SOCIO-CULTURAL DIMENSION OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
SOCIO-CULTURAL DIMENSION OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
Socio-Cultural Tourism Impacts
Tourism involves direct contact between hosts and guests; hence, interactions are unavoidable. Society and culture play a key role in promoting tourism by being presented or "packaged" as an attraction to tourists seeking meaningful experiences within a destination's society. Society focuses on how people behave, interact, and relate to each other in groups, while culture refers to social interactions, relationships, and physical objects. Various cultural elements can serve as tourist attractions, such as handicrafts, traditions, local cuisine, art, music, and historical sites.
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Cultural Heritage
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization defines cultural heritage as "the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society inherited from past generations, maintained in the present, and passed on for the benefit of future generations." According to the UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics, cultural heritage is categorized into two main types:
Tangible cultural heritage includes physical cultural assets that are significant for the archaeology, architecture, and scientific/technological heritage of a culture. These are preserved to benefit future generations and can include historic buildings, monuments, sites, and artifacts.
Intangible cultural heritage includes the practices, representations, knowledge, and skills that are recognized as part of a community, group, or individual's cultural identity. Examples include traditional festivals, ways of life, oral traditions, and traditional crafts.