Images of the Douro destination in tourist guides from the second half of the twentieth century to the present

Abstract

We did a documentary and discursive analysis of a corpus of tourist guides published in Portugal from the mid - 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, with the objective of ascertaining the projected images of the Alto Douro Vinhateiro in this discursive genre. The analysis of the discourse and image of 22 guides allowed us to conclude that most of the tourist guides published prior to the inscription of the Alto Douro Vinhateiro on the list of heritage of humanity in the category of "evolving and living" cultural landscape, in December 2001, only present a projected image of the "traditional" Douro destination, merely based on the tangible characteristics of the vineyard territory, among others in the discourses of the guides. The political-strategic changes, after the Alto Douro Wine Region was awarded the world heritage tag by UNESCO, with the creation of the Mission Structure for the Douro (2006) and the Pole of Tourism Development of the Douro, in 2008, had positive repercussions on the images created to sell and promote the destination and on the accompanying discursive style, for example, in the guides. Some of these last books resulted from collaborative initiatives of the two regional tourism entities of the Douro, and promote a projected image of the destination-based not only on tangible "attributes", but also on emotions and affections triggered by the enjoyment of the terroir.