Historic city, tourism performance and development: The balance of social behaviours in the city of Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

Abstract

Santiago de Compostela is an iconic place. From the 9th century through to the present day the city has acted as the final destination of a major pilgrimage route named after it. In the article we ask ourselves how the contemporary reinvention of the pilgrimage and pilgrimages on the Way of St. James has boosted tourism development in the city. Development has been concentrated in the historic city centre and in the area around the cathedral. The importance of tourism has transformed the significance of the city itself, which acquires a magical component as a place of arrival and encounter for all kinds of visitors. The historic city has been set up in the 20th century as a destination for the Way and for cultural tourism. The buildings, particularly those connected with the pilgrimage route, become highly attractive and symbolic places and tourists carry out a number of rituals in them. They travel and enjoy Santiago as a unique experience. The study of tourism and of the tourist transformation of Santiago de Compostela is undertaken using a qualitative and quantitative method. The article analyses the heritage and symbolic value of the historic centre, together with the growth of its tourism activities. Numerical data are also provided on the perceptions and behaviour of visitors using surveys carried out by the city's Tourism Observatory.

Motivational Landscape and Evolving Identity of a Route-Based Religious Tourism Space: A Case of Camino de Santiago

“…Today, pilgrimage sites are visited by the religious and less or non-religious alike, and the wide spectrum of travel motives renders these sites an important resource for tourism [19]. However, few researchers have attempted to identify the differences in motivations and experiences of pilgrimage site visitors [17,19], or how the meaning of these sites [50] may differ based on motivations and experiences. Scholars and historians have only recognized a superficial relationship between tourists and pilgrims for several decades [58], and research regarding religious tourists as a market segment is still lacking [19,58,66,67].…”

“…However, research has been limited in terms of how the experience of religious places varies in relation to the religiosity of the travel motivation, and how the diversity of such experiences, in turn, plays a role in the identity perception of these religious places, be they shrines or cultural tourism attractions. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the motivational make-up surrounding Camino [19], as well as the perceived identity of the sites involved [50,51]. However, concerning the interaction between identities and visitors' motivations, only the historic city of Santiago de Compostela has so far been investigated [51], not the route as a whole.…”

Who Is Interested in Developing the Way of Saint James? The Pilgrimage from Faith to Tourism

“…This something, however, need not necessarily be a single object, item, or experience. For instance, it so happens that pilgrims arriving in Santiago behave exactly as tourists merely visiting the city without having walked The Way (Castro Fernández et al 2016). Secular tourism and religious pilgrimage overlap and intertwine, generating spaces that set the stage for the polysemy of travel per se.…”

“…Ultimately, the symbolic meaning of the Compostela ensures that the pilgrims with more secular motivations declare different reasons (Santos Solla and González 2011;Castro Fernández et al 2016), choosing between three options: religious, religious and other, non-religious.…”

The Cultural Heritage and the Shaping of Tourist Itineraries in Rural Areas: The Case of Historical Ensembles of Extremadura, Spain

“…According to this conception, it is no longer seen only as a legacy of the past and is transformed into an essential element for achieving development in very different spaces [13]. These include historical cities [14][15][16], intangible assets [17], and even ancient routes or roads [18][19][20]. All this justifies the fact that heritage is considered to be a genuine tourist resource that contributes toward development [14].…”