To Theme or Not to Theme: The Lisboa Pessoa, A Literary Hotel?

Abstract

Although theming has become an important differentiation strategy in the hotel industry and, accompanying the growth of cultural and literary tourism in recent decades, literature has been adopted as a central theme by numerous hotels worldwide, little to no research has been conducted on literary hotels. The inauguration of the Lisboa Pessoa, in Lisbon, in September 2016, dedicated to one of Portugal's most celebrated poets, offered an ideal opportunity to study the impact of literary theming in a new unit. A qualitative study, considering external online communications and guests' commentaries in social networking sites, was carried out to determine the thematic strategies implemented and the impact of these strategies on the perceived image of the hotel, in order to assess the influence of the theme on the experience of guests and the extent to which the Pessoa can be considered, from the guests' perspective, a literary hotel. Results showed that the impact of the literary theme on guests' perception was low, especially considering the clear theming efforts evinced in external communications, indicating that meanings must be more adequately conveyed if motifs are to truly inspire differentiated experiences.