Sound contexts of cultural heritage tourism in the Iberian Peninsula

ABSTRACT

Podcasting has emerged as an important tool for interpretive communication of heritage and promotion and marketing of tourism organizations. The integration of podcasting in these organizations’ digital models and strategies became even more evident with the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, setting an alternative and enriching medium for citizens to experience heritage. Thus, the aim of the paper is to explore the use of cultural heritage, tourism-related podcasts in the context of the Iberian Peninsula, a territory with deep geographical and intercultural relationships, with capacity for developing integrated tourism strategies and products, but also with dissimilarities in the tourism and media area. Through qualitative methodology, the cultural heritage, tourism-related podcasts available in Portugal and Spain in 2022 were mapped, an observation grid was built, and a content analysis was carried out, identifying the themes, the origin, the structure, sound expressiveness and narrative techniques used in podcasts. Thus, this paper contributes to a greater understanding of how podcasts are used in the tourism sector, highlighting the good practices existing in both countries, the advantages and potential of podcasts and pointing out new paths that could constitute innovative uses in communication in tourism.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural tourism
• cultural heritage
• digital storytelling
• podcast
• Iberian Peninsula
• sound contexts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (UIDB/04058/2020) + (UIDP/04058/2020), funded by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.

Notes on contributors

Gorete Dinis

Gorete Dinis holds a Ph.D. in Tourism, an MA in Innovation, Planning and Development, and a BSc in Tourism Management and Planning from the University of Aveiro. She is coordinator and professor in the BSc in Tourism and the Master's Degree in Tourism and Digital Communication at the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (PIP) / School of Education and Social Sciences. She is a member of the Research Unit Governance, Competitiveness, and Public Policies and collaborating member of the Centre for Tourism Research, Development and Innovation (CITUR).

Luís Bonixe

Luís Bonixe is a professor of journalism at the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre and holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He has published books and several chapters and articles in national and international journals on radio, podcasting, journalism, local journalism and online journalism.

Cordelia Santiño

Cordélia Santiño holds a PhD and an MA (DEA) in Foreign Language Teaching (Spanish) from the University of Granada and a BSc in Hispanic Philology from the University of Oviedo. She is the coordinator of the Department of Language and Communication Sciences at the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre and professor at the same institution.