Mediating the Tourist Experience

From Brochures to Virtual Encounters

Jo-Anne Lester, Caroline Scarles, Jo-Anne Lester, Caroline Scarles

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781409451068
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317098492
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Traditionally, tourism media has referred to the image of destinations constructed through media texts such as brochures and postcards, with increasing attention towards other mediascapes such as films and television. Yet, with prolific advancements in technologies of media communication, such traditional formats have experienced a shift in the productive and consumptive practices through which they come into being. The possibilities of production and subsequent consumption are unequivocally changing the ways in which tourists imagine, understand and engage with destinations. This book therefore explores the role of tourism media and mediating practices in the development of non-linear processes of communication and understanding as both producers and consumers come together to negotiate the tourist experience. In varying ways it examines the emergent relationships and connections between media practices and tourism practices, everyday experiences and encounters of place. Collectively, the authors in this book address a range of media and technologies from brochures, television, video and film to mediated virtual spaces, such as e-brochures, Internet cultures, social networks, and Google Earth. In doing so, the book highlights the continued significance of media in tourism contexts; recognising both traditional and newer technologies, and the non-linear, continuous cycle of mediated representations and experiences.

Chapter 1 Mediating the Tourist Experience: From Brochures to Virtual Encounters

Caroline Scarles and Jo-Anne Lester

DOI: 10.4324/9781315594613-1

Introduction

Traditionally, tourism media has predominantly referred to the image of destinations constructed through media texts, in particular tourist brochures (see Dilley 1986, Urbain 1989, Dann 1996) and postcards (see Mellinger 1994, Edwards 1996, Markwick 2001, Waitt and Head 2002, Moors 2003), with increasing attention towards other mediascapes (Jansson 2002) such as films and television (see, for example, Beeton 2005, Hudson and Ritchie 2006a and 2006b). Yet, with the prolific advancements and ever-increasing technologies of media communication, such traditional formats and manifestations of mediated representations of destinations have experienced a shift in purpose both in terms of production as well as the consumptive practices of tourists. The possibilities of production and subsequent consumption are unequivocally changing the ways in which tourists imagine, understand and engage with destinations. Indeed, the on-going technological advancements in the creation and transmission of static and moving images to mass audiences manifests itself in concepts such as ‘virtual reality’, ‘cybertourism’ and ‘2nd life’ (see Prideaux 2002, Guttentag 2010, Wearing et al. 2010) as tourists and tourism exist in an ever-fluid and hypermobile world (see Sheller and Urry 2004, Urry 2007). Such advancements in both printed and virtual spaces of mediation, contribute to the continued development and power of such media in post-modern societies. Tourism media and the outputs they mobilise, become powerful products infused with political, cultural and social discourse and motivation. Thus, mediation within the context of this edited collection, emerges as a series of nonlinear, dynamic and immanent practices and processes as both producers and consumers come together to negotiate the purposive and performative enactments and experiences of the tourist experience. Indeed, it is not the intention to assume a causal, nor direct, relationship between media and tourists as the complexities of such relationships deny the possibility of such simplistic understanding. Rather, this collection aims to deconstruct such assumptions and highlight the plurality of interplays, practices, processes and performances that exist in mediating tourist behaviours, engagements and connections with place. The notion of directly mediated encounters becomes replaced by a series of messy, unpredictable and diverse practices as both those involved in producing and consuming destinations come together in a series of complex, multifaceted ways (see Coleman and Crang 2002, Crouch et al 2005).

Moving away from the understanding of mediation (traditionally within the context of destination marketing) as a series of highly skewed place perceptions created and mobilised by industry (see, for example, Urry 1990, Selwyn 1996), we propose that mediation and subsequent associated media do not simply manifest via a one-way process of producers offering insight into places and other that are subsequently consumed without question by tourists. Rather, each manifestation of mediated practices and processes holds the possibility of becoming a vehicle for mobilising discourse and discursive interpretation of the interrelationships and affiliations between place, space, self and other by both producers and consumers of mediated texts. As Scarles (2004) suggests, in portraying dominant discursive understandings, producers create scenes through which consumers enter imaginative touristscapes and personally connect with place by creating performances through mindsets where consumer and product unite.

Therefore, while mediation and resultant media remain infused with negotiations of authenticity (see, for example, Jansson 2002, Buchmann et al 2010, Rickly-Boyd 2011), myth-making (Barthes 1973, Morgan and Pritchard 1998, Selwyn 1996), and constructed realities, as Crang (1999), Edensor (2001), Osborne (2000) and Scarles (2009) suggest, tourists are now understood to play an active role in the mediation of their own tourist experience as well as the experiences of other tourists. They are not simply passive observers. Rather, experiences are mediated to make the viewer dream into the picture (Urry and Larsen 2011). Tourists become co-producers of their experiences, as they too mediate that with which they engage imaginatively or experientially (Löfgren 1999, Robinson and Picard 2009, Tussyadiah and Fesenmair 2009, Reijnders 2011, Gao et al. 2011). Thus, mediation and the construction of media products becomes a dynamic co-construction of transitional spaces of visualities: the practices and processes that enable the material objectivity of destinations and experiences to transcend their physical boundaries (Franklin and Crang 2001, Scarles 2009). Indeed, a multiplicity of visual and non-visual practices permeate visual devices as mediated representations of other embrace not only that which is seen, but which is performed via political, embodied, ethical, reflexive and imaginative encounter (see also, for example, Veijola and Jokinen 1994, Pons 2003, Pritchard et al. 2007, Scarles 2009).

As co-producers or indeed, co-mediators, of tourist experiences, tourists negotiate not only the other, but also the self, as mediation influences social identities and how these are subsequently expressed and shared by tourists. Further deconstruction of traditional linear communication structures emerges as mediation arises through tourist-to-tourist knowledge exchange of interpretations, expectations and experiences of place and other. Emergent technologies of social media mobilise spaces (Moreno 2007, Wearing et al. 2010) within which tourists are professionalised as authoritative voices in the mediation process as tourists draw upon multiple medias to generate hybrids of knowledge that rely on subtle blends of real and virtual spaces. Yet, such power of voice subtly shifts simultaneously to the tourist-as-receiver as mediated realities themselves become vulnerable to the multiplicity of receiver interpretation. The power of tourists as both producers and consumers of tourism media is undoubtedly further stimulated by advancements in technology as the productive capacities afforded through the virtual spaces of social media and image-sharing erode reliance on commercial images and bestow an authority on the tourist voice as providing an insight to place that is not veiled by politics of selling (Scarles 2004). However, while the politics of selling as a commercial practice may not underpin tourists’ mediation of experience as shared with other, subsequent exhibitions remain inherently selective in nature (Hirsch 1981, 1997, Rose 2003) as tourists mediate their experiences according to preferred social, cultural and political ideological manifestations of self.

As Scarles (2009) suggests, in negotiating anticipations and/or experiences according to embodied reflectivity and reflexive remembrances as they negotiate self and the other as presented in order to make sense of and create a connectedness with that presented. Mediation becomes infused with embodied, haptic performances as both producers and consumers rely upon kinaesthetic connections with, and interpretations of, that presented (see Aitken and Zonn 1994, Rodaway 1994, Bruno 1997, Horton 2003). Practices and processes of mediation and the consumption of mediated interpretations become infused with emotion and feeling as tourists connect, react and respond to that with which they encounter as they dwell temporarily in the mediated space of other (Bruno 2002, Moreno 2007). Indeed, as spaces of real and virtual, commercial and personal fuse together, the responses elicited by media are no longer confined to imaginings associated, for example, with relaxing on the tropical island pictured in tourist brochures or on tour operator websites. Rather, alternative mediations of place and other force disjuncture between imagined and real, or realise confrontation with less aesthetically desirable elements of place from unappealing tourist behaviour through to poverty, unsanitary living conditions, political unrest and suchlike.

The Chapters

This book draws together a collection of 16 chapters that explore a range of theoretical and empirical frameworks that mobilise new understandings of media, mediation and mediatisation in particular touristic contexts (Jansson 2002, 2007, Lagerkvist 2008, Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier 2009, Månsson 2011). In varying ways, they examine their influence on the emergent relationships and connections between media practices and tourism practices, everyday experiences and encounters of place. Collectively, the chapters address a range of media and technologies from brochures, television, video, film and maps to mediated virtual spaces, such as e-brochures, Internet cultures, social networks, and photo-sharing websites. Overall, the contributions to this publication highlight the continued significance of media in tourism contexts, recognising both traditional and newer technologies, and the non-linear, continuous cycle of mediated representations and experiences. The collection therefore brings together a group of scholars from a range of disciplinary approaches to tourism and media in order to prompt reflection upon emergent forms and practices of mediation as they influence and direct the tourist experience.

The chapters initially focus on the production and consumption of popular place discourses as a key element of image construction of place; drawing upon some well-established concepts of stereotypes and identity, authenticity, myth-making and the mediation of ‘realities’ of destinations. In Chapter 2, Noëlle O’Connor and Sangkyun Kim critique the role of media-related tourism in shaping current and future tourism patterns and trends. Using the context of Ireland, they further develop conceptualisations of authenticity by reflecting upon issues of displacement and motivation and propose a renewed attention to authenticity in accordance with personal and symbolic meanings attached to media-related tourism experiences.

In Chapter 3, Karen Wilkes explores issues of identity and cultural values that pervade image construction. In particular, Wilkes challenges the representations of the exotic other in the context of luxury tourism products offered by Sandals Resorts. Politicising the processes of representation, she offers a post-colonial critique of the rhetoric and narratives that dominate image construction processes, thus deconstructing the politics of representation and the elevation of western discourses within image construction. This chapter offers an insightful account of the importance of socio-historical stereotyping in relation to gender and post-colonial relations, and the subsequent interpretations of place that continue to underpin contemporary touristic understanding of, and engagement with, place as mediated by producers (e.g. resort owners and tour operators). Therefore, by questioning the very need for touristic images as representations of place, Wilkes significantly critques the politics of image construction as embedded within contemporary interpretations of socio-historical identities and displayed through popularly consumed visual texts such as tourist brochures.

In Chapter 4, Leon Hoffman and Robin Kearns, further develop such critiques by offering an insight into the ‘necessary glamourisation’ of destinations in tourist brochures. This contrib...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Other Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Mediating the Tourist Experience: From Brochures to Virtual Encounters
• 2 Media-Related Tourism Phenomena: A Review of the Key Issues
• 3 From the Landscape to the White Female Body: Representations of Postcolonial Luxury in Contemporary Tourism Visual Texts
• 4 A Necessary Glamorisation? Resident Perspectives on Promotional Literature and Images on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand
• 5 The Effect of British Natural History Television Programmes: Animal Representations and Wildlife Tourism
• 6 Internet Cultures and Tourist Expectations in the Context of the Public Media Discourse
• 7 A Comparative Analysis of the Projected and Perceived Images of Gloucester
• 8 Individualising the Tourist Brochure: Reconfiguring Tourism Experiences and Transforming the Classic Image-maker
• 9 The Mediatisation of Culture: Japanese Contents Tourism and Pop Culture
• 10 Developing the E-Mediated Gaze
• 11 Souvenir or Reconstruir? Editing Experience and Mediating Memories of Learning to Dive
• 12 The Mediation and Fetishisation of the Travel Experience
• 13 Being a Tourist or a Performer? Tourists’ Negotiation with Mediated Destination Image in Popular Film
• 14 The Hollowed or Hallowed Ground of Orange County, California
• 15 Maps, Mapping and Materiality: Navigating London
• 16 Mediating Tourism: Future Directions?
• Index