literary tourism

Marcel Proust is a famous French writer and his series of novels À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) is considered a masterpiece of French literature. Consequently, tourism associated with Proust might be considered to be literary tourism limited to specialists. However, the two main sites associated with Proust in France, Illiers-Combray and Cabourg, demonstrate characteristics of contents tourism, not only in that Proust’s books have been adapted into other formats but also in that fictional narratives are associated with the tourist sites. This article describes preliminary investigations conducted at these two sites as part of a broader research project about contents tourism in France. Initial results show that the image of Proust is associated with various initiatives to promote these sites, from an accurate introduction to his fictional universe to branding that uses Proust as a popular character and plays with the image of the famous madeleine.