A journey from imagination to reality. An approach to the literary tourist profile in Spain

Abstract

Trips have often been an inspiration purpose for writers and chroniclers who have left their imprint of their travelling experiences on the creation of their writings. Most of them alternate reality with imagination and this is one of the main strenghts that a literary work can have to achieve success. Continued interferences between fact and fiction and vice versa, allow the creation of many social imaginaries at certain times and in certain places. Great literary creations take us into a reality which exists only in our head. As a result of increased literary tourism, which is a branch of cultural tourism, readers will be allowed to complement, in many different ways, in real word what they have been assimilated from their readings, for example, through visiting those places where the narrative of the novel is set. In this article, we are going to analyze, on the one hand, literary tourism as a factor of new social imaginaries creation, and on the other hand, we will build a profile of the literary tourist in Spain that allows us to identify which are their common characteristics. To reach this objective, we have reviewed a selected bibliography concerning the topic, it has resorted to cultural organizations which have provided us a great deal of information about the visitor and his travelling experience, and we have included a survey in order to obtain information.