The article addresses Romanian case studies, presenting three examples of how local intangible cultural heritage has been understood and managed by national and local authorities for community development after Romania’s ratification of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention. A major challenge identified in safeguarding such practices is linked to the modernization of daily life, resulting from increased living standards, combined with depopulation and the decline in the number of traditional performers. Following an introduction, the article analyzes three complementary practices: (1) the men’s group caroling, inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; (2) the Romanian wedding ritual uitoare, illustrated by the example of an elderly woman proposed as a Living Human Treasure; and (3) the endangered craft of Șișești pottery, supported by the local community. Each case study is described and analyzed based on field research conducted by the authors and archival resources from the West University of Timișoara. The study concludes with a synthesis of findings and is accompanied by a series of illustrative images.
The paper presents an up-to-date view of entities of the cultural heritage sector and their relationships with other domains of human activity as well as the corresponding business models facilitated by modern information and communication technologies. The economic impact of the interactions established between various actors of the cultural economy landscape, such as cultural heritage institutions, digital “facilitators” and public, is described by using a cybernetic representation and a corresponding mathematical model. A particular emphasis is put on mobile technology-based approach to the cultural heritage sector and an example of a practical online virtual exhibition is provided.
The times are developing, science and technology are progressing, and intangible cultural
heritage is also developing. The digital display design of intangible cultural heritage is the product of the
times and plays an important role in the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage.
Relevant personnel should improve their thinking logic, reasonably use digital means to realize the
The perspective of humanistic psychology can effectively guide staff to grasp people’s
psychological laws and emotional changes in cultural inheritance in the process of intangible cultural
heritage, and then enrich the protection and application means of digital technology for intangible cultural
heritage, making the optimized protection path more humanistic value. Table 1 shows the statistics of
negative emotions of staff under different application protection paths.
Στο παρόν σύγγραμμα χαρτογραφούνται οι πολλαπλές σχέσεις μεταξύ των χώρων πολιτισμού —με έμφαση στα μουσεία— και της ψηφιακότητας, με εστίαση στα νέα μέσα, στις εφαρμογές και στα εργαλεία που αξιοποιούνται στον πολιτιστικό τομέα. Παράλληλα, εξετάζεται η έννοια του πολιτισμού ως απαραίτητου κοινωνικού αγαθού και αναδεικνύεται ο ρόλος του στην κοινωνία. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό, προσεγγίζονται συναφή πεδία όπως η ψηφιακή μουσειολογία, η οποία αφορά την αξιοποίηση ψηφιακών τεχνολογιών στα μουσεία. Παρουσιάζονται επίσης μελέτες περίπτωσης και καλές πρακτικές που συμβάλλουν στην ανάδειξη, προστασία, τεκμηρίωση και —κυρίως— στην προσβασιμότητα των πολιτιστικών θησαυρών, με τρόπο συμπεριληπτικό, ουσιαστικό και ελκυστικό. Κοινό χαρακτηριστικό όλων των σχετικών ερευνητικών πεδίων, μεθοδολογιών και πρακτικών που εξετάζονται είναι η διεπιστημονικότητα. Η ανάπτυξη εφαρμογών αιχμής στον πολιτιστικό τομέα απαιτεί τη συνεργασία επιστημόνων από διάφορους κλάδους: μουσειολόγους, εκπαιδευτικούς (με έμφαση στη μουσειοπαιδαγωγική και στη διδακτική της τέχνης), πληροφορικούς, αλλά και ειδικούς από συναφή επιστημονικά πεδία. Η δομή του βιβλίου ακολουθεί τις βασικές πτυχές του διεπιστημονικού πλαισίου που αφορά την ανάδειξη και προώθηση του πολιτισμού σε μια εποχή ραγδαίων τεχνολογικών εξελίξεων. Εξετάζονται οι επιδράσεις των νέων μέσων και των ψηφιακών δικτύων στην πρόσληψη και διάδοση της πολιτιστικής πληροφορίας, ενώ ιδιαίτερη έμφαση δίνεται στην αλλαγή του τρόπου με τον οποίο το κοινό αναζητά και διαχειρίζεται τη γνώση. Σημαντικό μέρος της αλληλεπίδρασης με τον πολιτισμό πραγματοποιείται πλέον μέσω τεχνολογιών όπως τα έξυπνα κινητά τηλέφωνα, η εικονική και η μεικτή πραγματικότητα, θεματικές που αναλύονται εκτενώς στις αντίστοιχες ενότητες. Το σύγγραμμα επιχειρεί να προσφέρει μια σφαιρική εικόνα του σύνθετου αλλά συναρπαστικού πεδίου στο οποίο ο πολιτισμός —και ειδικότερα οι χώροι ανάδειξης και διαφύλαξής του, όπως τα μουσεία— συναντά τις σύγχρονες τεχνολογικές εξελίξεις. Βασικός στόχος του συγγράμματος είναι η ανάδειξη τρόπων που θα καταστήσουν την επαφή του κοινού με την τέχνη και την πολιτιστική κληρονομιά ουσιαστική, ευχάριστη και συμπεριληπτική. Ιδιαίτερη έμφαση δίνεται στην προσαρμογή στις ανάγκες, στα ενδιαφέροντα και στο γνωστικό υπόβαθρο τόσο των χρηστών ψηφιακών εφαρμογών πολιτισμού όσο και των επισκεπτών μουσείων και γκαλερί.
Ceramic art festivals contribute significantly to the preservation and promotion of ceramic art, supporting the revival of local identities and traditions. Understanding the management strategies used by such festivals and imitating good practices, can ensure their success and long-term sustainability.
This study examines two different ceramic art festivals, the festival "Earth, Water, Fire" in Greece and the festival “Autour de la Terre II” in France, with the purpose to propose the best management practices for such festivals and suggest possible improvements. Semi-structured interviews with a representative of each festival, a SWOT analysis for each festival, as well as audience research with the help of a questionnaire for the "Earth, Water, Fire" festival, are the methodological tools employed in this study.
The presence of festivals in social media, as Facebook and Instagram, and the utilization of digital communication media in general, can help the development of ceramic art festivals. Additionally, the creation of a website and a newsletter, their promotion in the city’s cultural events calendars, the collaboration with influencers, bloggers and ceramists, are some of the means to project such festivals to a wider public. Implications for management and marketing use are further discussed.
This article presents the results of a survey on the use of digital avatars and agents in museums and places of cultural interest. The optimization of virtual agents in the cultural heritage domain is an interdisciplinary undertaking and this paper investigates pertinent research and solutions and suggests ways forward. The research questions examined relate to (a) the technological characteristics of cultural heritage-related uses of users’ avatars and virtual agents, and patterns that emerge, and (b) suggestions for future research based on this article’s findings. We reviewed relevant publications and analysed the approaches presented to identify trends and issues that could lead to conclusions on the existing state of the field and, moreover, infer and suggest future directions. The main findings relate to a trend toward onsite, sophisticated installations or applications with increasing investment in mixed reality. Moreover, emphasis shifts toward optimising agents such as virtual guides or companions, mediators of cultural content and engaging facilitators. Behavioural Realism (BR), featured mostly in virtual reality installations, greatly fosters engagement according to the reviewed research, and we conclude that mixed reality onsite applications, which are gathering pace, should reach their degree of sophistication and combine the strengths of both MR and BR.
Despite extensive research on technology-mediated visitor experiences, a holistic approach to the smart museum remains underexplored. This paper addresses the gap by examining the intersection of museums and digital technologies through a cultural lens, with a focus on their role in redefining the museum experience. The concept and profile of the 21st-century smart museum were shaped through a synthesis of findings from 143 scholarly and institutional publications, combining 118 research outputs (2012–2025) across seven technological categories —Extended Reality (XR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics, Fusion, Blockchain, and general Digital Technologies— with a complementary body of theoretical works (1989–2025) that strengthen its conceptual and cultural foundations. From this synthesis, 15 key attributes emerged, outlining the ideal smart museum model. Anchored in theoretical and institutional frameworks, these attributes conceptualize the smart museum as a culturally embedded, technologically enhanced, and human-centered institution. The paper provides a conceptual framework and strategic guide for cultural managers, museum professionals, and designers developing smart museum practices in the digital era.
The article Digital Tourism: An Alternative View on Cultural Intangible Heritage and Sustainability in Tavira, Portugal examines how digitalisation of cultural routes and virtual storytelling can promote and preserve intangible cultural heritage, using the Mediterranean diet in Tavira as a case study. It focuses on developing virtual and augmented reality tools to enhance visitor experience, reinforce local identity, support tourism sustainability, and connect tourists with local heritage through digital platforms and interactive apps.
The article Digital Storytelling in Cultural and Heritage Tourism: A Review of Social Media Integration and Youth Engagement Frameworks reviews how digital storytelling can be integrated with social media to engage youth in cultural and heritage tourism. It identifies gaps in current frameworks and proposes an enhanced model with elements such as platform integration, multimedia engagement, community participation and cultural authenticity to support sustainable heritage tourism practices.
The paper analyzes the integration of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) into higher education, focusing on challenges, opportunities, and effective strategies for overcoming barriers. It is part of a broad multicultural project that aims to integrate and better manage the national intangible heritage in order to raise awareness of European common values. Using qualitative and quantitative data from research that included interviews and focus groups from 61 experts, it highlights institutional obstacles, limited resources, and doubts about ICH's relevance as significant obstacles. Despite these challenges, incorporating ICH can foster civic engagement, cultural awareness, heritage preservation, and social cohesion. The study emphasizes the need for consistently including ICH in university curricula and suggests innovative methods, such as experiential learning and digital tools, to engage students effectively. Culturally responsive frameworks and dynamic interdisciplinary approaches are recommended to overcome barriers. Furthermore, integrating ICH into education is directly linked to cultural tourism, promoting sustainable tourism practices that honor and protect cultural diversity. It shows that universities can play a critical role in preserving ICH, contributing to developing culturally enriched and socially responsible graduates.
In the context of the creative industries, the museum serves as a promoter of tourism, economic development, education, and science. In the era of the onslaught of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we are witnessing an expansion of opportunities to optimize its role as a communicator of values and information. In order to openly serve communities, a modern museum employs marketing and digital promotion techniques and creates a communication strategy. Within this strategy, adopting a linguistic approach can strengthen a museum’s brand, stimulate cultural mediation, and enhance visitor services. Taking into consideration the European concern for multilingualism in digital cultural heritage, we employed content analysis to examine the multilingualism on the websites of all 133 accredited museums and museum sections in Romania in 2023. On one hand, the paper highlights the lack of systematic consideration towards multilingualism, as physical and virtual visitors are generally left to “manage” with the languages. On the other hand, the research presents relevant solutions for providing websites in multiple languages: among these solutions, we suggest ChatGPT, which is starting to stand out as a revolutionary tool capable of translating diverse content for free, instantly, and accurately in multiple languages. Managerial implications are discussed since a website with comprehensive content in multiple foreign languages, strengthens the brand image and exponentially expands its global reach.
Global urbanization brings the urge to identify the most intelligent methods to cope with the challenges arising in the modern society. Sustainable and smart cities are the new target for urban development; their representatives are being forced to identify and develop new strategies to increase their city’s performance and ensure that it endures over time. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) contributes to this purpose. Brașov is one of the cities in Romania for which the process of modernization started years ago, and it is currently developing as a smart city. This paper focuses on the development of the city in terms of cultural tourism solutions by presenting a case study on the use of virtual reality with a mobile application and its evaluation on cultural heritage sites. The original contribution of the paper is to describe and analyze the quality of the mobile application by using a proposed analysis grid to identify the main elements of this app. The main findings suggest that the application may bring authenticity of experience through the lens of heritage preservation for further user engagement and participation in real-time, while suggestions are made for future enhancement. Implications are discussed for a) destination managers, b) for developers to improve the general quality of the mobile application in terms of design and features and to implement changes in the near future, and c) for visitors who engage in real-time and co-create experiences.
This chapter explores diversity management as a strategic approach to address social inequalities in the context of globalization and demographic change. It focuses on the complexity of the concept of diversity, taking into account various aspects such as gender, race, age, nationality, sexual orientation, physical and mental abilities, cultural background, education, and life and work experience. The chapter explores the impact of diversity management in creating more equitable societies, promoting a broad understanding and acceptance of differences. It also analyses the challenges and barriers to implementing effective diversity management in organizations, highlighting its role in shaping equitable and inclusive work environments. The aim of the chapter is to inspire further research on diversity management as a tool to reduce social inequalities.
Resource showing how ICH contributes to sustainable development, including tourism.
Resource on transmission of ICH through education.
Farah, Paolo Davide and Tremolada, Riccardo, Global Governance and Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Information Society: At the Crossroads of IPRs and Innovation (September 1, 2015). in Daniele ARCHIBUGI and Andrea FILIPPETTI, HANDBOOK OF GLOBAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INNOVATION, Handbooks of Global Policy Series, Oxford: Wiley Publisher (United Kingdom), ISBN: 978-1-118-73906-8, DOI: 10.1002/9781118739044.ch22, September 2015, pp. 462 – 479, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4042956
Open access article on digital technologies in ICH safeguarding.