Pilgrimages and travel for other religious reasons are two of the major drivers of human mobility. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can contribute to sharing knowledge about religious heritage with tourists, residents, and religious communities. ICT innovations that help individuals find information and acquire knowledge about cultural heritage can bring new experiences and sensations to tourists and residents, in general, and to those who have accessibility problems, in particular. These innovations include augmented reality, location-based services, social networks, gamification, and intelligent interfaces. This paper focuses on religious and spiritual routes and itineraries, presenting a religious tourism experience model that allows tourists to acquire additional knowledge about cultural and religious heritage, based on technological architecture using intelligent human-computer interactions displayed on personal mobile devices. This approach expands personal and spiritual experiences when travelers visit religious heritage sites associated with itineraries.

Sustainable development has been growingly recognized as important in the scope of tourism and hospitality industry practices. Gastronomic tourism associated with regional food-and wine pairing helps the emerging of higher quality services and contributes to the sustainability of tourist destinations. This study presents a pairing model based on three Real-Time Delphi (RTD) questionnaires to allow experts to select and pair regional wines with regional foods. In the first questionnaire, the experts were asked to choose, by category, the most representative regional dishes from the Algarve region (Portugal). In the second questionnaire, for each dish, experts voted on the best regional wines for the dish. In the third questionnaire, experts made quantitative and qualitative analyses for each of the three most voted wines for each dish. The resulting pairing model of regional food and wines will be communicated to tourism professionals and the general public. By promoting the consumption of these pairings, we promote an efficient, socially fair, and ecologically sustainable local economy. At the same time, we stimulate the circular economy in tourism.

O artigo contribui para o debate emergente sobre as interconexões entre o turismo cultural e criativo e o desenvolvimento sustentável, com base em dois estudos de casos: Lisboa e do Porto, discutindo-se um conjunto de indicadores, nomeadamente o Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM/JRC) e Creative Cities Index (Charles Landry). Sublinha-se a crescente importância do turismo cultural/criativo nas duas cidades portuguesas assente na existência de Património Mundial (UNESCO) e em iniciativas europeias, tais como Capital Europeia da Cultura, Expo e Euro, nacionais, regionais e locais patentes numa maior dinâmica do tecido empresarial cultural e criativo. A comparação entre Lisboa e Porto evidencia a cidade capital com melhor performance, em termos de “vibração cultural”, “economia criativa” e “ambiente”.

Gastronomy has been valued as an intangible heritage that contributes to the valorization of tourist destinations. Experiencing gastronomy with other intangible heritages, such as Fado [World Heritage of Unesco], namely in Fado Houses of Lisbon, could enhance the authenticity of the city’s tourist experience. In this context, this chapter aims to analyse the House of Fado managers’ perspective regarding the characteristics of the cultural touristic supply, as well as the main transforming elements of that supply over time. In accordance, it is based on a case study methodology, highlighting the importance of the identity values of Fado and Gastronomy in the construction of cultural-gastronomic experiences.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have established a growing and deeper interconnection alliance with the tourism sector. Few solutions have contributed to the dissemination of cultural and religious heritage of the regions, as a means of promoting it, making known and enriching the culture of its visitors and residents. The development of an intelligent application that allows the dissemination of cultural and religious heritage can bring new experiences and sensations for tourists and for residents in general, and for those with accessibility problems in particular. The present chapter proposes a methodological framework for the development of a recommendation system associated with the Religious Tourism Experience Model (RTEM), with the objective of identifying and selecting consumer preferences for the dissemination of cultural heritage in general, and religious heritage in particular.

A indústria de Viagens e Turismo (T&T) é altamente sensível a eventos extremos como pandemias (Price et al., 2022; OCDE, 2020). A pandemia de COVID-19 causou uma grave disrupção no setor, resultando em restrições de mobilidade e encerramentos (Chowdhury e Jomo, 2020). No entanto, também trouxe oportunidades para a inovação (Price et al., 2022). O impacto econômico no PIB de Portugal foi significativo, com a contribuição do setor de T&T caindo de 17,1% em 2019 para 8,7% em 2020, recuperando nos anos seguintes (WTTC, 2022). Dada a dependência do Algarve em relação ao turismo, este estudo destaca a necessidade de novas estratégias para superar os desafios (EURES, 2022). Esta investigação tem como objetivo analisar como empregadores e empregados da hotelaria (hotéis e restaurantes) no Algarve (sul de Portugal) perceberam as medidas adotadas pelo governo português para enfrentar a crise da COVID-19, utilizando um procedimento estatístico multivariado de Análise Tríplice de Dados, especificamente o método COSTATIS, o qual é considerado uma versão mais avançada ou especializada do STATIS, oferecendo maior flexibilidade e refinamento no tratamento de relações complexas entre dados. O procedimento estatístico sustenta a análise de 27 tipos de percepções sobre a crise pandêmica, coletadas de respondentes distribuídos em quatro categorias profissionais da hotelaria (gerentes e funcionários de restaurantes e hotéis). As conclusões indicam que pertencer a uma determinada categoria profissional dentro da indústria hoteleira tende a influenciar as ideias sobre a capacidade de enfrentamento e resiliência diante de desafios organizacionais. Membros de diferentes categorias profissionais percebem a crise de formas distintas, conforme seu status e posição hierárquica nas organizações. Maior atenção deve ser dada ao que os profissionais de status mais baixo têm a dizer sobre o clima organizacional em possíveis crises futuras.