**6. Conclusions**

There can be no question about the constructive role of cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, in society in general and in development in particular. Given this role, e fforts should be made to capture its benefits. However, this role is not without costs. These costs are associated with the possible increase in pollution that heightened tourist tra ffic will bring. The possible costs associated with departures from authenticity are also included. A developmental role for heritage preservation must seek to manage such costs while maximizing benefits.

With its considerable inventory of cultural assets, both tangible and intangible, China has to manage its costs to capture the benefits. As shown in this paper, the cost–benefit calculus is even more significant, since it is part of China's rural development. The lessons learned from this development experience, and from two case studies, clearly demonstrate the vital roles of key stakeholders—the state, at central, provincial and local governmen<sup>t</sup> levels, as well as local communities—in capturing heritage benefits. In as much as the state has the resources, both financial and institutional, to promote heritage tourism, success also depends crucially on the community's identification with, and sense of ownership of, the cultural assets. As the Lijiang example shows, both can galvanize a community towards adopting measures to ensure sustainability.

The case studies also show that trade-o ffs exist between tourism promotion and heritage preservation. Achieving a measure of success in both objectives requires balancing—between heritage preservation and long-term sustainability, and between state control and community ownership. Besides these case studies, di fferent approaches under the rubric of rural rejuvenation may well produce innovative models that can be prototypes for tourism that also ensures heritage preservation. At the risk of generalization from the case studies, the key to successfully combining sustainability with heritage preservation likely lies with the state's leveraging bottom-up strategies that demonstrate

"thorough understanding of local specificities ... (and) take into account the characteristics and long-term needs of local residents and how they inhabit their local environment" [10] (p. 37).

**Author Contributions:** Data is collected by X.S. and Q.W. mainly. The paper is framed by K.-C.C. The draft is prepared by K.-C.C. and Q.W. The revision is done by K.-C.C. and Y.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was supported by the Doctoral Foundation of Shandong Technology and Business University (BS201928), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41571166 and 41971220).

**Conflicts of Interest:** There is no interest conflict.
