Sustainable Tourism and the Cultural Landscape in Rural Areas
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 2470
Special Issue Editors
2. Faculty of Applied Management, Economics and Finance in Belgrade, University Business Academy in Novi Sad, Jevrejska 24, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Interests: multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM); decision support systems (DSS); computational intelligence; decision-making theory; informatics; management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: sustainable tourism; rural tourism; rural development; cultural landscape; community-based tourism; tourism of special interest
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cultural landscapes represent the dynamic interaction between people and their environment, reflecting centuries of social, economic, and ecological processes. In rural areas, these landscapes are not only repositories of natural and cultural heritage but also vital spaces where communities maintain their identity, traditions, and livelihoods. At the same time, rural territories face significant challenges, including depopulation, climate change, land degradation, and pressures from mass tourism. The promotion of sustainable tourism within rural and cultural landscapes is therefore crucial, both to safeguard their integrity and to support resilient local development.
This Special Issue of Sustainability, titled “Sustainable Tourism and the Cultural Landscape in Rural Areas”, seeks to provide an international platform for advancing theoretical perspectives, empirical research, and innovative practices related to the sustainable development of rural destinations. Contributions are invited that explore how cultural landscapes can be preserved, interpreted, and integrated into tourism strategies that balance economic benefits with environmental responsibility and socio-cultural well-being.
We welcome interdisciplinary approaches that connect geography, tourism studies, environmental sciences, rural sociology, heritage management, and related fields. By gathering diverse perspectives, this Special Issue aims to highlight best practices and critical challenges in aligning cultural landscape conservation with sustainable tourism. The insights obtained will be of particular value to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working to strengthen the resilience of rural areas and to ensure that tourism serves as a tool for inclusive, balanced, and long-term development.
Topics of Interest
Potential topics for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Cultural landscapes and rural identity;
- Sustainable rural tourism models;
- Heritage conservation and tourism development;
- Community-based and participatory approaches;
- Tourism of special interest in rural areas (e.g., ecotourism, agro-tourism, wine tourism, adventure tourism, pilgrimage tourism);
- Landscape management and environmental sustainability;
- Socio-economic impacts of tourism in rural areas;
- Policy, planning, and governance in rural tourism;
- Climate change and resilience in rural destinations;
- Digital tools and smart tourism in rural landscapes.
Prof. Dr. Darjan Karabašević
Dr. Aleksandra Vujko
Dr. Aleksa Panić
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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.
Keywords
- cultural landscape
- sustainable tourism
- rural tourism development
- community-based tourism
- rural development
- heritage conservation
- tourism of special interest
- local identity landscape management
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