Operationalising sustainable tourism at UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Sustainability Prism 4.0 in Oman and Uzbekistan

Purpose Tourism increasingly shapes World Heritage Sites, creating tensions between conservation, governance and local development. Although sustainability is a core objective of the World Heritage Convention, it remains insufficiently operationalized at the site level. This study aims to address this gap by developing and applying the Sustainability Prism 4.0, an analytical framework designed to assess sustainable tourism development at World Heritage Sites through the integration of sustainability dimensions, governance processes and empirical indicators. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative comparative case study approach was adopted. The Sustainability Prism 4.0 was applied to Bahla Oasis (Oman) and Khiva Oasis (Uzbekistan). Data were collected through document analysis, participant observation and 13 semi-structured expert interviews with heritage managers, government representatives, tourism stakeholders and restoration experts. The material was analyzed using inductive qualitative content analysis supported by MAXQDA. Findings The results reveal substantial sustainability challenges at both sites, particularly regarding governance coordination, implementation of management plans, and balancing conservation and tourism development. The application demonstrates that the Sustainability Prism 4.0 enables a structured assessment of sustainability by linking conceptual dimensions with empirically observable indicators across different governance contexts. Research limitations/implications The study is limited to two cases and does not aim for statistical generalization. As a first application, the framework requires further testing in additional World Heritage contexts. It contributes to heritage literature by explicitly integrating the cultural dimension as a standalone pillar and offering a rigorous assessment model specifically designed for data-scarce, non-Western contexts. Practical implications The findings have practical implications for heritage managers and policymakers seeking diagnostic tools to assess and improve sustainable tourism development at World Heritage Sites. Originality/value The paper introduces a low-threshold management tool for practitioners to operationalize international standards at the site level. It contributes to heritage literature by explicitly integrating the cultural dimension as a standalone pillar and offering a rigorous assessment model specifically designed for data-scarce, non-Western contexts.