The Role of Culture in a Region’s Sustainable Tourism Development

As a global phenomenon, tourism significantly influences landscapes, shaping infrastructure and reconfiguring local practices. Every destination must adhere to a social and environmental carrying capacity for sustainable development. Exceeding this capacity can adversely impact the well-being of the local population, the environment, and the unique characteristics defining the landscape. In exploring the dynamic intersection of landscape and tourism, a delicate equilibrium emerges and hence the discussions about the need to pursue sustainable tourism as a pivotal element in achieving this balance are already under way. The big challenges of sustainable tourism unfold against the backdrop of global imperatives for sustainability, drawing attention to the transformative power embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, amidst the acclaim for the SDGs’ several critiques have also emerged and one of them underlines that they basically consider “three pillars” of development economic, social, and environmental. Such an approach ignores culture, a concept which has been gradually valorized a fundamental aspect of sustainability. Moreover, the understanding of culture within the framework of sustainable development still remains vague and needs further consideration. The paper sheds more light into this issue by looking into the different meanings and roles assigned to culture in sustainable tourism development.