Towards fair and sustainable tourism: cooperative strategies for cultural heritage management

In this article we present how participatory and collaborative methodologies with local communities, developed by the Laboratory of Biocultural Archaeology (MEMOLab) at the University of Granada, are enabling the creation of social intervention tools and alternative business models that promote sustainable tourism in remote rural areas. These tools for participation and collaboration between local communities and administrative bodies have led, on the one hand, to the empowerment of the former and, on the other, to the creation of spaces for dialogue that benefit both parties. All of this is based on the conservation and use of agricultural heritage and the landscape, whose cultural and tourism potential is enormous. The tools implemented and referred to here have been service-based payment agreements, land stewardship agreements and the creation—still in progress—of Heritage Communities, in accordance with the guidelines of the Faro Convention. The proliferation of Heritage Communities as avenues for cooperation and partnership between local organisations and stakeholders aims, in the long term, to promote the protection of rural cultural heritage whilst fostering fair, creative and sustainable tourism (FaCS Tourism).