Does gender affect attitudes and motivations towards a world heritage destination site? The case of Guimarães

«The city of Guimarães, in the northwest of Portugal, is a place of strong symbolic and cultural significance. The nomination by U.N.E.S.C.O. of its historical centre as world heritage, in December 2001, enlarged its tourism potential. 
This paper aims presenting a few results of a survey held in three different periods of 2010 and 2011, trying to capture the Guimarães tourist profile and gender perceptions towards a destination site, as well as motivations to visit that site.

For this, we made use of a quantitative technique. The preliminary results suggest that being a heritage site and the possibility of touring around in the region have a significant effect on tourists’ choice of Guimarães destination. Regarding tourists motivations, the results we got also revealed that there were no significant differences by gender. A similar result is attained in what concerns age and education.

Keywords: Tourism motivations; gender; cultural tourism; Guimarães.»

Paula Cristina Remoaldo

Laurentina Vareiro

J. Cadima Ribeiro

J. Freitas Santos

(resumo de comunicação apresentada na "International Conference - Gender issues: Implications for leisure and tourism", que decorreu na Universidade Aveiro, Portugal, de 1 a 3 de Março de 2012)