Urban Identity and tourism:different looks, one single place

‘Urban identity’ is high on the policy agenda and pervades the discourse of the planning community on the value of historical city centres. Unfortunately, there seems to be, until today, no proposal in scholarly literature of any unified conceptual framework or any tools to make identity operational. ‘Tourism’ takes advantage of this process, by seeking the qualities of the place, its authenticity and its perceived uniqueness that is grounded on the physical features as well as on the presence of local communities – their way of living and investing in the place. The interdependence between identity as perceived by tourists (external observer) and the identity of the residents rooted in the relationship with the place (in-group) are key to addressing the identity of historic urban areas. These issues are addressed in the context of the growing attractiveness of Lisbon, Portugal, using a historic neighbourhood as a case study. The findings, which are on a set of interviews with different groups of users, showed the points of convergence and divergence between the different groups’ views of the neighbourhood’s identity. This actor-oriented approach is pivotal to understanding the process and to produce knowledge for informed action.

Learning from within: on students, olives and ethnographic knowledge

The chapter elicits the experience of teaching “Ethnography and Tourism” to undergraduate students at the University of Evora. Our main focus of research and teaching has been directed towards teaching exploratory ethnographic methods in order to promote an understanding of the material and immaterial dimensions of the cultural contexts of the region and beyond. Secondly, and, at the same time, we also learn ethnography by reading and discussing comparative research of other ethnographies of tourism spaces, eliciting, among the students, the ethical problems raised by the consequences of tourism in peoples’ cultural settings.

Determinants of European tourism demand in a demographic ageing society

This study identifies the senior European tourists determinants that explained their decisions to go on holidays. The empirical study was conducted among European tourists by applying a logit model. The model intends to explain the determinants related to the decision to go on holidays since the probability of a senior European tourist taking holidays in a country depends on a mix of motives as previous travel experience and demographic characteristics. Policy and theoretical implications are derived for contributing to the discussion between demographic variables and tourism demand choice patterns.

MOTIVATION AND SATISFACTION IN CONTEXT OF JOB TRAINING IN TOURIST ORGANIZATIONS

This research aims to determine the dimensions of motivation and satisfaction, acquired, through the perception in context of job training, by future technicians (students) in the hospitality and tourism industry, particularly by technical courses in the hotel and restaurant sector. The methodology comprises three distinct stages. First were recovered instruments (questionnaires), already validated by other authors of motivation and satisfaction, which had the intention to replicate studies conducted in other scientific knowledge fields, such as tourism. Those instruments were recovered from the reviewed literature conducted about other themes. On second place the measuring instruments were submitted to a pre-test, or rather, were subject of a pioneer study, in order to verify other assumptions such as semantic errors or see if there was the possibility of some prepared questions to be consider invalidated by poor formulation or interpretation. Finally, were applied in three educational institutions who agreed to cooperate on the research, with the reservation that the interviewed needed a mandatory pre-requirement that consisted in conducting a minimum training in work context (TWC). Then, proceed the statistical analysis to support all the empirical part. The results show that, in general, motivation and satisfaction were present during the period of training in work context. To some people it meant a very important period of personal and professional life, concerning the interactions, emotions and involvement with touristic organizations but also the personal and social relationships.

Determinants of European tourism demand in a demographic ageing society

This study identifies the senior European tourists determinants that explained their decisions to go on holidays. The empirical study was conducted among European tourists by applying a logit model. The model intends to explain the determinants related to the decision to go on holidays since the probability of a senior European tourist taking holidays in a country depends on a mix of motives as previous travel experience and demographic characteristics. Policy and theoretical implications are derived for contributing to the discussion between demographic variables and tourism demand choice patterns.

A segunda vida da Praia dos Espanhóis: dançarinos, pescadores e turistas no sul de Portugal

Abstract: In this text, we deal with proccesses of appropriation of space in the Dam of Póvoa (Portugal) using a dwelling perspective (Ingold 2009) over the territory. The reconversion of innactive spaces in rural areas into leisure-related ones in a quite common practice in contemporary times.The Spaniards beach is one of the local names given by locals to the Dam of Póvoa (Castelo de Vide), in northern Alentejo (Portugal). In the collective memory of the residents, the Dam (built in the 1920’s) is remembered for the many flowers surrounding the area. This Garden-style aesthetics has outlived the initial function of the Dam (to produce electric power). From the 1960’s to the 1980’s, it was also a popular leisure space for Spanish and Portuguese people. It is not a beach, but being inland, it was the closest thing to a beach the residents had. The centrality of this leisure space in the area only decayed after the construction of swimming pools in the nearby towns. Early in the begginning of 21st century a fire destroyed part of the natural floral landscape of the dam. Abandoned for some years, the place has still been appropriated by leisured people in day-trips (for sight-seeing, pic-nics), fishing competitions, caravan soujorns, and, since 2013, in a music and dance festival named Andanças (www.andancas.net). The research that underlies this paper was carried out between 2013 and 2016 by a team of anthropologists. An ethnography of the Dam and its uses, and of the festival and its participants was carried out. In our working-paper we higlight the main research findings achieved. Key-words: Leisure; Landscape; Tourism; Music; Space; Portugal.