Literary routes as a successful tourist offer in Porto

Abstract

Nowadays tourist aspires to something differentiated, personalized, focused on quality, culture, and the environment. As this tourist is a more demanding one, it is crucial to provide an innovative offer bearing in mind that this type of tourist aspires to something more specific. This is exactly the case of literary tourists. By using a literary text to invite people to visit a city, which we may call "literary invitation", we intend to provide some real and material knowledge about the city, often in the form of a route to be travelled.

Tourist itineraries immerse visitors in the plot of a narrative or in the historical era it refers to and therefore, enhances the experience of a cultural visit assuming an important political and economic significance in today’s tourism destinations. Besides enhancing cultural exchange and cross-border relations, tourists mobilize large economic resources that can promote the socio-economic development of the territories.

This paper intends to present an analysis of the motivational attributes of literary routes in the perception of the tourist destination Porto based on information obtained from a sample of 272 tourists/visitors in the city during the summer of 2020.

The analysis of the results allows us to state that they represent a reliable basis for tourist agents interested in reevaluating the essence of tourist activity in the city, in the context of literary resources and attractions, and these motivational factors may be incorporated into marketing strategies.