Abstract
Heritage attractions’ managers must acknowledge that today’s tourists want to connect with heritage at a deeper and mindful level. Stories communicate a community’s history and culture and storytelling is considered a co-creative tool that increases visitor engagement with the local community’s heritage and leads to meaningful and memorable tourist experiences. Storytelling is an innovative and effective way to co-create experiences that transport tourists to the history and culture of the local community. However, a lack of knowledge exists regarding storytelling’s implementation and effects in heritage tourism settings. This research delves into these issues and analyses an example of how storytelling types combine in a heritage experience context. A storytelling tour with three independent groups of participants was performed at a small-scale museum, the Islamic Museum of Tavira, Portugal. Then, participants were invited to take part in focus groups to share their thoughts on the experience at the museum. Data were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis. Findings point to the importance of stories in the museum experience context, highlighting their innovative contribution for visitors to immerse in the local community’s history and culture. Additionally, this research proposes an emergent conceptual framework on storytelling implementation in small-scale heritage museums.
Presenters
Ana Cláudia CamposAssistant Researcher, CinTurs, Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Changing Dimensions of Contemporary Tourism
KEYWORDS
Visitor Experience, Heritage Tourism, New Museology, Heritage Museum, Story, Storytelling
