The Portuguese identity through tourist representations during Estado Novo

Abstract

It is believed that people become tourists to meet and experience the different cultures of the Others. Most travellers would choose their destinations based on promises that invite them to visit unique features, displayed in essential and inimitable environments, which seem to result from definite historic events. Tourist narratives are very keen on using what they consider as cultural and national reasons to support their offers. There is a recurrent use of concepts like typical, traditional or historic which leads the visitors to believe they will contact a reality that has been like that for ages and is somehow endemic. Having said this, one can hardly avoid noticing the coincidence between tourist and nationalist narratives, as they both borrow these very same notions to validate themselves. This study is part of a current research for a PhD, whose aim is to analyse how Estado Novo made use of tourist representations to spread and justify its political ideology. With this article, I would like to show and discuss key moments in the Portuguese tourist industry during the 30s and 40s of the 20th century. I will focus on the First National Congress of Tourism, which happened in 1936, and on António Ferro, the agent of Oliveira Salazar in tourist related issues.