Rural tourism continues to evolve toward an experience economy. Along with rural tourism activities, travelers often enjoy intangible heritage as part of their cultural tourism experience. Digital technologies could aid in the development of online preservation, learning tool, and a set of guidelines based on intangible cultural heritage to assist small rural businesses in designing and promoting sustainable tourist products. The digital revolution has the potential to foster mutual learning among tour operators, tourists, and host communities, in addition to boosting access to cultural material and making it publicly available. However, there is a lack of digital technology in creating a favorable environment to promote the inheritance and enhancement of the value of intangible cultural heritage through rural tourism development. Moreover, the digital optimization of intangible cultural heritage and rural tourism development needs special attention. The chapter provides insights on digitalizing intangible cultural heritage and rural tourism for sustainable destination development.
Conservation of intangible cultural heritage is important for any rural tourism destination. The rich intangible cultural heritage can be preserved using advanced digital technologies for future generations. Digital technologies provide the means of documenting, recovering, and presenting different components of the intangible cultural heritage of a rural destination. However, one of the challenges is finding appropriate forms, together with efficient methods, to document the ephemeral aspects of rural intangible heritage. Another barrier is finding effective ways to communicate the knowledge inextricably linked to people or communities. This chapter outlines state-of-the-art models, projects, and technical practices that have advanced the digitization lifecycle for intangible cultural heritage resources. The chapter further aims to identify the advancements and gaps in the existing conventions and to envision opportunities for transmitting embodied knowledge in intangible heritage.
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