Cultural tourism in the northwest Portugal : the case of the world heritage site of Guimarães (original) (raw)
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Cultural tourism in Northwest Portugal – the case of the world heritage site of Guimarães
The city of Guimarães, in the northwest of Portugal, is a place of strong symbolic and cultural significance. The nomination by U.N.E.S.C.O. in December 2001of its historical centre as a world heritage site greatly enlarged its tourism potential. Since that date, the city, as an emergent tourism destination, has been attracting an increasing amount of visitors. This chapter aims to present a selection of the results of a survey that envisaged capturing the Guimarães residents’ perceptions of tourism benefits. The survey was implemented between January and March 2010. The results attained show that the residents of the Guimarães municipality hold a very positive perception of the impacts of tourism. The generally favourable perception of tourism impacts shown by the survey respondents are strongly correlated with certain demographic features, such as age and level of education.
The city of Guimarães, in the northwest of Portugal, is a place of strong symbolic and cultural significance. The nomination by U.N.E.S.C.O. in December 2001of its historical centre as a world heritage site greatly enlarged its tourism potential. Since that date, the city, as an emergent tourism destination, has been attracting an increasing amount of visitors. This chapter aims to present a selection of the results of a survey that envisaged capturing the Guimarães residents’ perceptions of tourism benefits. The survey was implemented between January and March 2010. The results attained show that the residents of the Guimarães municipality hold a very positive perception of the impacts of tourism. The generally favourable perception of tourism impacts shown by the survey respondents are strongly correlated with certain demographic features, such as age and level of education.
Tourism profits from the endogenous resources of territories and has become a major instrument of development for many towns and regions all over the world. Tourism is also a way to preserve the cultural heritage of a region. The city of Guimarães in northern Portugal has become a place of strong symbolic significance and now constitutes an example of urban Portuguese patrimony preservation. The city has tried to justify the world heritage certification attributed by U.N.E.S.C.O. in the year 2001 by increasing the number of infrastructures and implementing a tourism animation programme with a growing level of diversification. This paper aims to produce a short analysis of the tourism strategy followed by the Guimarães tourism authorities, addressing the issues of the city's tourism image, visitors' profile and cultural dynamics. 8.1 INTRODUCTION Tourism has taken on a growing importance in towns and regions all over the world, representing as it does one of the more promising ways of attaining benefits from territory resources. It is already one of the largest industries in the world and the trend indicates that it will continue to grow, both in well established tourist destinations and in those yet to be exploited. As an activity which uses endogenous resources, tourism depends on the specific attributes of each region. For tourism development to be viable, the available resources in the region have to show a tourism vocation. These resources can derive from a variety of territory attributes, namely natural, human, historical and cultural. Meanwhile, the economic use of these resources supposes that basic conditions are provided in terms of economic and sociocultural infrastructures. In order to transform tourism into an instrument of economic development, besides the before-mentioned provision of infrastructures, it is essential that major efforts are made to create innovative and diversified tourism products and services, that some level of coordination between tourism actors is guaranteed and that an adequate level of investment in the environmental equilibrium and in cultural patrimony valorisation is assured. These ideas are supported by the emergence, in recent decades, of a new generation of tourists which has been showing a growing preference for diversified tourism and cultural products. Increasingly, people travel to visit historic and archaeological sites, museums and other tangible goods, as well to experience the atmosphere of places (Riganti 2009). Besides experiencing a clearly visible expansion, cultural tourism has also become more complex (Hu et al. 2009; Pulido Fernández & Sánchez Rivero 2009). This being so, it should be underlined that the only way for the territory to take real profit from tourism activity is to succeed in integrating it into its economy as a whole, that is, it ‚cannot be considered in isolation from key drivers that will shape the world of the future‛ (Dwyer et al. 2009: 63). In other words, tourism activity can mark a path to regional and local development only when it succeeds in being part of the available general productive system and not when it is taken as an autonomous industry (Tao & Wall 2009). Tourism, cultural tourism included, can have an important multiplier effect on the economy whenever it is appropriately managed. Seen in another way, tourism can be quite disruptive of the economic, social and cultural equilibrium and, probably, a danger to the environment. In this sense, it is worth emphasizing that ‚tourism, using a sustainable approach, is a model that makes a strong
Tourism development policies of a U.N.E.S.C.O world heritage city: the case of Guimarães
2009
Tourism is one of the economic activities which gives a larger contribution to the survival and development of many territories, in Europe and all over the world. It profits from the endogenous resources and has become a major brake in the depopulation of some of those places and regions. Tourism is also a way to preserve the cultural heritage. Guimaraes has become a city that has a strong symbolic image associated, constituting an example of urban Portuguese patrimony preservation. It has tried to justify the world heritage certification attributed by the U.N.E.S.C.O. in the year 2001, by increasing the number of infrastructures and implementing a tourism animation programme with a growing level of diversification. This paper aims to produce a short analysis of the tourism strategy followed by the city tourism authorities, addressing the issues of tourism trails and image, visitors profile and cultural dynamics.
"Cultural and Creative tourism in Portugal"
PASOS, 2016
A new paradigm in the tourism industry is changing the meaning of culture and its use in promoting several touristic products/experiences and destinations. The questions we want to answer are the following: How can creative tourism be important in a destination and what are its implications in its organization? Methodology was based on the bibliographic review related to the object of study, data and content analysis, " snowball sampling " technique, surveys and participant observation technique. This paper analyzes how the event MED Festival in Loulé, Algarve has improved local economy, solved urban problems in the historical center (venue of the event) and helped to differentiate touristic supply in the mature touristic destination in the Algarve, Portugal. Turismo cultural y creativo en Portugal Resumen: Un nuevo paradigma en la industria turística está cambiando el significado de la cultura y sus usos de forma a promocionar productos o experiencias y destinos otros. Las cuestiones que ponemos son las siguientes: ¿Cuál es la importancia del turismo creativo en un destino turístico y cuáles serán las consecuencias para su organización? La metodología seguida se basó en una revisión de la literatura relativa al objeto de investigación, estudio de caso, análisis de datos, análisis de contenido, toma de muestras, " bola de nieve " , encuestas y observación participante. Este artículo analiza cómo el evento Festival MED en Loulé, Algarve ha mejorado la economía local, ha resuelto problemas urbanos en el centro histórico (área del evento) y ayudó a diferenciar la oferta turística en el destino turístico maduro, en el Algarve, Portugal.
IEREK, 2024
Portugal has emphasized the significance of cultural and scenic touring in its tourism plans, positioning it as a strategic component of the national tourism offering. However, not all cultural heritage is leveraged for tourism, and there are several unique and relevant heritage elements that have been overlooked. The Castrejo heritage in northwestern Portugal is one such example, most of it being degraded and abandoned. This research has been carried out focusing the analyses of the touristic potential of the Castrejo heritage. Therefore, it was pertinent to understand its importance in the region's history and to grasp the projects being undertaken to valorize this heritage, both in Portugal and Spain, specifically in Galicia. The results of this research confirmed that the Castrejo heritage in northwestern Portugal indeed possesses high tourism potential, despite its widespread state of neglect and degradation. It has the capacity to become an important tourism product for the region. The creation of tourism products based on this heritage aids in its preservation, promotion and valorization. As a result, at the end of the research, a proposal for a cultural tourism route called the "Rota dos Castros do Noroeste de Portugal" is presented.
The Host-Tourist Interaction in a World Heritage Site: The Case of Guimarães
China-USA Business Review
The city of Guimarães, in the northwest of Portugal, is a place of strong symbolic and cultural significance. The nomination by UNESCO of its historical centre as world heritage, in December 2001, enlarged its tourism Guimarães, in the northwest of Portugal, is a city of strong symbolic and cultural significance and its nomination by UNESCO as world heritage, in 2001, enlarged its tourism potential. In this paper we present a few results of a survey that envisaged capturing the Guimarães residents' perceptions of tourism impacts and their attitudes towards tourists. Specifically, one analyzes the type of relationship that exists between some socio-demographic groups and the perceived tourism impacts, as well as their socio-characteristics and the existing level of interaction between residents and tourists. The survey was implemented between January and March 2010 to a convenience sample of 540 inhabitants of the municipality of Guimarães resulting in 400 questionnaires with complete data. For this, we made use of various statistical techniques. Using a factorial analysis, we can conclude that the three factors used explain 52.3% of the variance contained in the original variables obtained from the survey. By another side, using a logit model in the analysis and taking as the dependent variable the frequent or very frequent contact with tourists, we found that only the variables referred to perceived positive impacts of tourism, education and the place of residence in urban areas have shown to be statistically significant. We are aware of the multiple ways the issue of residents' perceptions and attitudes towards tourism can be approached and of the difficulties to get useful policy-oriented insights. This paper is a step in that trail.
The aim of this study is twofold. First, the study analyzes local community perspectives of the importance of the World Heritage Site (WHS) classification of the historic centers of Angra do Heroísmo and Évora. Second, the study analyzes local residents’ perceived tourism impacts on the municipalities of Angra do Heroísmo and Évora. The methodology comprises quantitative research based on a self-administered survey applied to convenience samples of local residents of the two Portuguese municipalities in 2014. The main results reveal that local residents have a strongly positive perception of the WHS designation in both municipalities. With regard to the perceived tourism impacts, residents from Angra do Heroísmo have a stronger agreement about the impacts of tourism on their city than the residents of Évora, except for the negative social and cultural impacts. The comparison of the mean scores of these impacts across residents that live near and far from the historic centers reveals that the most valued and least valued impacts in the three categories of impacts (economic, social and cultural, and environmental) are common to all groups of residents. Nevertheless, residents living in or near the historic center of Angra do Heroísmo have higher means in the majority of tourism impacts (in all categories), with only one negative impact to concern the majority of respondents. Among the residents from Évora, residents living in or near the historic center have higher means in the majority of economic impacts but lower means in almost social and cultural impacts. With regard to the environmental impacts, residents living in or near the historic center have higher means scores in the positive impacts and lower means scores in the negative environmental impacts
Sea Tourism Heritage in Portuguese Coastal Territory
2019
Portugal has 1,860 km of coastline and therefore has always had a strong element of value and cultural expression in the sea. This chapter presents a study that gives meaning to key cultural elements in Portuguese sun-and-sea destinations, integrating their heritage value and intangible cultural significance. Authors show how two large groups of heritage elements associated with the sea can be integrated into forms of visitation and leisure (lighthouses, forts and coastal garrisons). These heritage elements increasingly integrate tourism, diversifying and valuing it. Adding to these elements of material heritage, it is also important to refer to elements of intangible expression that are a reference for the life of the populations connected to the sea. Particular attention will be paid to the Xávega Art, and to the Rendas de Bilros handicraft, considering their inventory and safeguard.