A Conceptual Model for the Cultural Tourism Sustainable Development: a meta-synthesis approach

Tourism is a powerful means of cultural transactions among societies. UNWTO predicted the following two decades (to 2030) to be the tourism sustainable growth period. Cultural tourism development could preserve the cultural and natural assets of destinations, enhance the host communities’ quality of life, and delight the tourists. Following an interpretive approach and a systematic meta-synthesis technique, this paper systematically studied the scholarship in cultural tourism sustainable development. This study identified and categorized the extracted codes using a latent content analysis strategy. Based on the CASP criterion, the papers published in authentic Persian and English scientific databases by 2019 (Azar 1397) were selected. Maxqda 2018.1 was used to identify, group, analyze, and interpret the codes. One hundred four primary codes were grouped into 29 major and minor categories, and four main codes: i.e., dimensions, influential factors, impacts and challenges of cultural tourism sustainable development. We presented a conceptual model for cultural tourism sustainable development. Finally, by Cohen’s kappa index using SPSS, the validity of the results was measured 0.712, also verified by the experts excluding the authors.