Fonte: Journal of Tourism & Development; v. 2, n. 17/18 (2012); 797-807
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Resumo: | As a communication process that promotes the maximization of the visitor experience, along with greater awareness towards heritage conservation, interpretation constitutes an important factor of competitiveness for tourist attractions and consequently for destinations.Despite the recognition of the importance of interpretation, a review of studies on this subject revealed that interpretation evaluation requires further investigation. Most of these studies have a limited scope in terms of attractions, techniques and dimensions evaluated. For this reason, the purpose of this paper is to analyze some of the problems related with interpretation evaluation and to identify the scope of the evaluation studies reviewed. This review shows that the studies that have been undertaken are very different both in goals and in approaches, but they are mainly focused on the impacts of the interpretation for visitors, in dimensions such as learning, social interaction, attitudes and emotions or behavior changes. These studies also show a high geographic concentration and more frequently adopt data collection techniques such as observation and questionnaire surveys. The conclusions presented in this paper are important for those who wish to develop an evaluation study of interpretation in tourist attractions.
