Journal Article

Cultural Routes as Cultural Tourism Products for Heritage Conservation and Regional Development: A Systematic Review

Teng, Xiao, Shen, Zhenjiang, Lin, Xinyue, Mao, Qizhi

2024

Overview

Cultural routes are a composite set of heritage sites that refer to historical routes of human communication. As key products of cultural tourism, they provide visitors with rich cultural experiences across regions. We systematically review reports and studies related to the tourism development of 38 cultural route cases worldwide, with a special focus on their distribution, typology, planning patterns, and tools for cultural tourism. We summarized eight tools and found some differences in how often these eight tools are used by the different types of routes and different planning patterns for route tourism. This study also developed an evaluation system based on the conservation principles of cultural routes to determine how different tourism tools affect the conservation and development of historical regions. Although tourism decision-makers have made numerous efforts to protect and develop cultural routes, there are still many problems and challenges in the process of tourism development along cultural routes. We conclude the paper by making recommendations for decision-makers and researchers concerning future route tourism planning and study.

• Publisher: MDPI AG
• Subject: Analysis / Area planning & development / conservation principles / Cooperation / Cultural heritage / cultural routes / Cultural tourism / Culture / Description and travel / Historic sites / Keywords / Literature reviews / Protection and preservation / regional planning / Regions / Sales promotions / Sustainable development / Systematic review / Tourism development / tourism impact / Tourist attractions / Travel industry