The symbolic construction of the image of territories: Serra da Estrela between traditional images and tourism image

Abstract

Tourist destinations depend, more and more, from the image, because attractive images seduce potential visitors and unattractive images repel them. In order to reflect the perceived image of Serra da Estrela, a research model was drawn up which, based on a research strategy theoretically based on the sociology of tourism, sought to analyze the process of social construction of the image of this region, in three moments. In a first phase, we tried to reflect the image that has been constructed socially, throughout the times, in the narratives of literature and the cinema. In a second phase, we tried to analyze how the media has portrayed these territories in the written press, in a recent past, confronting it with the image projected in support of the organizational communication, the responsibility of the organisms that oversee the tourism promotion of this region. At a later stage, from a questionnaire applied on-line, assess the role played by different suppliers of information in the social construction of the image perceived by respondents. The idea that prevailed was that, despite the investment by the agencies responsible for promoting the tourism image of the Serra da Estrela, in the diffusion of images that go beyond traditional ones, its effects are delayed. This is because the valorization of Serra da Estrela's image attributes reflected in the data collected by the questionnaire came closer to the functionalities attributed to these territories over time by the more traditional sources of information (literature, media and collective memories) than those in which organizational communication has been engaged.