Tourism, understood as the discovery of new cultural and geographic spaces, becomes a multidisciplinary realm in which cultural and natural patrimony, travelling, gastronomy, hospitality, sports, and leisure all are interconnected. This diversity is also reflected in an unquestionable textual richness. Thus, a particular speech aimed at raising the addressee’s curiosity and desire to discover new places and cultures becomes fundamental. Nevertheless, the tradition of Tourism Studies and the many representations of tourism in art or literature, as well as scientific studies in the fields of Arts & Humanities are relatively recent. As prominent examples of this fact, during the 21st century several relevant books have appeared on this topic, such as Fuentes Luque (2005) (which is the first comprehensive study on translating tourism speech) or Calvi (2008) and Bugnot (2009), which focus on the nature of tourism speech.

In this context, the II International Conference TRADITUR “Translation and the Language of Tourism” has been set up as a space for scientific debate where new advances and studies which deal with the relations between language, literature, intercultural communication, traductology and touristic speech, are presented. The celebration of this event in the city of Córdoba (and more specifically at the University of Córdoba) makes particular sense if we take into account that this city is one of the main touristic destinations worldwide and has four World Heritage designations.