Is the heritage really important? A theoretical framework for heritage reputation using citizen sensing

• This paper proposes a theoretical framework for heritage reputation.
• The framework includes the crowd/citizen sensing as an alternative data source.
• Increasing available information about users' behavior and the community will help urban planners.

Heritage value, conservation and protection are significant issues in heritage studies and urban and regional planning. In a time where both urban and tourism growth impact the heritage, understanding the relationship between the surrounding heritage and the citizens, especially the local communities, can play an important role in urban and regional planning. This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for heritage reputation, that integrates the heritage value and the causal framework regarding beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviors towards an object, in this case the heritage. Heritage reputation can be strategic for urban and regional planners when analyzing and implementing policies. Crowdsourcing geographic knowledge, web 2.0 and social media play a significant role in today's society because this new source of information can help modeling the evolving human landscape, complementing the existing methods. Indeed, location-based user-generated content can be a relevant source for heritage studies and citizen sensing can be used to model and measure heritage reputation.