**4. Conclusions**

In the town of Mértola, a peripheral territory with fewer opportunities and a structural crisis, historical heritage, its conservation, and its value for tourism has converted into the comparative advantage [12] that generates opportunities [15,36] for local development [14]. However, the substantial amount of the heritage increases its conservation costs [38] and hinders the continuity of conservation projects.

The social, political, and institutional context [53] defines the processes of heritagisation and its value for tourism, which generate the dialectic between heritagisation and the exploitation or the commodification of heritage, as well as its overall perceptions [42] and the conceptions of development that are significantly dependent on dominant relationships and discourses [101]. Firstly, the cooperation [46–48] and then the competition between private (CAM, ADPM) and public (CMM) actors indicate contradictions and conflicts. The recovery of the collaborative approach [42] improves the results that are reflected by the increase of tourist supply and demand.

From the community perspective, the promotion of local participation in rural development policy-making processes has not been fulfilled. Diverse reasons and causes have progressively led to the social disaffection of the processes themselves, resulting in the loss of social and cultural capital, which is considered as the main asset of local development [10,11], and the overall control of the process [15]. Accordingly, there is an evident risk of conflicts as the consolidation of the external vision of the territory is opted for over the internal one [8].

As tourism enables diversification [12], it fosters the discourse of the heritage, tourism, and development correlation [12,18]. The milestones (FIM, LIPMP) have been fundamental for the development of supply and demand (quota). However, as shown by the data, the expectations generated by tourism have not been currently met [12,16]. Nonetheless, the favourable economic business trends, e.g., the generation of employment and income and increase in supply, as well as demographic trends, e.g., the slowing down of decline, can be observed. On the other hand, the adverse effects, such as the gentrification, overfrequentation, and marked seasonality, that compromise sustainability have been identified [34,35]. Therefore, it is of crucial importance to determine and establish other activities to escape the theming caused by the specialisation.

In the context of the community participation [46,50], the improvements of the analysed processes are based on the comprehensive protection of the entire Mértola town, the development of planning processes, and a strategy that requires the participation of all stakeholders, public and private alike [49]. The establishment of limits through the perspective of carrying capacity and appropriate indicators will be necessary to achieve long-term sustainability [35]. Such planning becomes essential to avoid bottlenecks while aiming for an eventual declaration of the town as the World Heritage Site.

The limitations of the study mainly derived from the statistical series available, particularly after 1991, and the fact that primary information was not collected directly from the local population. On the other hand, the semi-structured interviews with the key stakeholders have provided extensive information and represented the pertaining views on the topic of this research.

Finally, the following research topics are proposed by the authors of this research, specifically, (a) in-depth studies of the relationships between economic, namely primary, secondary, and tertiary, activities and the impacts generated on them by the processes of heritage and tourism enhancement; (b) comparative studies of territories with similar characteristics to contextualise causes and consequences of the processes on local development; and c) analysis of issues related to employment, employability, gender issues, and quality of life of the local population in relation to heritage and its use in tourism processes. It is strongly considered that the future research on these themes could further contribute towards better understanding and more evidence-based analysis on the relation between tourism, heritagisation, and its values on sustainable local development.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, F.J.G.-D., A.M.-P. and R.C.L.-G.; methodology, F.J.G.-D. and A.M.-P.; validation, F.J.G.-D., A.M.-P. and R.C.L.-G.; formal analysis, F.J.G.-D., A.M.-P. and R.C.L.-G.; investigation, F.J.G.-D., A.M.-P. and R.C.L.-G.; resources, F.J.G.-D. and A.M.-P.; data curation, F.J.G.-D.; writing—original draft preparation, F.J.G.-D., A.M.-P. and R.C.L.-G.; writing—review and editing, F.J.G.-D., A.M.-P. and R.C.L.-G.; supervision, R.C.L.-G.; funding acquisition, F.J.G.-D., A.M.-P. and R.C.L.-G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors are especially grateful to Susana Gómez Martínez, of the CAM, for her valuable assistance in arranging interviews and making available essential documentation.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
