Silk Road Heritage Branding and Polycentric Tourism Development

Stella Kostopoulou, Paraskevi-Kali Sofianou and Konstantinos Tsiokanos
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Stella Kostopoulou: School of Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Paraskevi-Kali Sofianou: School of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Konstantinos Tsiokanos: School of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: Cultural heritage, considered as a tool for sustainable tourism development and place branding, makes a destination appealing to visitors; hence, cultural heritage tourism can be a driving force for economic growth in cities and regions. Polycentricity is a useful multi-scalar concept in spatial theory that describes how adjacent urban centers can interact with each other, creating synergies and generating broader spatial networks. Cultural heritage and tourism, perceived as important factors of integration in a polycentric spatial structure, can further promote regional branding strategies. In this paper, a polycentricity index is introduced as a methodological tool for networking cultural heritage destinations, with an application to the Silk Road heritage. Silk Road cultural assets traced on the historical Silk Road routes linking East and West, can serve as tourist attraction poles and as an essential component for branding destinations through networking at various spatial scales. The Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace in Northern Greece, endowed with a plethora of Silk Road cultural assets, most of which are still untapped, is used to highlight the proposed methodology. The ultimate objective is the designation of polycentric destination networks based on Silk Road assets, in order to build regional branding opportunities over the Region.

Keywords: Silk Road; cultural heritage; polycentricity; tourism networks; regional branding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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