Spatial patterns of cultural tourism in Portugal

• Spatial clustering of cultural attractions in package tours to mainland Portugal
• Cultural heritage breaks the asymmetry of the spatiality of the Portuguese tourism model.
• Cumulative attraction patterns are based on a hierarchical network topology.
• The Euclidean distance between nodes is not determined by spatial proximity.

This paper analyzes recurrent spatial patterns that characterize package holidays for mainland Portugal by applying a cluster analysis to cultural attractions and the number of overnight stays assigned to each municipality. The empirical results show that organized tourist programs based on cultural heritage break reduce to some extent the asymmetry of the spatiality of the Portuguese tourism model that historically was concentrated around the Algarve. This research shows that the articulation of nodes and their Euclidean distance in the analyzed programming models does not have a deterministic relationship with geographical and physical proximity. Rather the analysis unravels cumulative attraction patterns based on a hierarchical network topology that drains tourism from strategic gateways (Lisbon and Oporto) to peripheral municipalities.

Spatial patterns of analyzed holiday programs from Germany, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Italy and the UKFigure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide