Underwater Archaeotourism ; A Liquid Frontier

UIDB/04666/2020 UIDP/04666/2020 ; The sea is the last frontier on our planet. This blue universe of silence, beauty and fragil-ity hides a semi-unknown world in a pure liquid state. With their multiple resources, the oceans are a field of excellence for tourism, particularly with regard to the potential of underwater ar-chaeotourism (archaeological tourism). With tourism being the largest industry in the world, ocean-based archaeotourism has been gaining adherents and has become not only a differentiat-ing product but also a fundamental one for advancing both knowledge and science. Portugal, with its long Atlantic coast and maritime history, presents itself as an excellent space in which to develop this phenomenon. From the Modern Age and the Portuguese Expan-sion to the contemporary postcolonial era, there is a whole genealogy of submerged archaeolog-ical sites and artefacts that can be integrated into cultural tourism and, as part of this, underwater archaeotourism. Thus, this reflection will seek to summarise the main products of Portu-guese underwater archaeotourism around the world as well as foreign products in Portuguese territorial waters with a view to furthering knowledge that may contribute to promoting and conserving a unique heritage. Concentrated within humankind’s last frontier on Earth, a liquid frontier in different shades of blue and smelling of sea breezes, lies a legacy that can open up new perspectives for research, creativity and sustainability in relation to an inheritance that con-tinues to be an essential dimension of the Portuguese identity: the sea! ; publishersversion ; published