Tourism has become for many islands a means of social, economic and cultural development through the creation of jobs, raising standards of living and through the development of local resources for culture and heritage. Thus, many of these destinations have invited large numbers of tourists from medium to lower income groups seeking package holiday destinations. Mass tourism as a form of mass-consumption has become an agent of profound economic and cultural change. Cultural tourism is believed to be a sector of tourism that has significant effect in terms of economic advantages, image improvement and development potential.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, through an analysis of the case of Cyprus, the extent to which the role of cultural tourism represents a realistic tourism development policy that can assist a mass tourism destination in securing a sustainable environment. The tourism industry spends time, money and effort in facilitating and implementing strategies to minimize the negative impacts of mass tourism.