Local development and tourism. The socio-economic impact of digital communication in Portugal

How Do Destinations Frame Cultural Heritage? Content Analysis of Portugal’s Municipal Websites

“…Continuing with this overview of the main results, it was found that coastal municipalities and, more specifically, the regions of Lisbon, Porto and Braga put the greatest emphasis on promoting their cultural heritage [64]. This was also to be expected-see Hypotheses 1 and 2 and Table 2-because they are the most populated areas of the country and have the largest financial resources to assign to and preserve their heritage, as well as to undertake strategies to market and promote their cultural and tourist attractions, thereby completing a sustainable cycle that must be perpetuated in the future.…”

“…The steps necessary for its application to liquid web environments [58] involve: (1) formulating research questions and hypotheses, (2) selecting a sample, (3) designing a codebook and using it when coding the units of analysis, (4) validating the reliability of the process and, finally, (5) interpreting the results [59][60][61]. Therefore, and based on the methodological protocol and the findings of our own previous studies in the Spanish [62,63] and Portuguese [64] digital spheres, we are able to pose some research questions (RQ):…”

“…In relation to the hypotheses, there is empirical evidence in the Iberian context that there are two fundamental factors that correlate significantly with the state of the local web in terms of culture and tourism: the size of the municipalities' populations and their macro-economic development [63,64]. So, it is also important to check the following statements:…”