Citation: Stoica, G.D.; Andreiana, V.-A.; Duica, M.C.; Stefan, M.-C.; Susanu, I.O.; Coman, M.D.; Iancu, D. Perspectives for the Development of Sustainable Cultural Tourism. Sustainability 2022, 14, 5678. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095678 Academic Editors: Carmen Nadia Ciocoiu and Claudiu Cicea Received: 14 April 2022 Accepted: 6 May 2022 Published: 8 May 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 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 Perspectives for the Development of Sustainable Cultural Tourism Georgiana Daniela Stoica 1 , Violeta-Andreea Andreiana 1 , Mircea Constantin Duica 1 , Maria-Cristina Stefan 1 , Irina Olimpia Susanu 2 , Mihaela Denisa Coman 3, * and Dorin Iancu 1 1 Faculty of Economics, Valahia University of Targoviste, 130004Targoviste, Romania; monicad_d@yahoo.com (G.D.S.); andreea.vivi@yahoo.com (V.-A.A.); mircea_duica@yahoo.com (M.C.D.); crys07stefan@yahoo.com (M.-C.S.); dorin_iancu04@yahoo.com (D.I.) 2 Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, “Dunarea de jos” Univeristy of Galati, 800008 Galati, Romania; irina.susanu@ugal.ro 3 Institut of Multidisciplinary Research for Science and Tehnology, Valahia University of Targoviste, 130004 Targoviste, Romania * Correspondence: coman.denisa@icstm.ro; Tel.: +40-7232-66666 Abstract: The study involves a comparative analysis of cultural tourism in Bucharest and Paris to identify the main aspects of sustainable cultural tourism. A set of six characteristics (civil monuments and architectural assemblies, religious monuments and architectural assemblies, festivals, personali- ties, digitization of tourism, and cultural and educational institutions) was analyzed for both cities. For this purpose, the Benchmarking analysis, the SWOT analysis, and the Pareto analysis were used. The research results highlight the importance of a careful analysis of the categories and sub-categories identified for cultural tourism in the two cities, focusing on the situation in Bucharest to identify ways to improve the promotion and capitalization of cultural tourism and increase sustainability. The obtained results showed that cultural tourism in Bucharest is deficient in aspects such as Monuments and civil architecture and religious, and architectural monuments. Keywords: benchmarking; sustainable cultural tourism; Pareto; the SWOT analysis 1. Introduction In recent decades, tourism has become an important vector of sustainable economic development [1,2]. In the long run, it is necessary to ensure sustainable use of the envi- ronment, improve the reliability of tourist destinations, as well as improve the quality of tourist services [3,4]. The practice of sustainable cultural tourism involves aspects related to over-glomerulation and loss of authenticity which are affecting the daily life of the local population, as well as the culture and heritage of the respective areas. The development of sustainable cultural tourism ensures good conservation practices, along with an authentic interpretation in support of local economies [5–9]. Cultural tourist heritage can be char- acterized by various elements, such as [10–12] hospitality, regional and local gastronomy, specific architecture, handicrafts specific to the area, traditional shows, and other elements that define the life of that nation. At the same time, local cultural factors are important in determining the actions to be taken to promote tourist traffic (libraries, museums, music events, exhibitions, theater events, educational excursions, scientific, and archaeological expeditions) and allow the creation of unique experiences for tourists [5,13,14]. In the context of increased digitalization of society, an important element in promoting various tourist destinations worldwide is digital tourism, the Internet becoming the main source of access to information and for travel planning [15]. At the same time, the COVID- 19 pandemic has produced a series of changes in the structure of the global tourism sector. Thus, with the decrease in tourist mobility, the development of virtual tours of the different tourist objectives in general, and of cultural tourist objectives in particular was accentuated Sustainability 2022, 14, 5678. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095678 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability