Catherine Cookson Country: Tourist Expectation and Experience

Abstract

The paper reports the experience of tourists on organised group travel to Catherine Cookson Country, a newly-created image-region on South Tyneside, based around Britain's most popular fiction writer whose novels are all set in the area. Visitor expectation is largely realised, for a majority of tourists are Cookson readers and group travel to Tyneside has further bonded them in a spirit of pilgrimage. A Cookson Trail with directed viewing and commentary by locally-trained guides, concluding at a Cookson museum, produces an overall experience of 'staged authenticity'.