Cultural Tourism. The contribution of the culture in the conformation of tourist flows issuers in Spain and the Community of Madrid

Abstract

During the last years an increasing interest is stated by the “cultural tourism”, a tourist modality of difficult definition and delimiting. Depending on the approach adopted to delimit the concept of “culture”, it is possible to realize an approximation to the study of the cultural tourism from two complementary perspectives: in agreement with the motivations of trip or on the basis of the activities or tourist practices realized during the travel. The analysis of the tourist outbound flows (realized on a national scale and in relation to the Community of Madrid) allows to state that the displacements of cultural motivation represent a small part of the tourist market, though the number of tourists who carry out cultural activities turns out to be very high. “Culture” is present in trips of very different type, though the analysis of the realized practices allows to identify different forms of cultural consumption depending on the type of effected trip.