Through the eyes of Fernando Pessoa

This research investigates the phenomenon of literary tourism connected to Fernando Pessoa in Lisbon. The research question here is: “What are the motives of foreign visitors to engage in literary tourism connected to the work of Fernando Pessoa, how do they experience their visit and how do they come to evaluate their experiences later on?” In order to answer this question, a qualitative research was designed and empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews, virtual documents and participant observation. The interviews were the primary source of data while the observations and the documents were complementary. For the analysis the main question was divided in three sub-questions that addressed each one of the moments of the literary experience. The findings showed that, next to the fans, there is another interesting group of tourists that choose to participate in literary tourism for reasons that are not directly connected with the writer or his work. The arrival of this type of tourists is stimulated by the increasing number of tourism companies that are including literary walking tours as a product that complement larger touristic experiences, such as holidays packages or stays in a hotel. While fans experience literary tourism from the perspective of intimacy and closeness, this kind of accidental literary tourists experience the literary activities from the perspective of authenticity.