Abstract
The valorization of cultural heritage for regional development (“Conservation 3.0”) has been a widely used concept in the last decade. Heritage institutions and the European Union have advocated and fostered the view of cultural heritage as a place-based development potential. Therefore, this article investigates the impacts of such approaches in the context of sustainable development. It does so with a specific focus on more peripheral, (old) industrial regions in Central Europe, where industrial heritage and industrial tourism play an important role. Based on this background, this article highlights the difficulties of establishing a tourism product based on industry-related features. The product mainly serves a niche market, thereby not helping to overcome structural disadvantages of peripheral regions. The economic impacts of industrial heritage tourism on the transition towards a more sustainable regional development are rather low. Nevertheless, the case study highlights the social benefits that industry-related tourism yields in regions in transformation, forming an important pre-condition for any future development. However, ecological aspects are not widely addressed in heritage tourism in this region. Policy-wise, stakeholders in peripheral regions should be more aware of the different limits and opportunities cultural heritage utilizations can bring in terms of achieving a more sustainable regional development.
Highlights
In accordance with the main focus of the article—if and how cultural heritage tourism based on industry is capable of creating a more sustainable regional development path for such regions—the analysis focuses on the concrete valorization of industrial cultural heritage in the form of industrial tourism and how cultural heritage tourism is managed in the case study region
The main research focus—if and how cultural heritage tourism based on industry is capable of creating a more sustainable regional development path—is reflected upon in the third section of this chapter based on the previously presented results
Impacts of Cultural Heritage in Sustainable Regional Development. This discussion section addresses the main research focus of if and how cultural heritage tourism based on industry is capable of creating a more sustainable regional development path in more peripheral regions
Summary
This research has addressed natural [2], material [3], and immaterial heritage sites and practices [4] This academic interest is mirrored by a flurry of papers by heritage institutions, which, since the late 2000s, have primarily explored the connection between cultural heritage and regional development [5,6,7]. This paradigm shift of heritage institutions from conservation to a more development-oriented approach [8,9] is sometimes referred to as Conservation 3.0 (see [10]).
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