La atracción turística de un espacio mítico: peregrinación al cabo de Finisterre

Abstract

This article analyzes the production of the “sense of place” of Finisterre - Cape situated in the Autonomous Community of Galicia (Spain) - and the way it is used to promote its namesake village as a tourist destination. The essay highlights the global and local factors as well as the plurality of social actors that intervene in this process and their different interests and actions. Moreover, it shows the role played in this by the mythic narrative created by the forerunners of the Galician nationalist tradition who identified Galicia as an Atlantic Land´s End. This narrative allowed actors to propose this village as the goal of the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela so that it could benefit from the tourist promotion of Galicia largely based on the cultural heritage of the Pilgrim´s Way. The meaning of this place today is related to a secularised experience of the pilgrimage and to the pilgrims ritual practices inspired in the aforesaid myth.

Keywords

• Cultural heritage
• Tourism
• Pilgrimage
• Rural development
• Cultural identity.