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Portugal’s Photographic Image in Lonely Planet Guidebooks: A Comparative Study

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Advances in Tourism, Technology and Systems

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 345))

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Abstract

The dominant position of photography in the modern world has been recognised for several decades, where the omnipresence in tourism plays a crucial role in the promotion of destinations. The visual material combined together with the textual component allows keeping the reader’s focus and is a strategy strongly present in all the means of destination information dissemination. This close relationship between tourism and photography has led to a growing interest in the topic. Thus, this paper aims to compare the photographic image of Portugal between the first edition of Lonely Planet’s Portugal travel guidebook, dated 1997, and the last edition published in September 2021. The photographic portfolio selected for each edition allows assessing the change of Portugal’s image as a tourism destination, from a foreign professional perspective, as it communicates different attributes, characteristics, ideals and values. The study applied a pictorial qualitative content analysis to find patterns and dissimilarities between the two editions. Each image was analysed according to the same criteria to create coding categories, with only the visible elements in the image being identified, to avoid analysis bias. The analysis revealed a country in mutation, from ancestral traditions to modernity associated with fresh and dynamic urbanscapes, but also a significant change in editorial criteria for image selection. The continuous search for the picturesque and bucolic of the first edition gave way to the image of a modern Portugal, appealing to tourists, culturally authentic, and with an inviting climate and natural environment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GOVCOOP—Aveiro University, Aveiro, Portugal

    Vítor Sá

  2. CEGOT—Coimbra University, Coimbra, Portugal

    Alexandra Matos Pereira

Authors
  1. Vítor Sá
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  2. Alexandra Matos Pereira
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexandra Matos Pereira .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Porto Accounting and Business School, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, São Mamede de Infesta, Portugal

    João Vidal Carvalho

  2. Inst. of Acct. & Admin.of Porto (ISCAP), Polytechnic Institute of Porto, S. Mamede de Infesta, Portugal

    António Abreu

  3. School of Hospitality and Tourism, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Vila do Conde, Portugal

    Pedro Liberato

  4. Department of Accounting, School of Management, EAFIT University, Medellín, Colombia

    Alejandro Peña

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Sá, V., Pereira, A.M. (2023). Portugal’s Photographic Image in Lonely Planet Guidebooks: A Comparative Study. In: Carvalho, J.V., Abreu, A., Liberato, P., Peña, A. (eds) Advances in Tourism, Technology and Systems. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 345. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0337-5_36

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