Hotel ships on the Douro river and their relationship with the terroir

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how the operators of hotel ships interrelate — in their aim to seduce clients – the river and the terroir, the two defi ning morphologies of any visit to the Douro Valley, an excellent wine region crossing the North of Portugal from Oporto and Vila Nova da Gaia on the Atlantic coast to the frontier with Spain, near Salamanca. Starting from a portrait of the navigability of the river and the tourism accommodation on land, we provide preliminary data from an ongoing study that analyses how hotel ship operators interpret and sell the Douro region. Concentrating on the online programmes provides us with the opportunity to observe the formal mechanisms with clear expertise in directing the consumer decision-making processes, in this case, of those interested in visiting the Douro Valley, as well as having an impact on its destination image. A quantitative and content analysis allows us to map the tourist operations that merge the potential of the river and that of the terroir, and then, to refl ect about the selected combinations. More particularly, we aim to determine the kinds of wine tourism experiences that are being included in the Douro river cruise programmes in order to verify whether all aspects of the enotourism potential of the region have been fully realised in our sample. Finally, the chapter concludes with a list of suggestions to inspire the programme makers to enhance local development in a more equitable way, and thus, to improve the current business model.