The image and identity of the Catalan coast as a tourist destination in twentieth-century tourist guidebooks Estela Marine-Roig ∗ Research Group on Territorial Analysis and Tourism Studies, Geography, University Rovira i Virgili, C/ Joanot Martorell, 15, Vila-seca, 43480, Spain (Received 16 June 2010; final version received 23 February 2011) Tourism as a social phenomenon is explained and transmitted through multiple narratives conveying an array of images and representations. Tourist images and representations contain various values and elements of identity which define the destination. The aim of this paper is to track the evolutionary development over the past century of tourism narratives, images and identities of a coastal mass tourism destination: the Catalan coast. This evolution is evaluated by means of tourist guidebooks published throughout the twentieth century. As our research shows, changing tourism narratives in guidebooks reflect the evolution of the Catalan coast as a tourist destination from the early times of tourism to the tourist boom and consolidation and up to today’s hyper-mobile world. Such narratives also reflect contradictions between a unique local identity and a global identity as well as cultural and political debates such as the Spanish versus Catalan identity issue. Keywords: Image; identity; representations; destination evolution; guidebooks; Catalan coast Introduction Tourism as a social phenomenon is explained and transmitted through multiple narratives conveying an array of images and representations. Images and representations contain various values and elements of identity. Tourism narratives change over time and evolve as the destination, understood as a social construct and also as a physical space of use, changes. Here, we argue that changes in tourist narratives and image may be linked to changes in tourism models and in the destination itself, hence the importance of analysing the tourist image in evolutionary studies. The aim of this paper is to track the evolutionary path of the tourist narratives, images and identities associated with a coastal mass tourism destination (the Catalan coast) over the past century. The Catalan case is particularly interesting because changing tourism narra- tives reflect the evolution of Catalonia as a tourist destination from the early times of tourism to the tourist boom and consolidation and up to today’s hyper-mobile world. They reflect conflicts between the representation of local cultural identity and global iden- tity, as well as cultural and political debates such as the battle between the ‘Spanish identity’ ISSN 1476-6825 print/ISSN 1747-7654 online # 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14766825.2011.566929 http://www.informaworld.com ∗ Email: estela.marine@urv.cat Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change Vol. 9, No. 2, June 2011, 118–139