Cultural and knowledge seeking by visitors at world heritage sites: the case of Coimbra

Abstract

This paper develops within cultural tourism studies, focusing on a World Heritage Site (WHS) and demonstrates the importance of perceiving cultural tourists’ preferences so that organizing entities and decision-makers can design different cultural tourist products to meet their expectations. A survey was conducted by self-administered questionnaires designed to identify, among other characteristics, the degree to which cultural tourists are interested in highly demanding travel experiences that will enhance their knowledge of local culture and history, with participatory activities with interpretation, and other events that require a high level of engagement, through intellectual and emotional immersiveness. Results seem to reveal perceptions of culture as a source of new values and the preference for innovative, intellectually challenging site presentation and interpretation.