Research Paper Literary tourism: Opportunities and challenges for the marketing and branding of destinations? Anne Hoppen a , Lorraine Brown a,n , Alan Fyall b a Bournemouth University, United Kingdom b University of Central Florida, USA article info Article history: Received 20 June 2013 Accepted 20 December 2013 Available online 7 February 2014 Keywords: Literary tourism Branding Destination Marketing abstract This paper revisits the phenomenon of literary tourism and explores the means by which destinations can leverage benefit in the form of destination branding and marketing strategies. The paper commences with an overview of the typologies used to categorise the phenomenon and to outline the various forms it takes in the particular geographic context of the UK. The extent to which literary tourism is a sub-set of cultural and heritage tourism is then explored with the migration from niche to mass tourism opportunity an emerging trend. With regard to literary places, the study identifies author-related, fictional-related, book and festival related forms of literary tourism. Thereafter the study critiques further the migration from niche to mass tourism, the move from cultural and heritage tourism to international literary themed development, the collaborative development of literary destination products and experiences, opportunities for destination brand development and finally broader policy and wider local visitor management issues. The study concludes by advocating a collaborative approach to future literary tourism development with collaboration needing to be consistent with the desired target markets of each stakeholder, consistent with existing brands and perhaps most importantly, sustainable in the longer term. & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Literary tourism occurs when authors or their literature become so popular that people are drawn to either those locations associated with the author (e.g. birthplace, home, graveside) or those featured within their writings (Busby & Klug, 2001). Watson (2006, p. 3) notes that you ‘may set eyes upon the very table on which Austen's Emma was written at Chawton’, or ‘may see the stone by the waterfall upon which Charlotte Brontë is said to have composed Jane Eyre, and on the same walk explore the path up the moorland valley to the place said to be the setting for her sister's Wuthering Heights’. Visiting such places allows literary enthusiasts to interact with the authors they admire insofar as they can see or touch objects or memorabilia associated with the authors (or their literature), an experience which is enhanced by the settings (Busby & Klug, 2001). Literary pilgrims seek ‘a physical body to enable their senses to connect with objects read’ (Robertson & Radford, 2009, p. 206). Nowadays, it is possible to visit a large range of literary tourism sites, ranging from places where ‘your favourite author was born, grew up, courted, lived or died’ over those where ‘your favourite books were written’, to those places ‘where they are set’ (Watson, 2006, p. 3). At least in the UK, literary tourism has grown into a commer- cially significant phenomenon (Watson, 2006) and as a result of this, places connected to literature are frequently used to promote destinations, such as “Catherine Cookson County” in Northumber- land (Herbert, 2001), “Shakespeare's Stratford”, “the Brontes' York- shire”, “Hardy's Wessex” (Squire, 1994), “Wordsworth's Lake District”, “Scott-land” or “Dickens's London” (Watson, 2006). As Watson (2006, p. 5) notes: literary tourism has become so ‘naturalised as a cultural phenomenon in the British Isles that one sees literary sites detailed in guidebooks and marked on the road map, and expects (and feels expected) to visit the museum shop and to buy the soap, the postcard and the bookmark’. An indicator of the popularity of literary tourism in Britain and Ireland are the guidebooks on the topic, such as: “Blue Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland” (Ousby, 1999), “Literary Britain and Ireland: a guide to the places that inspired poets, playwrights and novelists” (Struthers & Coe, 2005) and “The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland” (Hahn & Robins, 2008), which has been published in its third edition since 1977 and is probably the most popular and extensive guide of its kind. There also now appears to be a thriving industry for products related to literary places other than guidebooks, such as postcards, bookmarks, calendars, and other souvenirs, which can often be purchased in a literary Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jdmm Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2212-571X/$ - see front matter & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2013.12.009 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 1202 961889. E-mail address: lbrown@bournemouth.ac.uk (L. Brown). Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 3 (2014) 37–47