of papers investigating the economic benefits of tourism on health and wellbeing, these regions are also the most responsive to the above recommended changes in policy and debate (see Table 3 ). In these three regions, the proportion of outputs investigating economic health determinants since 2019 is the smallest, demonstrating a recent decline in research that is persuaded by the a priori assumption that economic wellbeing automatically equates to cultural wellbeing. Despite demonstrating the most holistic approach to understanding health and wellbeing across all the themes, an upwards trend in economy-focused research was identified in South-East Asia, since more than half of the economic outputs were produced in the last two years. Such a trend is potentially problematic for this region because it may reinforce the notion that the main benefits of tourism are direct and financial, rather than refocusing on the tension created by indirect effects of tourism on quality of life and community wellbeing.

Conversely, this review demonstrates that the Western Pacific region has persisted with research focused on the economic drivers of wellbeing in relation to heritage tourism (see Table 3 ). This persistence may be explained by the relative lack of participation (either as researchers or stakeholders) by local communities in any of the studies included in this review (see Table 4 ). Indeed, the Western Pacific had the lowest occurrence of community participation and/or consultation in establishing indicators of wellbeing and health and/or opinions about the role of tourism in promoting these.

On the contrary, while seemingly demonstrating the second highest proportion of exclusionary research methods as discussed above, South-East Asia remains the only region where any attempts were made to ensure community members were invited to design and co-lead research (see Table 4 ). Nonetheless, meaningful modes of participation in this region were found to be more closely in line with the deficits found in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. This lack of approaches aimed at including affected communities as researchers in all but one instance in South-East Asia is an important research gap in tourism studies’ engagement with health and wellbeing debates.

Importantly, this failure to adequately engage with affected communities is at odds with the depth of research emanating from a range of health disciplines, such as disability studies, occupational therapy, public health, and midwifery, where the slogan ‘nothing about us without us’, which emerged in the 1980s, remains prominent. Coupled with a lack of focus on cultural determinants of health, this lack of participation and community direction strongly indicates that research studies are being approached with an a priori notion about what ‘wellbeing’ means to local communities, and risks limiting the relevance and accuracy of the research that is being undertaken. Problematically, therefore, there is a tendency to envisage a ‘package’ of wellbeing and health benefits that tourism can potentially bring to a community (regardless of cultural background), with research focusing on identifying the presence or absence of elements of this assumed, overarching ‘package’.

Interestingly, along with the paucity of full and meaningful collaboration with local community hosts in tourism research, there were no instances across the systematic review where a longitudinal approach was adopted. This observation reinforces the point that long-term, collaborative explorations of culturally specific concepts including such things as ‘welfare’, ‘benefit’, ‘healthfulness’ and ‘flourishing’, or combinations of these, are lacking across all regions. To bring tourism research more in line with broader debates and international policy directions about wellbeing, it is important for future research that the qualities of health and wellbeing in a particular cultural setting are investigated as a starting point, and culturally suitable approaches are designed (with local researchers) to best examine the effects of tourism on these contingent notions of wellbeing.

Importantly, a lack of longitudinal research will lead to a gap in our understanding about whether the negative impacts of tourism increase or compound over time. Adopting these ethnographies of health and wellbeing hinges upon long-term community partnerships that will serve to redress a research gap into the longevity of heritage tourism impacts. Furthermore, of those papers that asked local community members about their perceptions of heritage tourism across all regions, a common finding was the desire for greater decision-making and management of the enterprises as stakeholders. It seems ironic, therefore, that research into heritage tourism perceptions itself commonly invites the bare minimum of collaboration to establish the parameters of that research.

In a small number of papers that invited community opinions, local stakeholders considered that the tourism ‘benefits package’ myth should be dispelled, and that responsible tourism development should only happen as part of a wider suite of livelihood options, such as agriculture, so that economic diversity is maintained. Such a multi-livelihood framework would also promote the accessibility of benefits for more of the community, and this poses a significant new direction for tourism research. For example, an outcome of the review was the observation that infrastructure development is often directed towards privileged tourism livelihood options [ 150 ], but a more holistic framework would distribute these sorts of benefits to also co-develop other livelihoods.

Although there is a clear interest in understanding the relationship between heritage, tourism, health and wellbeing, future research that explores the intersections of heritage tourism with multiple health domains, in particular social and cultural domains, is critical. Indeed, the frequency with which the negative impacts of heritage tourism were reported in the small number of studies that engaged local community participants suggests that studies co-designed with community participants are a necessary future direction in order for academics, policymakers and professionals working in the field of heritage tourism to more adequately address the scarce knowledge about its socio-cultural impacts. The accepted importance of community researchers in cognate fields underscores that the knowledge, presence and skills of affected communities are vital and points to the need for similar studies in heritage tourism.

Conclusions

There are five main findings of this systematic review, each of which is a critical gap in research that should be addressed to support the health and wellbeing in local communities at tourism destinations. Firstly, whilst one of the primary findings of this systematic review was the increase in employment opportunities resulting from tourism, this disclosure arose because of a strong–in many cases, exclusive–methodological focus on economic indicators of health and wellbeing. Such research reveals that heritage tourism may significantly reduce poverty and may be used as a poverty-reducing strategy in low-income countries. However, the assumption underlying this focus on the economic benefits of tourism for health and wellbeing is that economic benefits are a proxy for other determinants of health, e.g., cultural, social, environmental, etc., which are otherwise less systematically explored. In particular, the ways in which combinations of environmental, social, cultural, and economic determinants on wellbeing interact is an area requires considerable future research.

Secondly, whilst economic drivers of wellbeing were the most common area of research across all regions, the impacts of tourism on cultural wellbeing were the least explored. Moreover, in many publications culture was entirely omitted. This is perhaps one of the most troubling outcomes of this systematic review, because in the relatively small number of papers that did investigate the cultural impacts of tourism, many reported traumatising consequences for local communities, the documentation of which would not be recorded in the majority of papers where cultural wellbeing was absent. Tourism’s profoundly damaging consequences included reports of a rise in ethnoreligious violence, loss of ancestral land and the threat of forced relocation, not to mentioned extensive reports of cultural atrophy.

Linked to this lack of understanding about the cultural impacts of tourism on wellbeing, the third finding of this review is that there are far fewer studies that incorporate qualitative data, more suited to document intangible cultural changes, whether positive or negative. Furthermore, more longitudinal research is also needed to address the subtle impacts of tourism acting over longer timescales. The systematic review revealed a lack of understanding about how both the negative and positive outcomes of heritage tourism change over time, whether by increasing, ameliorating, or compounding.

The fourth finding of this research is that, to a degree and in certain regions of the world, research is responding to international policy. This review has illustrated that, historically, Africa, Europe and the Americas prioritised research that measured the economic effects of tourism on health and wellbeing. However, after 2019 a shift occurred towards a growing but still under-represented interest in social-cultural wellbeing. We propose that this shift aligns with recommendations from UNESCO’s 2019 Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention [ 148 ] and the 2020 Operational Directives for UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage [ 149 ]. The exception to this shift is the Western Pacific region, where the economic impacts of tourism are increasingly prioritised as the main indicator of wellbeing. Given the overall efficacy of policy for steering towards ethical and culturally-grounded evaluations of the impacts of tourism, we would urge heritage policymakers to take account of our recommendations ( Table 2 ).

The policy implications emerging from this review are the fifth finding and can be distilled into a few key propositions. There is a need for meaningful decolonising approaches to heritage tourism. More than half of the negative consequences of heritage tourism for health and wellbeing could be mitigated with policy guidance, contingent cultural protocols and anti-colonial methods that foreground the rights of local (including Indigenous) communities to design, govern, lead, and establish the terms of tourism in their local area. Although ‘participation’ has become a popular term that invokes an idea of power symmetries in tourism enterprises, it is clear from this systematic review that the term leaves too much latitude for the creep of poor-practice [ 151 ] that ultimately erodes community autonomy and self-determination. Participation is not enough if it means that there is scope for governments and foreign investors to superficially engage with community wellbeing needs and concerns.

Furthermore, calls for ‘capacity-building’ that effectively re-engineer the knowledges of local communities are fundamentally problematic because they presuppose a missing competency or knowledge. This is at odds with impassioned anti-colonial advocacy [ 152 ] which recognises that communities hold a range of knowledges and cultural assets that they may, and should be legally protected to, deploy (or not) as a culturally-suitable foundation that steers the design of locally-governed tourism enterprises. In short, to maximise and extend the benefits of heritage tourism and address major social determinants of health, host communities’ presence in heritage tourism governance, decision making processes, and control of and access to the resultant community resources and programs must be a priority. Future policymakers are encouraged to make guidance more explicit, enforceable and provision avenues for feedback from local communities that offers the protections of transparency. It is also imperative that researchers involve and empower local community groups as part of studies conducted in relation to their health and wellbeing. If current practices remain unchanged, the primary benefit of tourism could easily be rendered inaccessible through lack of education and/or appropriate training which was frequently identified as a barrier to community participation.

Supporting information

S1 checklist. prisma 2009 checklist..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282319.s001

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge Della Maneze (DM) and Nidhi Wali (NW) for their contributions to the literature search and initial data extraction.

Declarations

The authors hereby declare that the work included in this paper is original and is the outcome of research carried out by the authors listed.

• 1. World Tourism Organization. International Tourism Highlights, 2020 Edition. UNWTO, Madrid. 2021. https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284422456.2021
• 2. World Tourism Organization. The T4SDG Platform Madrid, Spain. 2022 [cited 2022 October 11]. Available from: https://tourism4sdgs.org/the-platform/ .
• 3. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Sustainable Tourism: UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme. 2021 [cited 2021 June 20]. Available from: https://whc.unesco.org/en/tourism/ .
• View Article
• Google Scholar
• 5. Leaver B. Delivering the social and economic benefits of heritage tourism. 2012 [cited 2021 June 28]. Available from: https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/f4d5ba7d-e4eb-4ced-9c0e-104471634fbb/files/essay-benefits-leaver.pdf .
• 7. James P. Creating capacities for human flourishing: an alternative approach to human development. In: Spinozzi P, Mazzanti M, editors. Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies; 2018. p. 23–45.
• 9. Paul-Andrews L. Tourism’s impact on the environment: a systematic review of energy and water interventions [Thesis]. Christchurch: University of Canterbury; 2017. Available from: https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/13416 .
• PubMed/NCBI
• 31. Joanna Briggs Institute. Joanna Briggs Institute reviewers’ manual: 2014 edition. The Joanna Briggs Institute [Internet]. 2014. Available from: https://nursing.lsuhsc.edu/JBI/docs/ReviewersManuals/Economic.pdf .
• 33. Tyndall J. AACODS checklist. Flinders University [Internet]. 2010. Available from: http://dspace.flinders.edu.au/dspace/ .
• 38. Noblit GW, Hare RD, Hare RD. Meta-ethnography: Synthesizing qualitative studies: Sage; 1988.
• 52. Emptaz-Collomb J-GJ. Linking tourism, human wellbeing and conservation in the Caprivi strip (Namibia) [Ph.D Thesis]: University of Florida; 2009. Available from: https://www.proquest.com/docview/848632295?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true .
• 56. Lepp AP. Tourism in a rural Ugandan village: Impacts, local meaning and implications for development [Ph.D. Thesis]: University of Florida; 2004. Available from: https://search.proquest.com/docview/305181950?accountid=36155 , https://ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/61UWSTSYD_INST/openurl?frbrVersion=2&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com&req_id=&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournalrft.issn=&rft.title=&rft.atitle=&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2004 .
• 58. Mosetlhi BBT. The influence of Chobe National Park on people’s livelihoods and conservation behaviors [Ph.D. Thesis]: University of Florida; 2012. Available from: https://search.proquest.com/docview/1370246098?accountid=36155 , https://ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/61UWSTSYD_INST/openurl?frbrVersion=2&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com&req_id=&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournalrft.issn=&rft.title=&rft.atitle=&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2012 .
• 60. Stone MT. Protected Areas, Tourism and Rural Community Livelihoods in Botswana [Ph.D. Thesis]: Arizona State University; 2013. Available from: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/79567367.pdf .
• 61. Lyon A. Tourism and sustainable development: active stakeholder discourses in the waterberg biosphere reserve, South Africa [Ph.D. Thesis]: The University of Liverpool; 2013. Available from: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/14953/4/LyonAnd_Dec2013_14953.pdf .
• 62. DeLuca LM. Tourism, conservation, and *development among the Maasai of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania: Implications for political ecology and sustainable livelihoods [Ph.D. Thesis]: University of Colorado; 2002. Available from: https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999942945102121 .
• 69. Chazapi K, Sdrali D. Residents perceptions of tourism impacts on Andros Island, Greece. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM 2006: WIT Press; 2006. p. 10.
• 70. Ehinger LT. Kyrgyzstan’s community-based tourism industry: A model method for sustainable development and environmental management? [M.A. Thesis]: University of Wyoming; 2016. Available from: https://search.proquest.com/docview/1842421616?accountid=36155 , https://ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/61UWSTSYD_INST/openurl?frbrVersion=2&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com&req_id=&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournalrft.issn=&rft.title=&rft.atitle=&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2016 .
• 74. Labadi S. Evaluating the socio-economic impacts of selected regenerated heritage sites in Europe: European Cultural Foundation; 2011. 129 p.
• 75. McDonough R. Seeing the people through the trees: Conservation, communities and ethno-ecotourism in the Bolivian Amazon Basin [Thesis]: Georgetown University 2009. Available from: https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/558153/McDonough_georgetown_0076M_10335.pdf;sequence=1 .
• 81. Slinger VAV. Ecotourism in a small Caribbean island: Lessons learned for economic development and nature preservation [Ph.D. Thesis]: University of Florida; 2002. Available from: https://www.proquest.com/docview/304798500?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true .
• 86. Barthel DJ. Ecotourism’s Effects on Deforestation in Colombia [M.A. Thesis]: Northeastern Illinois University; 2016. Available from: https://www.proquest.com/docview/1793940414?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true .
• 89. Lottig KJ. Modeling resident attitudes on the environmental impacts of tourism: A case study of O’ahu, Hawai’i [M.S. Thesis]: University of Hawai’i; 2007. Available from: https://search.proquest.com/docview/304847568?accountid=36155 , https://ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/61UWSTSYD_INST/openurl?frbrVersion=2&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com&req_id=&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournalrft.issn=&rft.title=&rft.atitle=&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2007 .
• 91. Raschke BJ. Is Whale Watching a Win-Win for People and Nature? An Analysis of the Economic, Environmental, and Social Impacts of Whale Watching in the Caribbean [Ph.D. Thesis]: Arizona State University; 2017. Available from: https://keep.lib.asu.edu/_flysystem/fedora/c7/187430/Raschke_asu_0010E_17442.pdf .
• 94. Bennett N. Conservation, community benefit, capacity building and the social economy: A case study of Łutsël K’e and the proposed national park [M.E.S. Thesis]: Lakehead University (Canada); 2009. Available from: https://search.proquest.com/docview/725870968?accountid=36155 , https://ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/61UWSTSYD_INST/openurl?frbrVersion=2&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com&req_id=&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournalrft.issn=&rft.title=&rft.atitle=&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2009 .
• 104. Rahman M. Exploring the socio-economic impacts of tourism: a study of cox’s bazar, bangladesh [Ph.D. Thesis]: Cardiff Metropolitan University; 2010. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344518546_Exploring_the_Socio-economic_Impacts_of_Tourism_A_Study_of_Cox’s_Bazar_Bangladesh .
• 109. Anggraini LM. Place Attachment, Place Identity and Tourism in Jimbaran and Kuta, Bali [Ph.D. Thesis]: University of Western Sydney; 2015. Available from: https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:32139 .
• 111. Vajirakachorn T. Determinants of success for community-based tourism: The case of floating markets in Thailand [Ph.D. Thesis]: Texas A&M University; 2011. Available from: https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2011-08-9922 .
• 118. Suntikul W. Linkages between heritage policy, tourism and business. ICOMOS 17th General Assembly; Paris, France 2011. p. 1069–76.
• 119. Suntikul W. The Impact of Tourism on the Monks of Luang Prabang. 16th ICOMOS General Assembly and International Symposium: ‘Finding the spirit of place–between the tangible and the intangible’; Quebec, Canada 2008. p. 1–14.
• 127. Murray AE. Footprints in Paradise: Ethnography of Ecotourism, Local Knowledge, and Nature Therapies in Okinawa: Berghahn Books; 2012. 186 p.
• 132. Yang JYC, Chen YM. Nature -based tourism impacts in I -Lan, Taiwan: Business managers’ perceptions [Ph.D. Thesis]: University of Florida; 2006. Available from: https://search.proquest.com/docview/305330231?accountid=36155 , https://ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/61UWSTSYD_INST/openurl?frbrVersion=2&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com&req_id=&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournalrft.issn=&rft.title=&rft.atitle=&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2006 .
• 137. Refaat H, Mohamed M. Rural tourism and sustainable development: the case of Tunis village’s handicrafts, Egypt". X International Agriculture Symposium "AGROSYM 2019"; 3–6 October 2019; Bosnia and Herzegovina 2019. p. 1670–8.
• 141. Thinley P. Empowering People, Enhancing Livelihood, and Conserving Nature: Community Based Ecotourism in JSWNP, Bhutan and TMNP, Canada [M.Phil. Thesis]: University of New Brunswick; 2010. Available from: https://search.proquest.com/docview/1027149064?accountid=36155 , https://ap01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/61UWSTSYD_INST/openurl?frbrVersion=2&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_id=10_1&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com&req_id=&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournalrft.issn=&rft.title=&rft.atitle=&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2010 .
• 147. World Commission on Culture and Development. Our creative diversity: report of the World Commission on Culture and Development. Paris: UNESCO: 1995.
• 148. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Paris: UNESCO: 2019.
• 149. UNESCO. Operational Directives for the Implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Paris: UNESCO: 2020.