Mnemotopes and Memory Tourism

Memory tourism, a specialized niche within the broader tourism spectrum, is defined by travelers who explore destinations closely associated with specific memories, historical or cultural significance, or individual remembrance. Travelers embark on journeys to these places to deepen their comprehension of cultural origins, heritage, and past. This paper analyzes the phenomenon of memory tourism through the lens of mnemotopes, complex realities in which the relationship between memory and territory is concentrated. The mnemotopes not only arouse intellectual curiosity but can also trigger movements on the territory. They can attract our steps and thoughts: when we recognize a place as a mnemotope, we can feel the desire to reach it, to see the memory it preserves. A mnemotopic network can generate alternative itineraries, compared to the traditional routes condensed in guidebooks, that offer a different experience of the places and a new interpretation of the past. Rather than succumbing to the temptation to squeeze memory sites into sterile conceptual frameworks, mnemotopes seek to portray themselves as entities that inhabit reality, that can be reached and traversed, and that propose an original vision of memory tourism.