Ninth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

Historical gardens are cultural and natural assets of significant value. Symbols of memory, identity, and belonging, they are crucial to preserving and strengthening cultural memory and the collective identity, as well as to understanding the territories themselves. As such, they have emerged as strategic resources of territories and have become increasingly popular tourist attractions and protagonists of contemporary tourism. However, despite being one of the richest expressions of cultural heritage, often this value is not fully grasped, perceived, and understood by their visitors. This is due in part to the lack of suitable communication and interpretation techniques and tools. Nevertheless, efforts have been made by some gardens to differentiate, improve, and enrich the visitor experience of this heritage. The adoption of smart technologies/tools, made possible by the widespread and frequent use of smartphones and Wi-Fi networks, has helped visitors to anticipate and prepare for their visit (pre-visit phase), round off the on-site visit (visit phase), and reflect, remember, and relive the visit (post-visit phase). In this context, this work analyzes the results of an exploratory study conducted in a first phase using the non-participant observation technique, where the internet provides information through the websites of about 40 Portuguese gardens considered major tourist attractions. The main results of the research reveal that there is already an interesting number of gardens that have adopted smart technologies/tools, particularly virtual reality and applications with and without augmented reality, which allow off-site and on-site experiences, especially at the educational and entertainment levels.