Participan

The phenomenon of tourism is closely linked to the concepts of heritage and identity. As Benedict Anderson (1983) pointed out, the figure of the modern citizen is largely constituted by traveling through the destination, identifying with its landscapes, culture, and history through visits to national parks, museums, monuments, and exhibitions.

This conference aims to delve into the study of the relationships between art, literature, and tourism in Spain, considering them key factors in the country's modernization process. To address this topic, we approach the study of tourism from a diverse and multidisciplinary perspective that allows us to understand it as a complex cultural phenomenon. Our proposal addresses the material and symbolic uses of images and words in contemporary society and, more specifically, the affinities between art and literature within tourist settings and devices.

We have established a chronological boundary that enables us to see how these situations evolve across different historical moments. The starting point has been set during the precursors to the emergence of tourism with nineteenth-century travelers. Spain entered this circuit thanks to Alexandre Louis Joseph's work, Voyage pittoresque en Espagne and Itinéraire descriptif de l'Espagne, published in Paris in 1806; and we will conclude in 2005 with the launch of the Don Quixote Route, later designated as a European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe. These dates allow us to study a substantial part of the 19th and 20th centuries.

We have chosen a broad period for the study of this phenomenon, taking into account the specific conditions of Spanish tourism historiography. The overwhelming weight that mass tourism had during the Francoist era eclipsed other moments in Spanish tourism history that have gone largely unnoticed until very recent times, which we intend to address.