Cultural memories, discursive gaps, and tourism promotion: A framework for applied research

Recent studies about the relation between heritage and tourism have consistently signaled the existence of fractures between the cultural reality of tourism destinations and the cognitive and emotional experience of contemporary visitors. On the other hand, the study of the relations between tourism and literature and the recent valorization of storytelling in tourism promotion have both pointed out the importance of different types of discourses in the constitution of tourism spaces and the shaping of visitors’ expectations and experiences. When the desire for authenticity expressed by cultural tourists is also taken into account, the existence of inconsistencies between the cultural realities of destinations, existing discourses and the expectations and perceptions of tourists becomes apparent. Adapting, in an innovative approach, the Gap Model of Service Quality, this paper intends to present a research framework capable of enlightening existing cultural inconsistencies considering the discourses involved in the promotion and experience of tourism destinations. The framework will be applied in an exploratory investigation of the role of José Saramago’s Baltasar and Blimunda in the tourism promotion of Mafra and Lisbon, Portugal, with the aim of developing a conceptual model capable of describing inconsistencies in the promotion and experience of cultural destinations and facilitating the development of adequate mediation proposals.