Sustainability Assessment of Cultural Heritage Tourism: Case Study of Pingyao Ancient City in China

Lisheng Weng, Bao-Jie He, Lina Liu, Chenxi Li and Xin Zhang
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Lisheng Weng: School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Bao-Jie He: Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Lina Liu: Department of Management, Taiyuan Normal University, Jinzhong 030619, China
Chenxi Li: School of Public Administration, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China
Xin Zhang: Shanghai Institute of Tourism, Shanghai 201418, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-16

Abstract: Cultural heritage tourism (CHT) has become an important part of the tourism industry. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the sustainability of CHT destinations for tourism development. The majority of existing studies have examined the destination sustainability of ecotourism with the considerations of three stakeholder groups, namely, resource administration, tourist, and local community. However, the impact of tourism enterprises on destination sustainability has been constantly ignored in CHT-related studies. To fill these gaps, this study aims at developing an indicator system for comprehensively assessing the sustainability of CHT destinations. Specifically, this study identified an evaluation indicator system based on the Delphi technique and applied it to the context of Pingyao Ancient City in China. Results demonstrated that scores obtained by all four stakeholder groups ranged between 3.0 and 4.0 and the overall sustainability score was only 63.94, indicating that Pingyao was in the “somewhat sustainable” state according to the criteria (0−25, unsustainable; 25−50, somewhat unsustainable; 50−75, somewhat sustainable; 75−100, sustainable) specified in previous studies. A more balanced outcome should be achieved where each stakeholder’s interests are fully considered, but not at the expense of the others. The findings are of great significance for heritage tourism literature and sustainable destination management.

Keywords: cultural heritage tourism; sustainability assessment; indicator; tourism enterprise; Pingyao ancient city (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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