Resumen de Vidago: from traditional agricultural village to service oriented spa resort (1908-1968)
The present article seeks to highlight parts of the history of Vidago (parish of Chaves in North Portugal) between 1908 and 1968. The research focuses on the socio-economic development that occurred in this spa resort and the changes that resulted from the investments of not only the main Vidaguense mineral water company and owner of the luxurious Vidago Palace that opened in 1910 (see Figure 1), but also of dozens of small local entrepreneurs.
Sergio Pereira choose to study this reality for his Master Thesis in Tourism, a course he took at the Universidade do Alto Douro e Trás-os-Montes (UTAD). Supervised by Veronika Joukes, he elected the case study methodology, because he was confronted with a limited and bounded reality, and mainly used a literature review and semi-structured interviews as research techniques.
