No abstract

Religious heritage can act as a transmitter of the age-old values linked to the identity of a territory, while reflecting on the relationship between the religious value and the monumental value of a place. This reflection is based on the initial premise that at present there are elements related to the architectural heritage of the church that have wholly or in part lost their use value as places of worship. After introducing the relationship between tangible and intangible heritage at religious sites and the role of tourism helping in the preservation (or not) of these values, the current situation is analyzed through a case study. The case study is focused on the Catalonia Sacra project and analyses 325 religious heritage sites from the region of Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain. Several sets of data were collected referring to the monumental and architectural values of these places and also the religious use of them, among others, with the aim to compare the relationship between the monumental values and the religious use of these sites.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs) must necessarily display Outstanding Universal Values (OUVs), as these play a vital role in constructing competitive brand personality (BP) in tourism marketing. However, how these WHS qualities are perceived by visitors still needs substantial investigation. Adopting a visitor-driven approach, this study seeks to explore the intangible attributes of WHSs and, for the first time, uses the BP concept to measure these attributes in cultural attractions. To investigate how visitors perceive WHS personality traits, 5579 visitor-generated reviews of 175 French (39), German (44), Italian (50), and Spanish (42) cultural WHSs on TripAdvisor were analysed using empirical, mixed methods. Results show that four personality dimension categories can be attributed to WHSs: Sophistication, Sincerity, Competence, and Excitement. Moreover, a novel BP lexical technique is presented along with a 222-item personality trait dictionary, which can be used to measure personality traits in cultural attractions. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.

Purpose: this article presents a conceptual framework for examining community tourism as a sustainable livelihood through food tourism, considering the significant increase in community-based tourism in Mexico and the impact this activity has on rural and vulnerable destinations. The main aim of this research is to generate a proposal for a set of sustainable tourism indicators for rural and isolated communities through food strategies geared towards tourism development. Methodology: this information can then be used to generate a first list of indicators for creating and evaluating community tourism proposals in a region. Said theoretical list includes four dimensions (socio-cultural, environmental, tourist, and economic), which comprise 27 indicators in total. Findings: the results, validated by different participants related to the tourism sector, show that a lack of information for quantifying indicators is one of the main limitations when evaluating a vulnerable destination and that participation by the private sector and public administrations will be essential in generating these data. Approach: this research will therefore contribute to the development of new action strategies that allow not only the strengthening of the current localized agri-food systems, but also the revaluation of forgotten food systems.

This paper analyzes guided tourists' space-time behavior in heritage sites and compares the results with the behavior of nonguided tourists. Data from 127 guided visitors from 127 different local tours and 1,242 nonguided tourists visiting the historic town city of Girona (Spain) were gathered from participant observation, GPS tracking, and questionnaires. Findings demonstrate that guided tourists have a more qualitative experience (less walking time, more time spent visiting monuments, more information, and sometimes privileged information) than have nonguided tourists. Despite this, results also suggest that tourists who take guided tours, and those who do not, show a very similar behavior pattern.