Familiar journeys. Heritage tourism in Belgium as an emotional and embodied experience

The overall goal of this research project is to assess the emotional and multisensory experiences related to heritage tourism in Belgium. It involves a comprehensive analysis of the different parameters, both of human and non-human nature, that shape those experiences. Besides identifying the affective and sensory dynamics at work in encounters with heritage among different categories of people involved in heritage tourism (visitors, residents and professionals), this research also wants to conceptualize how environmental parameters (such as the weather) play a constitutive role in the meaning of heritage. Three Belgian case studies (the experience of natural heritage along the coast, residents confronted with heritage tourism in Durbuy and the use of social media in visiting the highlights of Brussels) are investigated with a multifaceted methodology, including on-site and online fieldwork and discursive and visual analyses.

Keywords:tourism, heritage, theory, emotions, visitors, senses

Disciplines:Critical heritage, Tourist behaviour and visitor experience