What everyone repeats, no one has verified: the idea that tourist guides are only a minor component of travel inspiration is a lazy simplification.
The dogma of fiction as the sole source of inspiration ignores the practical reality where a guide can be the first spark.
How many of my students have been fascinated by a hiking guide on the Swiss Alps, discovering routes that no film could have shown them?
The order of things is not fixed: sometimes, inspiration arises from reading a guide, revealing a place long before a work of fiction confirms it.