Building Information Modelling (BIM) Driven Sustainable Cultural Heritage Tourism

Abstract

At present, incorrect or aggressive conservation efforts harm not only the building heritage, but also its cultural significance and authenticity. There is an urgent need to investigate existing studies that utilise proper methods and processes of the digital economy and technology to promote sustainable architecture and building heritage conservation and heritage tourism development and management to achieve the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs). Hence, this paper aims to explore the role of digital economy technology, i.e., building information modelling (BIM), in promoting the harmonious development of cultural architectural and building heritage conservation and sustainable cultural heritage tourism, as well as to reveal the current state of the research and hotspots in BIM-driven cultural heritage conservation for sustainable cultural heritage tourism. A mix of a macro-quantitative bibliometric method and a follow-up micro-qualitative content analysis method has been employed to highlight the significance and promise of the interdisciplinary domains of BIM, cultural heritage conservation, and sustainable cultural heritage tourism to the attainment of SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) focused on three specific goals, i.e., enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanisation (SDG 11.3), strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage (SDG 11.4), and reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities (SDG 11.6); and SDG 17 (partnerships) regarding four issues, i.e., stakeholder relationships, public participation, heritage conservation experts, and management. Additionally, three categories of research themes have been identified: cultural heritage conservation, heritage and tourism management, and support of emerging technology. Furthermore, the relationships between BIM and sustainable cultural heritage tourism from the last 26 years (1997 to 2022) have been revealed with visualisations of future research trends in BIM, cultural heritage conservation, and sustainable cultural heritage tourism.