Sustainable Tourism: A Hidden Theory of the Cinematic Image? A Theoretical and Visual Analysis of the Way of St. James

Lucrezia Lopez, Enrico Nicosia and Rubén Camilo Lois González
Additional contact information
Lucrezia Lopez: Department of Geography, University of Santiago de Compostela, Praza da Universidade 1, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Enrico Nicosia: Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, University of Macerata, P.le Bertelli 1, 62100 Macerata, Italy
Rubén Camilo Lois González: Department of Geography, University of Santiago de Compostela, Praza da Universidade 1, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-24

Abstract: The attractiveness of a tourist destination is derived from multiple material and immaterial elements. Cinema is both a tourist communication channel and provides a target market for a destination. Many regions offer a great variety of potential locations desirable for their scenic beauty and artistic and monumental heritage. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of sustainable tourism as a pillar of the contemporary cinematic discourse on pilgrimage routes, combining theoretical and empirical methodologies. It begins by analyzing how, given their power, images are narrative instruments that assume a true performative value of geographical reality. The research then focuses on the cinematographic space and visual cinematographic discourse. The case study is sustainable tourism along the Way of St. James (Spain). The material is a corpus of two documentary films. Their moviescapes highlight the presence of a sustainable filmic theorem within a potential cinematic genre—pilgrimage movies. Thus, this study contributes to the investigation of how sustainable pilgrimage tourism practices are used in cinematic production as a possible movie theorem. It presents a conclusive critical evaluation of the role and message of these moviescapes.

Keywords: pilgrimage and religion tourism; sustainable pilgrimage tourism; moviescapes; the Way of St. James (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3649/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3649/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3649-:d:175053

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().