Niche tourism in small peripheral towns: the case of Jewish Heritage in Belmonte, Portugal

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the potential contribution of niche products to the development of sustainable tourism in small peripheral places. The exploration is conducted on the case study of Belmonte, a small peripheral Portuguese town, employing a strategy of niche tourism in the framework of “museum park” development. This park is comprised of different sorts of local heritage, including the town's unique Jewish history. Empirical research was conducted using an inductive methodology based on several primary and secondary sources of data. Results indicate that Jewish heritage tourism is an important and growing segment of tourism, though it does not constitute, as of yet, the sole engine of local development. Jewish heritage tourism faces the challenge of developing supportive services to sustain the growing demand and allow retaining more value in the region. It is concluded that in remote peripheral areas: (a) Niche tourism should be developed as a cluster of products; (b) Jewish heritage appears as a viable niche product within the framework of the museum parks cluster; (c) The involvement of local government is crucial for the success of tourism development; and (d) Sustainability of niche tourism products depend on joining local and global distributional networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Niche tourism
• sustainable development
• tourism product development
• Jewish heritage
• crypto-Jews
• Belmonte

Notes

1 The term “dissonant heritage” was presented by these authors as a concept anchored in the idea of heritage as a contemporary product shaped by history where different narratives exists, resulting in discordance in the histories and a potential lack of agreement and consensus about the representation/interpretation of the past.

2 A surrogate variable provides an indirect measure of the phenomena, applied when the use of direct measures is not possible.

3 Fully comparable data are not available. Number of guests to Belmonte hotels is not publishable due to statistics disclosure regulations.

4 The region in called Cova da Beira (NUT III), which includes the neighboring municipalities of Belmonte, Covilhã and Fundão (Covilhã is the largest one and Belmonte the smallest), and Guarda (the other nearest city to Belmonte, included in Beira interior Norte, NUT III region).

5 Source: Based on INE (1999, 2005, 2010, 2013). Tables with data presented in this paragraph could be obtained from the authors upon request.

6 Source: http://cm-belmonte.com/?q=node/200.

7 Belmonte is located in proximity to Serra da Estrela, the highest mountain in continental Portugal and the only one having a small ski resort.

8 Free translation from the original in Portuguese.