This paper aims at showing how a literary work (in our case, William Shakespeare’s well-known tragedy “Hamlet”) can turn a historical site (in our case, the Kronborg Castle in Denmark) into a famous cultural tourism site. We have visited the Kronborg Castle, analysed its tourism potential, and discovered that, had Shakespeare not set the plot of his tragedy there, the Kronborg Castle would have remained anonymous, as many other Danish castles, since it does not have much to offer as a historical site, compared to other historical tourism sites. The conclusion of the paper is that tourism should not be practiced unilaterally: decision-making people in the field of tourism should take all this into account when deciding tourism offers.

cultural tourism; Kronborg Castle; Hamlet; Shakespeare

Presentation: oral