Community's Attitude Towards the Development of Cultural and Heritage Tourism: An Exploratory Study

Literature Review

The growth of tourism is a “two-edged sword” as it encompasses both constructive and detrimental facets for the local inhabitants. The intensity of indigenous inhabitants’ inclusion in tourism is dynamically linked to tourism impacts on public perception. Tourism, without a doubt, provides the greatest social and economic benefits among the various techniques for revitalising intangible cultural heritage (ICH). According to Wei et al. (2021), residents' heritage proximity has a favourable influence on perceived positive impacts but has no effect on perceived negative impacts. Residents' ties to heritage and perceptions of consequences have an impact on their attitudes towards tourism development.Cultural heritage resources are one of the most vulnerable development sectors, notwithstanding their promise for sustainability. They are usually the first parts of a city to undergo massive planning revisions. The global World Wars, battles, and conquests have also devastated historic communities, restricting cultural heritage tourism (Mandola & Boussaa, 2023). Some severely destroyed cities were abandoned and never recovered. The UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger includes 52 cultural, natural, mixed, and transboundary assets as of November 12, 2022. Transnational heritage sites include monuments and city centres like Vienna's historic centre, with the worst deterioration in Africa and Middle Eastern countries like Mali, Niger, Egypt, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.