  Citation: Terkenli, T.S.; Georgoula, V. Tourism and Cultural Sustainability: Views and Prospects from Cyclades, Greece. Sustainability 2022, 14, 307. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010307 Academic Editors: Bart Neuts, João Martins, Milada Št’astná, John Martin and Marc A. Rosen Received: 12 November 2021 Accepted: 22 December 2021 Published: 28 December 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Tourism and Cultural Sustainability: Views and Prospects from Cyclades, Greece Theano S. Terkenli and Vasiliki Georgoula * Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, 81100 Mytilene, Greece; terkenli@aegean.gr * Correspondence: v.georgoula@aegean.gr Abstract: The objective of this paper is to explore cultural tourism perceptions, practices, concerns and prospects among local residents, tourists and business representatives in the Cycladic Islands, specifically three sites (Andros, Syros and Santorini). The concept and framework of cultural sustain- ability are employed to analyze the variable interrelationships between culture and tourism in the development of cultural tourism and in overall local sustainability, from a bottom-up/destination perspective. The methodological approach was an on-site exploratory questionnaire survey, effectu- ated in the context of the SPOT Horizon 2020 EU project, on cultural tourism in the Cyclades. Our findings show that the role of culture as an actual tourism attraction and the potential for further growth in cultural tourism, and consequently local development, are broadly recognized. However, the role of tourism in cultural development, management and appropriation is viewed with a certain degree of trepidation and ambivalence. Culture and tourism emerge from the results of this research study as positively interlinked in the minds of the locals, the visitors and the entrepreneurs involved in cultural tourism and tourism more generally. Despite the fact that it is mostly privately driven, the culture–tourism relationship is viewed as holding great potential for all sides involved and for local cultural and overall sustainability. Keywords: tourism; culture; cultural sustainability; cultural tourism; Cyclades; Greece 1. Introduction and Study Context Perhaps the most significant question from the supply side of tourism and on the part of local destination societies is whether incoming tourism growth may foster both further development of the local/regional/national tourism industry and, more impor- tantly, overall development at the local level and beyond. This question, purposefully or inadvertently, implicates issues of sustainability. As such, this question has been extensively addressed by tourism and development researchers for decades, since the end of the 1980s, while more recent research efforts aim at refining and/or expanding relevant theory and epistemology [1–5]. The multifold and contested relationship of tourism to development has been ap- proached from various standpoints, on the basis of the threefold scheme of economy– society–environment, which has recently been enriched and enhanced with the cultural dimension [6–10]. The cultural dimension of sustainability issues, resource uses, prac- tices, demands and interests, etc., including tourism prospects and repercussions, adds a further level of analysis and operationalization to the three pillars of ‘sustainability’, the bases on which tourism values, processes and choices may be negotiated and effectuated. Furthermore, culture itself represents the most basic and integrative societal parameter at any destination, encapsulating all manner of human life and thought and its derivative products, practices, meanings, symbols, representations, etc. Cultural tourism addresses all of the latter as points, areas, discourses and experiences of tourist attraction, rendering them tourism products [11–16]. The significance of culture for tourism and concern about the cul- tural impacts of tourism have been explicitly expressed by various sides [17]. Furthermore, Sustainability 2022, 14, 307. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010307 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability