Cultural Heritage as a factor of resilient territorial development in rural areas. The case of Mertola (Portugal)

Cultural heritage is currently considered to be a basic cornerstone of urban-territorial development within areas in possession of a valuable historical legacy. Thus, the recent blossoming of cultural tourism has favoured the proliferation of research on how this process contributes to the social, economic and cultural well-being of the inhabitants of said cultural heritage sites, mainly centring on major monumental cities though, more recently, on medium-sized historical cities. This work aims at assessing the effect of valorisation of cultural heritage in a rural area far from the major tourist attractions in Portugal and covering an area consisting of many different sites, in the area of Mertola). Through combined case analysis, with territorial cartography and data management, this work examines how the enhancement and diffusion of certain heritage elements professionally developed toward sustainable cultural tourism may activate resilient processes in remote heritage destinations.