Sustainable Heritage, Tourism and Communication: Theory and Practice

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to participate in a Special Issue on sustainable heritage, taking into account the principles of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015.

Given the advantages of the tourism sector as an engine of economic and social development, the manifest need arises for countries to market quality products and services that do not negatively affect the degradation of their heritage. The preservation of these assets, material and immaterial, is a challenge constantly faced by destination marketing organizations (DMOs) in which sustainability plays a key role, as a controversial issue due to its triple dimension: social, environmental, but also economic. The lack of consensus is concentrated, to a great extent, with respect to the latter, since, in many cases, tourism has proven to be an effective way of maintaining heritage, providing the necessary financial means for it, but at the same time, it can lead to its degradation, and even disappearance when overexploited.

We are pleased to invite you to submit your contributions to this research field. It is of great importance to monitor the effects of tourism on remaining heritage, but also to formulate sustainable development plans for tourist destinations whose heritage has or could have tourist value. For this, the DMOs and managers, etc., require studies and research to provide them with guidelines and premises on how to convert their heritage into a tourist attraction, and how to exploit it for the benefit of society without undermining their identity and their preservation, thereby complying with the 17 SDGs.

This Special Issue aims to publish original research focused on these various topics related to sustainable heritage and tourism, review articles that discuss and present the current state of the field, as well as case studies and new perspectives.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• The effects of tourism on heritage
• Sustainable development models for heritage sites
• Management methods and tools dedicated to sustainable tourism and heritage
• Implementation of sustainability criteria for tourism
• Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for tourism
• The role of ICT in the sustainability of heritage
• The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable tourism and heritage
• The preservation of heritage through the implementation of the tourist function
• Communication and heritage

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Alba-María Martínez-Sala
Dr. Almudena Barrientos-Báez
Dr. David Caldevilla Domínguez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Heritage is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.