https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0144-4151
![Sample our Tourism, Hospitality and Events journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5950/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Tourism-Hospitality-Events.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Coastal and Maritime Cultural Heritage (CMCH) is an important asset in coastal areas. However, this heritage has been exposed to several environmental and human-created threats. This paper presents three European coastal regions with relevant CMCH and important tourism destinations: Ria de Aveiro (Portugal), the Small Isles (Scotland, UK) and Marsaxlokk (Malta). The paper draws attention to the challenges to CMCH they face, the dynamics between tourism and CMCH and provides recommendations for sustainable tourism exploitation of CMCH. A comparative case-study approach was undertaken, based on 41 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. Findings unveil that, despite the different demographics, socioeconomics and importance of tourism in each location, CMCH is seen as an important element to consider as tourism destination. Stakeholders identified economic, sociocultural and environmental dynamics between tourism and CMCH with positive and negative impacts on the regions. This study provides guidelines and recommendations that can be used as a reference to define a joint policy response for sustainable exploitation of CMCH in a tourism context.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge all stakeholders that actively contributed to the work. Thanks are due to FCT/MCTES for the financial support to CESAM (UIDB/50017/2020+UIDP/50017/2020) and GOVCOPP (UIDB/04058/2020+UIDP/04058/2020), through national funds. CP acknowledges FCT for the research contract 2020.02510.CEECIND. MFS thanks the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) [grant number SFRH/BD/145485/2019].
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Margarida Ferreira da Silva
Margarida Ferreira da Silva is a Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) research fellow, with a PhD thesis devoted to tourism and coastal & maritime cultural heritage. She is also a team member of GOVCOPP (Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies) and CESAM (Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies) (University of Aveiro). Over the past years she has been involved in several European and National research projects related to sustainable tourism and coastal & maritime cultural heritage. Her main research interests include coastal & maritime cultural heritage and tourism impacts and synergies; tourism destination image and behaviour.
Jordi Vegas Macias
Jordi Vegas Macias is a researcher and consultant from Barcelona, Spain. He holds an MSc in Tourism, Society and Environment from Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands). He worked as a researcher at the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University & Research. His areas of interests are in the societal developments in coastal regions, particularly the dynamics that influence the sustainability sea and the wellbeing of coastal communities. He has an interest in the governance and practices within the sectors linked to the Blue Economy and seeks to understand how different sectors interact and influence each other. He has been working in research projects related to community participation in sustainable tourism, coastal and maritime cultural heritage and blue circular economy. Since 2020, he started his own consultancy to continue working in projects related to the sustainability and management of coastal and marine regions.
Steve Taylor
Steve Taylor is director of the Centre for Recreation and Tourism Research at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland. He works primarily with European partners on the development and implementation of transnational tourism projects, exploring subjects as diverse as cultural heritage tourism, slow adventure and scientific tourism. He currently manages a range of projects funded through the European Union’s INTERREG and ERASMUS+ programmes. Steve also manages tourism consultancy commissions, supervises adventure tourism PhD candidates, and writes articles for an academic audience, on cycling development and nature-based tourism in particular.
Laura Ferguson
Laura Ferguson is a Research Associate in Marine Social Science at the Scottish Association for Marine Science. Her research covers policy, governance, stakeholder engagement and communication. She has participated in several UK and European research projects on natural and cultural heritage, sustainable tourism, social licence to operate and governance, and she has regional expertise in the Arctic, Scotland and Ireland. She is also Communications Officer for the Marine Social Sciences Network.
Lisa P. Sousa
Lisa Sousa has a PhD from the University of Aveiro on Environmental Sciences where she explored the potential of using ecosystem services knowledge to inform policy and decision-making in the context of complex socio-ecological systems. She worked at Universidade de Aveiro & Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) from 2009 to 2021, where she developed expertise in Spatial Planning and Management, particularly of coastal and marine areas. During this period, she was involved in more than 10 research and knowledge transfer projects, most of them related with environmental governance and integrate both natural and social sciences.
Machiel Lamers
Machiel Lamers is an Associate Professor at the Environmental Policy Group of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His research interests are in the fields of environmental policy and governance, sustainable tourism, and tourism and nature conservation. He develops and leads research projects on the governance of tourism and (global/regional) environmental change in coastal and marine destinations, including both the Arctic and Antarctic region, the Caribbean and Indonesia. Theoretically and conceptually he aims to apply and build the sociology of environmental mobilities and flows, as well as practice theory approaches.
Wesley Flannery
Wesley Flannery is a Reader in Environmental Planning in the School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University of Belfast. His research focuses on issues of power and participation in marine and coastal planning. He has been involved in several National and International research projects in the fields of marine spatial planning, coastal transitions, marine renewable energy, coastal and marine cultural heritage, aquaculture and coastal conflict.
Filomena Martins
Filomena Cardoso Martins is an Associate Professor in the University of Aveiro, at the Department of Environment and Planning. She is director of the Environmental Sciences and Engineering PhD, vice-director of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences Master (2nd cycle Bologna), Coordinator of the Ocean Teacher Global Academy Portuguese Regional Training Center (IOC –IODE) and member of the Portuguese Committee of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. She participated in several European and National research projects in the fields of coastal management and planning, sustainable development, conservation of natural and cultural heritage, risk perception and resilience (combining natural, environmental, spatial and social dimensions). Her main research interests include coastal and marine planning, governance and nature heritage knowledge.
Carlos Costa
Carlos Costa is a Full Professor at the Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism of the University of Aveiro. He has a PhD and a Master’s Degree in Tourism from the University of Surrey (UK) and a degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Aveiro. He is the director of the Doctoral Programme in Tourism, Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Tourism and Development, and vice-coordinator of the tourism and development group of the research unit in governance, competitiveness and public policy. He is also the technical and scientific director of the spin-off company in tourism "idtour - unique solutions”. He has been involved in several European and National research projects in the fields of tourism planning and development, policy and strategies, tourism management, tourism innovation and gender in tourism and education. His research interests include tourism development, planning and policy, and gender in tourism.
Cristina Pita
Cristina Pita, PhD in Social and Environmental Sustainability, is currently a Principal Researcher at the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), University of Aveiro (Portugal) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), U.K, where she leads the Inclusive Blue Economy team, part of the Shaping Sustainable Markets (SSM) research group. She is an expert for the United Nations World Ocean Assessment (UN-WOAII and UN-WOAIII), takes part on several international committees (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) WGSOCIAL, WGRMES and WGCEPH) and networks (TBTI international network; SSFhub; ECOMAR-CYTED Ibero-American network). She has over 20 years research experience in livelihoods and food systems, marketing and markets initiatives, coastal communities and governance and sustainable use of marine resources. She has been involved in 30 international projects focused on these topics. She has contributed to >72 ISI-indexed publications, book chapters (including a chapter for the United Nations Second World Ocean Assessment) and Technical Reports for the European Parliament, and co-edited a book focused on small-scale fisheries in Europe.