Reviving the Cultural Route and Its Role in the Sustainability of Historical Areas - Kerbala as a Case Study

Abstract

Cultural heritage represents one of the most important resources for development processes, and cultural routes as cultural elements have the potential to revitalize and develop the historical area sustainably by stimulating cultural tourism. One aspect of cultural tourism is to provide cultural itineraries for visitors that enable them to explore the cultural heritage of the host region. The literature in this field has dealt with the potential of heritage in general in providing meaning and value to the environmental, and socio-economic aspects that form the foundations of sustainable development. This paper uses a multidisciplinary approach to study the possibility of designing and reviving cultural routes as catalysts for historical revitalization. Taking the Cultural Routes in (Karbala) as an example, the network and node perspective model are adopted to determine two historic tourism routes in this region. And it turns out that the preservation and protection policies for heritage must be integrated manner with the development processes, and to achieve a balance between the aspects of sustainable development and emphasize their interrelation and interaction with the historical environment.