An Integrated ICT Architecture for Intelligent Content Harmonization in European Cultural Heritage Domain

Cultural heritage is a wide concept that includes not only monuments, architecture and history (tangibles) but also languages, folklore, traditions, events, music, festivities, customs and life styles (intangibles). The combination between tangible and intangible heritage represents the richness of a specific place therefore the identity of local communities has to be preserved and promoted in order to enhance the benefits for the tourist locality and its customers - visitors, citizens, and businesses, in the general perspective of sustaining multiple cultural identities. The main objective of this research is to develop a novel ICT integrated and participatory system for the cultural heritage destination that can preserve and promote European cultural heritage from its diverse aspects - tangible and intangible - with the objective of experiencing all aspects of the visit and above all, to add value to the cultural heritage itself by the interpretation and valorisation of the cultural goods. The system makes use of Web 2.0 key concepts, such as user-generated content and folksonomies, as a baseline.