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Accepted Paper:

Tourist Motivation in Cemetery Tourism - first approaches to a case study  
José Marques (Instituto Superior da Maia)

Paper short abstract:

The knowledge of tourist motivation is critical for tourism professionals. In Northern Portugal, Cemetery Tourism is beginning to attract people. This is the subject of a research I’m conducting for academic purposes, and I want to bring here for discussion.

Paper long abstract:

Tourist motivation can be defined as the reason why a tourist will make the decision to choose one destination over another and the attributes that governs that behavior. The knowledge of tourist motivation is critical for tourism professionals.

Humanity has been interested in death and dying at least since the romans or even earlier. In the 20th century death was considered taboo, frightening and uncontrolled issue. But nowadays something is changing.

People begins to look as tourist attractions sites which are connected directly or indirectly with death, such as war memorials, war museums, battle fields, prison camps, cemeteries.

In Portugal, more precisely in Northern Portugal, Cemetery Tourism is beginning to attract people. Historic Cemeteries are classified as National Heritage. Municipalities and other institutions are taking good care of their cemeteries, endowing them with minimal infrastructure to be visited

This is the subject of a research I'm conducting for academic purposes, and I want to bring here an overview of this research mainly the assumptions behind this work, some methodological principles and a set of questions raised and of several possible approaches such as: Why do people visit cemeteries? What are tourists looking for? What types of experiences should you offer in order to respond and satisfy visitors' motivations? How is Cemetery Tourism in Northern Portugal developing?

Panel P11
A antropologização do turismo e a turistificação da antropologia (PT/EN/ES)
  Session 1