ABSTRACT
However, this is not to say that visitors to literary heritage sites are ill-informed. In terms of motivation, Pocock (1992) described many visitors as ‘literary pilgrims’ because of their desire to be educated about the life and works of the author. Herbert (1995b) focuses on visitors to Jane Austen’s residence at Chawton, Hampshire, concluding that most visitors were motivated by a genuine literary interest. Squire (1993) describes how visitors to Beatrix Potter’s home in the Lake District seem to be attracted partly by the nostalgia associated with a kind of rural idyll, as well as by the author’s works. Craik (1997: 116) suggests that the diversity of the Potter industry had somehow detracted from the main literary theme: ‘the Potter attractions – both authentic and constructed – were simply the backdrop or catalyst for the pleasures, connections and projections that individual tourists had derived from their visit.’ Literary tourism can thus be used as a magnet or a catalyst for the development of rural or urban tourism.
