Heritage and Railways: Sustainable Tourism Opportunities Boosted by Digital Transformation
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 12406
Special Issue Editors
Interests: digital cultural heritage; HBIM; digital transformation of heritage; 3D digitization; VR/AR/MR
Interests: regional planning; cultural landscapes; heritage
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue focuses on the debate and recent trends in research dealing with railways, touristic itineraries, landscape and heritage digital documentation, while also trying to collect the results of “The European Year of Rail”. The initiative was proposed for 2021 by the European Commission in order to promote the use of railway transport as a stable and innovative type of land transport in achieving the goals of the European Green Deal in the field of transport and is moving towards its conclusion with a series of activities and campaigns highlighting the benefits of rail travel for all, not only for holidaymakers and commuters.
Railway is the most sustainable and efficient collective mode of transport due to its low levels of greenhouse gas emissions and the reliability of its service. For this reason, sustainable mobility policies worldwide judge railways to be the most appropriate mode. When focusing on the tourism sector, the role of railways is still in full expansion despite the many examples of panoramic and themed trains and railways lines.
Traditionally, tourism packages, as well as the consumption habits of the average tourist, have been oriented towards “destination experiences” or “multiple destinations”, relegating the journey itself to a purely logistical issue. However, the growing patrimonialization of landscapes (i.e., the aesthetic and cultural valuation of territories beyond the tourist attraction centers) represents a unique opportunity for a different tourism model—sustainable tourism that is less congested, allowing wealth re-distribution among territories. In addition, train rides allow the appreciation of landscapes which are not accessible when using other modes of transportation, largely due to the geometric limitations of its layout. This is an advantage for the traveler seeking a scenic experience of high aesthetic quality. Last but not least, the global railways sector is built heritage in itself, for its tangible and intangible cultural values.
The pervasiveness of ICT and the potentials of Digital Cultural Heritage practices are demonstrating promise to consolidate new paradigms and methods in the heritage representation and enhancement, to become a stimulus to community engagement, heritage recognizability and territorial development. In this light, digitization strategies for landscape, tangible and intangible heritage constitutes a challenging field of research, tackling the bottlenecks on the growing performances of data capturing and multiscale acquisitions and seizing the opportunities they provide in order to boost the heritage democratization and landscape sense of belonging, beyond the purposes of tourism.
This Special Issue intends to cover all the above topics with the aim of collecting advancements and best practices in sustainable tourism experiences supported by Digital Cultural Heritage and Railways. A general purpose could be to compare positions in the definition of new paradigms for the sustainable development of touristic flows with regard to cultural experiences on a linear landscape or territorial system, not limited to railways. Both theoretical-methodological reflections as well as success cases are encouraged.
Prof. Dr. Ramona Quattrini
Prof. Dr. Ana B. Berrocal Menárguez
Prof. Dr. Clara Zamorano Martín
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- railways landscape
- railways heritage
- railways tourism
- digital transformation of heritage
- linear landscape
- virtual reality
- mobile applications for tourism and heritage knowledge
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