Sustainable Initiatives in Cultural Tourism - The Roles of Stakeholders in Minimizing Externalities

The main aim of this paper is to study sustainable tourism initiatives in order to minimize negative effects of mass tourism intensity, with an emphasis on initiatives in culture. Tourism trends are heavier and more prolonged in countries that are concentrated on tourism quantity rather than quality. Confining tourism to the counting of tourist arrivals and overnights (monitoring of the scope and structure of visits) cannot be long-term sustainable tourism, only short-term strategy oriented toward mass tourism and high dependence on import. This paper analyses the possibility of destination development through the added value of the cultural tourist product, the level of encouragement of cultural tourism initiatives, cross-border cooperation and financing sources for the needs of tourism, with the accent on European (Mediterranean) tourism development. New tourism initiatives are described based on tourist products and added values, dynamic and modular travels, development of attractions according to the types of visits, stakeholder partnerships and resource valorisation, expertise and market specialisations. The contribution of the paper lies in the proposal of a model of sustainable destination development through dual destination image. It includes distribution of funds for innovations and creativity in order to minimize externalities (high seasonality, pollution, crises etc.).