The valorization of cultural heritage for regional development (“Conservation 3.0”) has been a widely used concept in the last decade. Heritage institutions and the European Union have advocated and fostered the view of cultural heritage as a place-based development potential. Therefore, this article investigates the impacts of such approaches in the context of sustainable development. It does so with a specific focus on more peripheral, (old) industrial regions in Central Europe, where industrial heritage and industrial tourism play an important role. Based on this background, this article highlights the difficulties of establishing a tourism product based on industry-related features. The product mainly serves a niche market, thereby not helping to overcome structural disadvantages of peripheral regions. The economic impacts of industrial heritage tourism on the transition towards a more sustainable regional development are rather low. Nevertheless, the case study highlights the social benefits that industry-related tourism yields in regions in transformation, forming an important pre-condition for any future development. However, ecological aspects are not widely addressed in heritage tourism in this region. Policy-wise, stakeholders in peripheral regions should be more aware of the different limits and opportunities cultural heritage utilizations can bring in terms of achieving a more sustainable regional development.

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Covid-19 has greatly influenced and restricted people's everyday lives worldwide, especially the freedom to travel and engage in tourism. In Austria, tourism contributes 7.5% to the country's GDP, ranking it in the top one-third of EU countries (Statistik Austria, 2021a). Hence, the consequences of the pandemic have been significant. However, in contrast to the overall declining numbers in arrivals and overnight stays, domestic tourism has experienced a revival compared to 2019, with a +22.6% increase in overnight stays by Austrian guests in August 2020 (Statistik Austria, 2020). Nevertheless, these trends have been unevenly distributed across Austrian regions. As the long-term consequences of Covid-19 on tourism are unclear, this paper aims to provide a snapshot by analysing the pandemic’s impact on selected Austrian regions as well as the district of Leoben, a small and peripheral tourism region. Based on quantitative and qualitative research, the article highlights the uneven geographical character of Covid-19’s impact on tourism and shows that more peripheral regions have indeed experienced short-term gains in regard to their visitor numbers – especially strengthening existing peaks. Nevertheless, there are questions regarding the sustainability of these trends because of the intrinsic deficits of these regions in terms of infrastructure and management capacities. Future research in this field should consider the unevenness of Covid-19’s impact while also analysing (long-term) changes related to peripheral regions and their tourism development in post-Covid-19 times. A micro-analysis on a municipal level could also be beneficial.