Tourism is often conceptualised as a market-driven sector centred on growth, branding, and consumption. Such approaches, however, tend to overlook the role of governance in shaping how cultural resources are transformed into tourism value. This article reconceptualises tourism as managed cultural capital, arguing that tourism outcomes are determined less by cultural abundance or market demand than by governance capacity and institutional coordination. Drawing on theories of cultural capital, heritage governance, and the political economy of tourism, the study offers a comparative analysis of tourism governance in France and India.          Adopting a thematic and interpretive approach based on policy frameworks and secondary literature, the article examines how state power, decentralisation, heritage regulation, sustainability, and market mediation structure tourism development. The analysis shows that France represents a model of coordinated governance, where heritage is institutionalised as cultural capital, sustainability is embedded within regulatory systems, and market processes are aligned with public objectives. In contrast, tourism governance in India is characterised by fragmented institutional arrangements, dominant market logics, and limited regulatory enforcement, leading to extractive practices and uneven developmental outcomes.                                                                                                                            The article contributes to tourism and heritage scholarship by advancing a governance-centred framework for understanding tourism development and by reframing sustainability as a structural outcome of governance rather than an ethical or voluntary practice.