Mobile Cultures? Hybridity,Tourism and Cultural Change

This paper addresses the problem of cultural change in relation to tourism. It will be argued that tourism research has tended to be theorised in terms of static models predicated on the assumptions of unilinear development, and cultural change being accounted for by a shift from one defined state into another. Beginning with a critique of the 'container model' of culture, this paper then draws on recent anthropological and sociological developments concerned with globalisation to critically examine the utility of the concept of hybridity. In conclusion, this paper will argue that what is required is a transformative and processual approach that is capable of accounting for the dynamic interplay of cultural change at both a micro and macro level.     

Location Shooting and the Filmic Destination: Transylvanian Myths and the Post-Colonial Tourism Enterprise

In this study, we examine a contested tourism proposal in Romania, Dracula Park, and its attempts to balance the indigenously produced history of the region with the powerful myths imposed by European and American filmic and literary influences: Bram Stoker's Dracula and the ‘heritage films’ it spawned. While the project was recently announced to be abandoned, the Romanian discourse on Dracula Park offers an avenue for a post-colonial critique which we explore in the context of globalisation, place, identity and various texts of the culture industry. A film-location-tourism spectrum helps illustrate some of the issues raised in this paper. Dracula films and Dracula Park (DP) occupy a problematic spot on this continuum, as myth and history are mediated around a real Transylvania by local-global cultural intermediaries. This helps us situate the political economy of tourism in settings like post-socialist Romania. We argue that the literary-film-DP example shows tourism as a postcolonial enterprise of a globalised culture industry. This industry, of which tourism is a part, not only shapes touristic spaces in ex-colonies within the developing (lesser developed) world, but also constructs identities and heritage in peripheral spaces within the cultural coloniser's Europe.     

Negative Image? Developing the Visual in Tourism Research

Today, knowledge about the world is increasingly articulated visually and the ocularcentric nature of tourism is widely recognised by tourism 'professionals' and academics, as well as by tourists and 'locals'. This article examines the role of visual evidence in tourism research and takes as its starting point the convolution of 'looking', 'seeing' and 'knowing' in western culture. It then considers the 'status' of image-based research in the social sciences with particular reference to tourism studies. It is suggested that the recent interest in the so-called 'pictorial turn' heralds new opportunities for tourism researchers to embrace emerging visual methodologies and in this regard the utilisation of video in tourism research is briefly explored.     

Utopian Tourists — Cruising is Not Just About Sailing

Arguably, all tourists are looking to fulfil dreams that involve some sense of a 'utopian' ideal, whether in the 'arms' of an ancient civilisation or relaxing on a beach, free of work-a-day worries. Similarly, the growth of ecotourism and adventure tourism represents touristic attempts to fulfil utopian dreams denied the urban resident. For most tourists, these utopian dreams are played out in the year's annual holiday. Other tourists move beyond the confines of this time capsule because they have no intention of going 'home' - their 'escape attempts' become a whole way of life. This paper brings together the sociology of tourism and of alter native lifestyles to understand the nature of a utopian subculture, long-term ocean yacht cruising. While by most definitions these people are tourists, in relation to other sociological concepts they are a utopian 'community' which espouses not only an explicit social critique but also utopian lifestyle goals. While our notions of 'utopian' thinking tend to a collective, not all those who seek utopian alternatives to mainstream society do so within the 'collective' community. A social critique and a vision of a better lifestyle can be expressed in more individuated action. This paper shows how a traveller subculture expresses these issues.     

An emerging tourism planning paradigm? A comparative analysis between town and tourism planning

This article examines the roots and the evolution of tourism and town planning theory and practice. It discusses how both fields have interacted with each other, and provides some clues about the way in which tourism and town planning theory and practice are likely to evolve in the future. It is argued that tourism planning theory is still looking for its own identity and ways of evolving in the future. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Economic Impacts of Inbound Tourism under Different Assumptions Regarding the Macroeconomy

On what is taken to be the 'Standard View', increased tourism expenditure from inbound markets has direct, indirect and induced effects on a host destination, leading to increased production, income and employment. Strong links between tourism and other sectors of business reduce import leakages from tourism expenditure thereby enhancing the multiplier effects of the injected expenditure on domestic output, value added and employment. The usual technique for analysing these effects is input-output analysis. This paper argues that economy-wide effects must be taken into account in determining the impacts of increased tourism expenditure on a destination, and that the 'Standard View' is superficial and very often misleading. An expanding tourism industry tends to 'crowd out' other sectors of economic activity, reducing the demand for traditional exports and import competing industries. The extent of these 'crowding out' effects depends, in turn, on the workings of labour markets, changes in prices and the real exchange rate, and the macroeconomic policy context. It is argued that these mechanisms can only properly be taken into account using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models rather than input-output modelling. The paper then looks at applications of CGE modelling to tourism growth in both nations and regions, classifying the various studies according to assumptions made about labour markets and government policies. The discussion has relevance for estimating the economic contribution of tourism in all destinations. The paper concludes with some observations regarding the use of CGE modelling in tourism contexts internationally and issues for further research.     

A tourism research agenda for Portugal

The need to direct research towards the tourism industry is related to the increasingly competitive environment it finds itself in, especially in terms of services rendered, having grown more complex in the features and critique that comprise the tourist experience, and as economic and social agents become more selective regarding both demand and supply. Possessing information and the proper understanding of the real needs of information users and those responsible for public and private decision‐making processes at the action and intervention levels becomes a fundamental issue for sustainable tourism growth and its statement for international competitiveness. This paper proposes a tourism research agenda for Portugal in order to guide future developments towards the industry's needs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When the Past Poses Beside the Present: Aestheticising Politics and Nationalising Modernity in a Postcolonial Time

This article focuses on the Tunisian government's tourist promotion policies during the 1990s. It takes a Deleuzian perspective, using the notion of crystalline narration developed by the author of The Time-Image. I will emphasise the idea of coalescence between past and present as revealed in the advertising images of the period where heritage objects appear among other contemporary objects.

In fact, I will draw on a corpus of short films and commercials produced by the Tunisian tourism bureau to be broadcast both inside and outside the country. My analysis will focus on the ways in which actors in the fields of politics and tourism use these objects for media purposes, targeting both Tunisians and foreign tourists to whom they strive to hold up a crystal-image of Tunisia. This image is shored up by a political discourse put forward by a state that wishes to appear both to its citizens and to others as reconciling past and present. The crystal metaphor evokes a narrative mode in which heritage is likened to the glittering of scattered crystals and Tunisian identity seems to emerge from the ‘mists of time’ with sparkling refractions on ‘tips of the present’.     

Turning a Global Crisis into a Tourism Opportunity: the Perspective from Tuvalu

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008/2009 had a major impact on many small island states. In the case of Tuvalu, the GFC uncovered structural weaknesses in the national economy including the need to build alternative sources of income. Given the country's location and its rich marine resources, tourism is possibly the only new industry that has some capacity to generate new revenue streams. This article examines the problems that the country will face if it decides to pursue tourism and offers three options for tourism development including diving, ‘off the beaten track’ experiences and voyeuristic ‘last chance’ tourism. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tourism as public culture: Horne's ideological commentary on the legerdemain of tourism

In 1992 Donald Horne–respected Australian author of The Lucky Country, The Great Museum… and The Public Culture…–produced an entertaining but enlightening work (The Intelligent Tourist) on the role and function of tourism as the modern form of secular pilgrimage. In this text, Horne perceptively explored tourism as public culture –the fashions by which governments and interested parties capture national capitals, towns, villages, museums, art galleries, ancient temples, monuments, festivals and other interpreted performances in order to project the celebrated narratives and/or the ordinary vistas of a given people, its places, and its pasts. In 1994, King reviewed Horne's examination of the makebelieve of public culture in tourism, but appears to have overlooked much of the subtle insight with which Horne examined the objectifications and inspected the commodifications of contemporary tourism, and the exteriority of various tourism presentations. Horne's powerful scrutiny of intelligence-making in the articulations of tourism warrants fuller critique; this current paper therefore recrystallises Horne's work to highlight not only the skilled legerdemain of tourism practitioners in manufacturing preferred versions of public culture, but also the rich and acerbic insight that Horne himself brings to analyses of the ideological ‘power’ of invented presentation in tourism. Thereby, the paper attempts to distill a number of large issues on evocative material symbolism that Horne insists are central to the normalisations at work today in the projected public culture of post-modern ‘nationalist’ tourism, where that representation of tourism serves as a coding machine in the interests of certain or various priviliged groups.Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Planning for urban tourism: a critique of borough development plans and tourism policy in London

The paper presents a critique of tourism policy in London in the context of local environmental plans and central government policy for tourism and hotel development. Rationales for local authority tourism policies are assessed in relation to city‐level planning imperatives and local land‐use plan formulation. A comparative analysis of borough development plans and the treatment of tourism is based on a survey of London's 33 unitary authorities. The paper presents a World City case study of urban tourism from the position of the environmental planning process and in the light of the highly concentrated distribution of hotel provision and tourist activity in London. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Disney and Commodity Aesthetics: A Critique of Fjellman's Analysis of 'Distory' and the 'Historicide' of the Past

This paper offers a critique of the theoretical insight on representation and signification in the making of culture which is contained within Stephen Fjellman's work on commodification Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America - a book which strangely is not yet frequently cited in the literature of cultural tourism or heritage tourism research. The first part of this study of the appropriation of history/heritage/culture is an analysis of how Fjellman in general seeks to expose atWalt Disney World (Florida), not only the technical and kinematic brilliance of the Disney companies, but also the entrepreneurial violence they engage in as they colonise much of human life and human and natural history in America through the clever positioning and reinforcement of their preferred commodity forms. In the second part of the critique, particular attention is turned to what Fjellman sees as the clever and creative techno-corporate ways in which the Disney companies capture narratives in history/heritage/culture and decontextualise or reduce them via preferred forms of 'distory' which cleverly match their own national and transnational corporativist interests. An attempt is thereby made to draw out, label, and interpret (for tourism researchers), ten major theses on signification in culture by which Fjellman delineates the power of distory (i.e. of the Disney style of repackaged history) to subjugate or to otherwise repackage received history in such corporativist representations of heritage tourism.     

World Trade Law,Culture, Heritage and Tourism. Towards a Holistic Conceptual Approach?

This article argues that law is an important factor in the consideration of the evolution of tourism discourse. Thus it is important for academics to consider the law-tourism connection. But law is a dynamic phenomenon that is experiencing change. Within law, the domain of world trade is increasingly significant. In addition, the conceptualisation of culture and heritage is ongoing and as the law has implications for the development of those concepts, then correspondingly the law-culture and heritage connection should be considered. World trade law in turn has culture and heritage implications. Tourism will be affected by both the evolution of world trade and evolving conceptions of culture and heritage, not least legal ones. Accordingly, as a result of the increasing interpenetration and interconnections of issues, it is submitted that consideration of the four conceptual domains of world trade, law, tourism and culture and heritage, suggests the desirability of a holistic approach to (or awareness of) the consideration of certain issues that may fall into the intellectual space advanced by the potential intersection of these issues. This is especially justifiable in view of the multiplicity of academic viewpoints that studies of tourism embrace. It may be necessary in order to provide options for the solution of legal issues that involve these factors. Thus it is argued that it is important to consider the domain delineated above in a holistic way, recognising that the forces of development act reflexively on each other as a start in order to overcome inevitable epistemological difficulties.     

Latin American Ecotourism: What is it?

Defining – and agreeing upon a definition of – the word 'ecotourism' poses a challenge. This is especially true in Latin America where the buzzword remains a vague term used t o market anything related to nature or environmental tourism. 'Proyectos ecoturisticos' sell everything from community development projects to jet skis. There are pros and cons in using any specific viewpoint – if we insist on high environmental standards and minimal impacts, the costs skyrocket. This places the services and destinations into a 'luxury class' tourism – sometimes without the amenities to which those who pay high-end prices are accustomed. These five-star operations often run into conflict with more humble, grassroots operations. At risk are rural and/or indigenous guides who do not have the financial resources to take part in established guide training programmes – not offered in the field, but usually in the capital city. Good intentions lie behind guide training and accreditation, but if governments or agencies do not empower rural guides and tourism operations, the absence of 'local participation' betrays one of the main components of ecotourism.     

Tourist modernisation and social legitimation in Spain

Spain's modernisation has been based, to a large extent, on the so‐called ‘residential tourism’. Its two‐fold nature—as a production model and a type of lifestyle migration—has complex repercussions. The aim of this paper is to delve, with a qualitative approach, into the key factors that explain the current social legitimation of this process by the Spanish society. The research suggests that the process is legitimated by its definition as an essentially tourism phenomenon. The label ‘tourism’ acts as some sort of ‘funnel’ that would not allow to go through it the problems associated with lifestyle migration or urbanisation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Paradoxical effects of tourism ethnocentrism on domestic tourism: The moderating effect of pandemic anxiety travel

This research findings to study the impact of socio-psychological, economic, and political antecedents on tourism and to study the relationship among tourism ethnocentrism (TE), civilized tourism behavioral intention, willingness to visit, and electronic-word of mouth. Also, it examines the moderating role of pandemic anxiety variables. The results show that American socio-psychological and political antecedents are factors that directly affect TE and have a significant effect on travelers who are insecure about traveling due to the pandemic. Travelers affected by socio-psychological and political antecedents were found to have higher TE and higher travel anxiety due to the pandemic. Therefore, this study suggests the need to strengthen people's patriotism and pride in their country to activate domestic tourism, which should be used as a tourism marketing material to promote domestic travel post-pandemic.     

The tourist experience and bonding

This paper sheds light on the gendered meanings of bonding within the tourist experience. Its basis is a survey of young male and female single students, which demonstrates how they value being with, doing and sharing a holiday with their friends. The findings suggest complex gender power relations within tourism. For instance, women significantly more than men need to be together with, talking to and sharing experiences with their friends, and they require more than men this company to feel safe during the day and night. Such gender distinctions are linked to how men and women enact friendships and gender differently and to the geography of women's travel fears, which proposes that women more than men develop mental maps which restrict public movements. This research also suggests that the need for the company of friends is not just about spatiality; singles of both sexes prefer to be with friends when eating out in the enclavic and in heterogeneous tourism spaces. This finding thus proposes that midlife single women's ambivalence towards eating out alone on city breaks and resort holidays is perhaps not so much about womanhood as their age.     

Growth,development and tourism in a small economy: evidence from Aruba

This study will focus on tourism economic growth and its development impacts on a microstate and will explore their implications for tourism analysis and planning. The evidence presented in this article reveals that tourism in Aruba can generate desirable and widely distributed impacts. The tourist performance also has been remarkable and consistent. The results also suggest that the export‐led growth strategy has affected the whole of the economy in a positive way. The principal conclusion is that institutional intervention can only become a positive force within a context of rapid integration with the global market. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enriching the Tourist and Host Intercultural Experience by Reconceptualising Communication

The aim of this paper is to reconceptualise intercultural communication as it is conventionally understood in the field of tourism studies. Tourism literature identifies many problems related to intercultural communication between tourists and hosts from different cultural backgrounds. Some of these 'problems' occur only because tourism researchers assume that the appropriate goal for communication is 'communing', that is, finding common ground or understanding. This philosophical paper suggests that if one reconceptualises communication without the communing, using the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Jean-Luc Nancy, the 'problems' in intercultural communication disappear and communication becomes a source of enrichment for both tourists and hosts. This paper suggests that the basis of intercultural communication in tourism should be the acknowledgement of cultural differences between international tourists and local hosts, and the goal should be the 'spacing' of culturally different individuals rather than the 'communing' of 'idle talkers'. Treating intercultural communication in this way creates an opportunity for both sides to appreciate and value cultural difference. Experiencing cultural difference is one of the most fundamental motivators for travel and for opening host communities to international tourists. Reconceptualising intercultural communication by adopting Heidegger's and Nancy's philosophies promises not only to enrich the tourism experience but also to transform researchers' approaches to tourism education and training, and to tourism marketing and management.     

Methodological approach for assessing the potential of a rural tourism destination: An application in the province of Cáceres (Spain)

Evaluating the resources in a tourism destination is one of the previous tasks in the development of its comprehensive planning. There are many criteria to use in order to evaluate tourism resources; but, independently on the number of attributes considered the fact is that not every criterion is equally important in the process of evaluation and ranking of the tourism potential of a destination's resources. In contrast to other well-known methodologies, the aim of this paper is to propose a methodology to weight qualitative and hierarchical evaluation attributes by estimating a discrimination parameter. In this research, an item response theory (IRT) model is used, the graded response model, to estimate each attribute's discrimination coefficient. This parameter will be the basis to propose a weighting system for the entire set of attributes. Graded response model (GRM) will also allow establishing a hierarchy of resources by constructing a continuous latent scale, where it will be possible to position every analysed resource in the tourism destination. The applicability and robustness of the IRT methodology will be tested using data from rural tourism resources in the Spanish province of Cáceres.