Cheese tourism in a World Heritage site: Vall de Boí (Catalan Pyrenees)

Abstract

Tourism in rural areas does not only mean accommodation in a rural environment, but also a combination of products and services related to the commodification of destinations. The purpose of the paper is to set a theoretical framework in relation to food tourism, in the context of tourism in rural areas. The creation of authentic experiences in rural environments is transferred to food tourism in the current paper through the study of cheese tourism. Applied to the Vall de Boí, which is a municipality located in the Catalan Pyrennes declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, there must be highlighted the seasonally marked foodscapes of this region and the cheese tourism as a case of an emergent tourism typology.