**José Álvarez-García 1, Claudia Patricia Maldonado-Erazo 2, María de la Cruz Del Río-Rama 3,\* and Francisco Javier Castellano-Álvarez <sup>4</sup>**


Received: 23 September 2019; Accepted: 25 October 2019; Published: 30 October 2019

**Abstract:** The aim of this research is to carry out a bibliometric and bibliographic study of the scientific production indexed in the international databases Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) on the use of cultural heritage by tourism as an alternative for regional development. This research allows us to observe the current situation of this area of study and to develop a research roadmap on this subject. The methodology used focuses on applying productivity, dispersion, collaboration, and citation indicators to a set of 103 articles identified through an advanced search of terms, in addition to applying an iterative analysis for the bibliographic study. The main findings of this study show that the documents are mostly analytical, mainly signed by a single author, and the productivity rate per author is 1.04. The co-author index in the subject is 2.34, and the subject is in an exponential growth phase that began in 2004, with a ratio of 6.53 articles/year, with the majority of the production being by a single author per article. The country with the highest production is China, with 28 articles, 26 authors, 28 authorships, and 15 centers, followed by the Russian Federation, with 21 articles. Universiti Sains Malaysia (Malaysia) is the most productive institution, with 15 authorships, and there is a group of aspiring authors (between 2 and 4 articles) whose geographical affiliation is Malaysia, a group that represents 3% of the total of authors and concentrates 17 articles.

**Keywords:** cultural heritage; cultural tourism; regional development; rural areas; bibliometric analysis; bibliographic analysis
