Autor(es):
Kastenholz, Elisabeth 
; Carneiro, Maria João ; Marques, Carlos Duarte Coelho Peixeira ; Lima, Joana
Data: 2012
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10348/1487
Origem: Repositório da UTAD
Assunto(s): Rural tourism; Experience management
Descrição
The present paper, developed in the context of a 3 years research project financed by Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (co-financed by COMPETE, QREN e FEDER), tries to contribute to a better understanding of the rural tourism experience, with implications on the capacity of managing this experience. Literature review reveals conceptually relevant issues of tourist experience marketing, the particularity of the rural tourism experience, as well as market and supply trends leading to new developments of the experience sought and provided. This background understanding helps structuring a case study approach of a historical village in Central Portugal – Linhares da Beira, a village where public funding was made available for preserving the heritage of a network of villages with outstanding historical value.
Specific objectives of this paper are the discussion of the concept of the rural tourism experience. Specifically, the paper will identify specific elements of the rural tourism experience in the studied village and analyse how this experience is perceived and conditioned by destination stakeholders and globally managed. This case study approach is based on documental analysis, observation of the destination reality through field trips and interviews, directed at those responsible for the village’s tourism planning, at agents of tourism supply, the population and tourists visiting the village.
