An alternative structuralist approach to the psychology of tourism marketing

The paper begins with a brief discussion of the way in which traditional psychology would approach the subject of decoding the myths and meanings which package holiday companies seek to communicate through their holiday brochures. This approach is contrasted with an analysis using semiotic techniques. The approach is essentially a cognitive one in which it is suggested that holiday companies attempt to attract holidaymakers not through the overt and superficial attributes of holiday destinations as portrayed in the brochure photographs, but by providing the reader with a range of cultural tools with which fantasy, meaning, and identity can be created and constructed. The holidaymaker becomes an active participant in the creation and maintenance of ideology and myth.