European cultural heritage and tourism flows: The magnetic role of superstar World Heritage Sites

Abstract

Cultural heritage is a potentially important determinant of international tourism flows. Apart from being an enrichment for both individuals and communities and an opportunity for different cultures to meet, tourism also represents a significant industry for European economies. We empirically investigate the impact of the endowment of tangible cultural heritage on tourism attractiveness of European regions. We measure material forms of cultural heritage both as regional density of locally defined monuments, cultural landscapes and museums, and as number of cultural sites listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites international programme. Using a Bayesian multilevel gravity model, we find that UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites are associated with an increase of 6,000 (one site) to 60,000 (eight sites) international tourists from each European country to an average European region. On the other hand, regionally or nationally defined tangible forms of heritage play a more limited role as pull‐factors for international tourism. Moreover, we show that the presence of UNESCO sites reduces the distance decay effect. International tourists are willing to travel longer distance if a destination is endowed with UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites.

The Role of UNESCO Cultural Heritage and Cultural Sector in Tourism Development: The Case of EU Countries

“…In addition, culture is mostly perceived as the opportunity to brand unique tourism products in a destination, in order to attract higher levels of tourism demand. The studies that empirically investigate the relationship between tourism and culture focus mostly on a single country or site-specific cases, and consider few perspectives of the cultural sector (e.g., [12][13][14][15]), with different research aims and different empirical strategies applied [16]. Most empirical studies focus on cultural heritage as an attractive determinant of tourism demand, presented primarily by the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) (e.g., [16]).…”

“…The studies that empirically investigate the relationship between tourism and culture focus mostly on a single country or site-specific cases, and consider few perspectives of the cultural sector (e.g., [12][13][14][15]), with different research aims and different empirical strategies applied [16]. Most empirical studies focus on cultural heritage as an attractive determinant of tourism demand, presented primarily by the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) (e.g., [16]). Nevertheless, those empirical studies indicate different results on the relationship between UNESCO WHS and tourism [16][17][18][19][20].…”

“…Most empirical studies focus on cultural heritage as an attractive determinant of tourism demand, presented primarily by the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) (e.g., [16]). Nevertheless, those empirical studies indicate different results on the relationship between UNESCO WHS and tourism [16][17][18][19][20]. Romao et al [17] offered evidence on positive effects, while Cuccia et al [18] indicated negative effects of UNESCO WHS on the number of overnights in a destination.…”

Management Model of Ecotourism-Based Forest Village Community Land to Increase Local Economic in Karanganyar, Indonesia

“…The existence of local religions can also be a tourism potential (Romanelli et al, 2021;Hung Lee et al, 2021;Lin et al, 2021;Izwar et al, 2020). An area has a value on the local culture with the perspective of the community, thus making it a separate tourist attraction that is closely related to cultural heritage (Teodorescu et al, 2021;Panzera et al, 2021;Putra et al, 2021;Chen, 2021;Timothy, 2021;Yang et al, 2021;Nurdiani and Felicia, 2020;Crespi-Vallbona, 2021). In every society, several values are used as guidelines or valued and continue to be preserved.…”

Kalòs kai agathòs? government quality and cultural heritage in the regions of Europe

“…Europe is the area hosting the highest share of World Heritage properties, with some countries, namely France, Italy and Spain, ranking at the top for the number of sites in the World Heritage List. While data of UNESCO World Heritage sites at the regional level have been recently used to analyze the tourism attractiveness of European regions (Panzera et al 2021), a regional perspective on European World Heritage can also be useful to verify in a more fine-grained way whether geographical imbalances in the List noticed at the global level and between-countries do occur across European regions too. Further, through this approach it is possible to add insights into the spatial dependence of regions as to the localization of World Heritage sites, overcoming national boundaries.…”