Cultural Tourism

The second edition of Cultural Tourism is a well-structured and comprehensive text, which focuses on the relationship between cultural tourism and cultural heritage management. The book has been substantially revised since it was first published in 2002 (McKercher & du Cros 2002) and now includes many new sections, case studies and relevant examples from almost every corner of the world. Aimed at students, researchers and practitioners of tourism and cultural heritage management alike, the book examines the problematic relationship between these two conflicting camps and illustrates how their respective goals can be synchronised to achieve sustainable cultural tourism. The book is divided into five parts, each of them covering a number of challenges and issues that deal with the sustainable use of cultural resources. Part A is comprised of a theoretical conceptualisation of cultural tourism (Chapter 1), brief introduction to the role of sustainability in cultural heritage management (Chapter 2) and discussion of the potential impacts of using cultural assets as tourism products for local communities (Chapter 3). This introductory part provides a critical analysis of how cultural tourism and cultural heritage management have independently developed core ideologies and responds to the needs of different stakeholders. The authors argue that practitioners in both sectors are far from achieving a successful collaboration and largely work in isolation from each other. Part B provides a detailed overview of cultural heritage management (Chapter 4) and identifies some key management challenges for both tangible (Chapter 5) and intangible (Chapter 6) heritage resources. This part of the book contains an in-depth analysis of cultural heritage EJTHR 2016; 7(1):72-73