by keeping tourism inflows under control and basing tourism development more on quality than on quantity, thus preventing the economy from lapsing into tourism monoculture.

Further commonplace indirect impacts of tourism on terraced landscapes and communities are spatial reorganization (settlements, urban layout, gentrification, rural structures and all sorts of tourism or other infrastructures), in order to cater to the needs of the tourism industry. In addition to the direct material modification and landscape reorganization, most commonly encountered impacts relate to the development of new real estate markets, which tend to push away parts of the community, due to rising land values, opening up the ground for high-end external investments. ‘Traditional’ settlements tend to be reorganized (Terkenli 2001; Tsartas 1996), in order to welcome visitors, losing their ‘authenticity’. Marginality, high vulnerability and other particularities of the built elements in terraced landscapes exacerbate these risks. Modern services required by tourists as well as locals, whose standards of living are raised, thanks to tourism development, may contribute to processes of banalization and commodification (UNESCO 2008). Such risk is attenuated when normative systems are in place, protecting ‘typical’ landscape features, and/or the local communities are aware of and sensitized about their own cultural heritage and keen on preserving it. As a matter of fact, very often tourism development does bring about such expanded acknowledgement of local/ regional natural and cultural resources and landscapes by the locals.

In other cases, when ‘instrumental rationality’ towards the terraced landscape prevails over ‘value rationality’ (see Sect. 18.3), and tourism is primarily planned and managed in order to meet tourist preferences (Arnberger and Eder 2011), local cultures run the risk of reconstruction according to broadly recognizable stereotypes. Such reconstruction often ‘presents tensions between cultural exoticism (tourists’ desire for authenticity by freezing the culture in past representations), cultural commodification (selective modification of culture in accordance with tourists’ taste) and cultural preservation versus modernity (Indigenous people’s desire to achieve modernity)’ (Chan et al. 2016, p. 7). Landscapes, thus, risk being hyper-preserved, through processes of commodification and/or museumification.

18.6Concluding Remarks

Our preceding analysis aimed at highlighting that both risks and opportunities incurred by tourism impacts on visited landscapes are especially pressing in the case of terraced landscapes, running the full range from most negative (i.e. destruction) to most positive (i.e. rejuvenation) possible consequences. Even though the diagrams used in this chapter present mass and mild tourism as two opposite extremes, often with negative and positive connotations, there are actually many degrees and forms of tourism development, in-between, and at various geographically connected scales.

Unregulated heavy use and intense concentration of tourists and tourism infrastructures on the terraces may pose irreversible harm to the visited landscapes, in lieu of boosting local development. On the contrary, the involvement of the local community in relevant decision-making is essential, local tourism factors and entrepreneurs ought to be accountable to their communities, while also professionally equipped, trained and skilled in sustainable tourism planning and management. Moreover, the recycling of tourism profits and benefits should concern not only the tourism sector itself but also the entire community, including farmers.

The existence, value and sustainability of terraced landscape tourism are highly relevant to the scale and intensity of tourism types and activities in time-space, pointing once again to a higher suitability and compatibility of milder tourism uses with terraced landscapes and their resources, amenities and other ecosystem services, as provided both to visitors and to the local/regional societies. Thus, the type of tourism that would be better suited here is reliant on local or regional natural and cultural resources. Moreover, extensive rather than intensive terraced landscape tourism uses—depending also on the type of terrace functions and structures—are more efficient, rewarding and/or profitable for the local/regional societies and economies.

In order to seize tourism as an opportunity and address the above-mentioned risks, a multiscalar approach is required, through strong connections between local community initiatives and sustainable tourism development policies and strategies, at various levels, together with a high awareness of the local communities as regards their natural and cultural heritage, as represented by their terraced landscapes.

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