Abstract:
This report describes tourists' perceptions of two eminent tourist spots in Barcelona, Spain: The historic Plaça Reial (Royal Square) from 1884, situated at the very heart of Old Town Barcelona, and the post-modern Port Olímpic (Olympic Harbour) which was built on the occasion of the 1992 Summer Olympics amidst the metropolitan beaches on the Mediterranean Sea. Tourist spots and places (as settings) are usually pre- and re-formed via "travel images" and "place images", as conveyed by the media, via interpersonal narratives or even a tourist's memories. In order to discuss the reciprocal consumption and production of such tourist spots, Karlheinz Wöhler's (2001) concept of "travel images" as well as the more open "place images" of Jørgen Bærenholdt et al. (2004) will be applied to the two aforementioned tourist places. The first section presents the Catalan capital as an emerging European tourist destination since the early 1990s, the second part points out the theoretical constellations of modern and post-modern (cultural) tourism. Section three focuses on the concepts of "travel images" and "place images" and finally, the paper concentrates on the impact of concrete "place images" for Barcelona tourists: Four visitors are interrogated through participatory observations and focused interviews concerning their perception of the above mentioned tourist spots in Barcelona and the influence that (modern and post-modern) "travel images" tend to have on their travel experience.

Keywords: Barcelona, tourist places, modern/post-modern tourist, tourist spot, travel images/place images

Leseprobe (pdf)