Travel Journalism

Exploring Production, Impact and Culture

F. Hanusch, E. Fürsich, F. Hanusch, E. Fürsich

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137325983
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Contributors from diverse backgrounds explore a range of issues in relation to the media and journalism's role in ascribing meaning to tourism practices. This fascinating account offers a thoroughly international and interdisciplinary perspective on an increasingly important field of journalism scholarship.

1

On the Relevance of Travel Journalism: An Introduction

Folker Hanusch and Elfriede Fürsich

Not many people will be instantly familiar with British woman Dale Sheppard-Floyd, but – at least symbolically – she represents a significant milestone in the development of travel and tourism. In fact, the milestone was so significant that the United Nations World Tourism Organization booked Madrid’s venerable Museo del Prado to announce to the world’s media her visit to Spain on 13 December 2012. For Ms Sheppard-Floyd’s arrival for a three-day trip meant that more than one billion times in that year, someone had crossed a border as a tourist. An astounding number, considering that, in 1950, there had been only 25 million tourist arrivals worldwide, and even only two decades previously – in 1990 – the number had been less than half at 435 million arrivals (World Tourism Organization, 2012a, 2012b). While people have traveled for pleasure for millennia (Towner, 1995), tourism really came into its own with the expansion of the middle classes in the 19th and 20th century, and today it is considered the world’s largest business sector, with unprecedented numbers of people venturing outside of their immediate environments to explore the world around them. In 2012, travel and tourism’s total contribution to the world economy amounted to a staggering $6.6 trillion, or 9 per cent of GDP (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2013). More than 260 million jobs were generated by it worldwide, which equates to one in every 11 jobs across the globe. While there were some hiccups during the Global Financial Crisis, growth in 2012 was stronger than in other industries, such as manufacturing, financial services and retail (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2013).

The phenomenal rise of tourism, particularly during the past 50 years, has led to a concurrent interest from scholars, in particular in the growing number of tourism and travel studies programs at universities. Media and journalism play an immensely important role in communicating destinations to potential tourists. Aside from friends’ recommendations, much of the information that travelers receive is through general media coverage, as well as more specific travel information in print, broadcast, or, increasingly, online. Yet, the role that media and journalism play in ascribing meaning to tourism and producing tourist destinations has only recently garnered the attention from scholars around the world. One reason for this lies in media scholars’ traditional inclination to focus on hard news journalism, rather than its softer varieties. This is slightly curious, as many commentators have identified a shift in journalistic output towards these softer types, in particular the area of lifestyle journalism, which has experienced a drastic rise over the past few decades (Hanusch, 2012a). International news reporting, in particular, appears to have experienced a decline in its authority and the amount reported by mainstream media, which have corresponded with a rise of non-fiction entertainment such as travel content as a global media genre (Fürsich, 2003).

Invariably, travel journalism has received ‘flak’ from the broader journalism and communication research community for it is clearly a market-driven type of journalism. Thus, travel journalism is still widely regarded as a ‘frivolous topic’ for research, even more than ten years after Fürsich and Kavoori (2001) noted this positioning towards the field. The general view is often that anyone can go on holidays, and anyone can write about them. As the US travel journalist Thomas Swick (1997, p. 424) has pointed out, ‘of the special-section editors at a newspaper – travel, fashion, food, home and garden – only [travel] occupied a position that is viewed as requiring no particular expertise’. Swick also argues the field has been seen as one in which anyone can work: ‘Not only do most people travel, most people write postcards when they do: ergo, most anyone can be a travel editor’ (1997, p. 424). And this lack of esteem continues despite travel information in the media being cited as an increasingly important source of information for tourists, at least in the early stages when tourists form their motivation for visiting a destination (Nielsen, 2001, pp. 126–29).

The general reluctance among journalism and media researchers to expand into the softer types of journalism has slowly given way to a sense of acceptance, however. Over the past decade, research in travel journalism has reached a critical mass, with a number of scholars engaging with the production, content and reception of travel journalism and travel media. A similar trend has taken place in other fields. Anthropology, cultural geography, sociology and sociolinguistics, along with the emerging field of critical tourism studies, have interrogated the social, cultural and discursive dimensions of tourism practice (see for example, Burns and Novelli, 2009; Graburn and Barthel-Bouchier, 2001; Jaworski and Pritchard, 2005; Scott and Selwyn, 2010; Thurlow and Jaworski, 2010; Urry and Larsen, 2011). It is precisely the significance of leisure in contemporary society that makes the study of tourism and of travel journalism such a fertile field for research.

This growth in academic attention to the field was the catalyst for the production of this book. Having followed the development of the field over the past 10 to 15 years, we decided that it was time to take stock of what we know about travel journalism, critically examine our existing approaches and open up avenues for future research. For the first time, then, this collection will provide a comprehensive introduction to the field of travel journalism studies.

The amount and variety of travel and tourism as media content has grown along with the rise of digital technologies, the increasing commercialization of media output and the fragmentation of audiences. Besides specialized travel magazines, newspapers produce ever-larger travel sections, and entire cable and satellite television channels are devoted to travel and tourism. Moreover, the Internet now plays a central role in the media discourse on travel. This volume explores a wide variety of media and types of journalism from a range of cultural contexts, and pays special attention to the recent developments in professional practice.

Significance of travel journalism

A number of reasons support the argument for a closer scholarly engagement with travel journalism.

Boom of the tourism industry

As mentioned above, tourism has become a significant global economic force. Whereas most traveling still takes place within the borders of the home nation, for an increasing number of people international travel is no longer exceptional. The statistics on international arrivals and receipts mirror that development. In 1956, when the World Travel Organization started publishing statistics, worldwide international arrivals were estimated to be 50 million, with international tourism receipts of about $4 billion. Within 40 years, in 1996, arrivals had increased to 594 million with receipts of $423 billion (Waters, 1997). By 2012, these numbers have risen even more to 1.04 billion international travelers and $1.08 trillion in receipts (World Tourism Organization, 2013).

Whereas the United States, Spain and France are still the top earners in the international tourist business, China now ranks as number 4 of international receipts. Overall, the traditional tourism countries are losing market share to periphery countries and emerging economies. For example, the strongest growth rates were experienced in Southeast Asia (plus 10 per cent) and Eastern Europe (plus 7 per cent). The sector is projected to expand at 4 per cent annually in the long-term (World Tourism Organization, 2013).

Tourism as an instrument of economic policy

Countries rely to a different degree on tourism as a major employer and source of Gross National Product. Many developing countries and emerging economies hope to make tourism – as a presumably ‘clean industry’ – one of the main sectors of their economy. But Western countries such as Austria or Spain also depend on tourism as important revenue and employment sources for their country’s economy.

Overall, increasing automatization in Western countries and the service-oriented information economies have steadily decreased the average weekly and annual working hours during the past 50 years. This has led to the development of leisure societies where tourism is no longer an activity of elites (e.g., Urry, 1990). Moreover, tourism is no longer practiced only within the Global North or from ‘the West to the rest’. The end of the Cold War changed the restrictions on travel in many former communist countries and created a whole new patronage of travelers. The economic success of many emerging economies has expanded the upper middle class in these countries, resulting in more people who value the experiences of foreign travel and have the extra money to spend on travel. For example, China has been the largest travel market for outbound travel since 2012 (World Tourism Organization, 2014). Thus, the changing geopolitical and economic situation in many parts of the world has brought new constituencies to an already booming travel industry.

In addition, during the past decade tourism development has become a much-championed instrument used by economic policy makers across the world to push for a creative economy and an anticipated rise in jobs in the so-called ‘creative class’ (Florida, 2012). As critics (e.g., Flew, 2012, pp. 159–82; Ross, 2009, pp. 15–52) explain, cities and regions across the world, especially in the post-industrial Global North, compete against each other in an intensive struggle for investments, innovation and sustainable economic development. To attract much-sought after talent, political leaders use tourism strategies (including the gentrification of de-industrialized spaces or events marketing) to create a positive image of their cities as destinations to visit and to live in.

Travel journalism as an important site for international communication research

Paralleling the growth of tourism as a global industry has been the exponential growth of travel journalism. In addition to the traditional travel section in most major national and regional dailies, a large number of general travel magazines are published, along with a prodigious number of specialized travel publications dealing with interests as diverse as rock climbing or cruise vacations. The broadcast media offer specialized travel programs and celebrity travel shows, and a number of countries have entire cable channels devoted to the subject. The Internet is another highly successful outlet for travel-related information. Travel sites of online services and travel-related webpages are among the most accessed websites on the Internet. An online survey by the travel website TripAdvisor (2013) shows just how important travel review websites have become. Around two-thirds (69 per cent) of travelers used these sites in their planning, while only 30 per cent used magazines and brochures. Further, 93 per cent of respondents said their booking decisions had been impacted by online reviews, and 51 per cent said they had written a review of an accommodation themselves after a trip.

The expansion of international tourism has affected the media industry in two ways. First, affluent groups from an increasing number of countries are traveling for pleasure or business. This development generates audience interest for travel-related journalism and information as a media topic. Potential travelers will be interested in this kind of journalism for advice and entertainment. Moreover, the growing global ‘middle-class’ will understand travel, especially international travel, as a desirable private status goal while using mass-mediated travel as ersatz experience as long as they cannot afford actual trips. Second, the tourist industry has generated a larger market for travel advertising and public relations, looking especially for media outlets that promise a targeted and receptive audience. These interrelated trends are exemplified in this book by Jiannu Bao (Chapter 8) who studied the exponential growth of the Chinese travel media market. These developments continue to stimulate a growing market for specialized travel journalism on a global scale.

The increased prominence of travel journalism has relevance for media scholars. This is especially evident when we consider how travel journalism functions much like international news to provide both information and cultural frames for ‘others’. International communication research has traditionally focused either on the spread of news and entertainment or on advertising in a global market (e.g., Reeves, 1993). When looking at the way national media represent foreigners and foreign cultures, studies tend to analyze international news content in newspapers or on television. However, audience interest in ‘hard’ international news is waning while media representations of ‘others’ remain decisive factors in this era of globalization. Therefore, a research agenda of international communication studies can gain from evaluating other media genres. Examining travel journalism is an important strategy for analyzing the dynamics of globalization. Thus, instead of criticizing travel journalism as trivial cultural celebration we can ask what discourse is created within media representations of travel. This approach allows us to interrogate the cultural and ideological assumptions upon which such constructs are based.

Defining travel journalism

In order to frame the discussions in this book, as well as in the wider field, it is, of course, important to define what exactly we mean by the term ‘travel journalism’. Often, the terms ‘travel writing’ or ‘travel literature’ on the one hand, and ‘travel journalism’ on the other, are used interchangeably, leading to problems of differentiating between the two. It is important to draw a distinction, however, mainly because the term ‘journalism’ for most people invokes certain norms and ideals. And indeed there are often different standards, in that travel writing more generally allows the inclusion of fictional elements and other literary license that would not be accepted in traditional news media. This has implications for research approaches, too. The literary studies approach often employed for the analysis of semi-fictional accounts of travel, for example by Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson, cannot convincingly explain the unique economic and public situation of journalistic work. Instead, it is travel journalism’s position bound to professional ideas of journalism in its representation of distant places and people that makes it such a distinctive site for research. An additional complication is that quite regularly travel writers alternate between producing travel books and writing for other print or online media, blurring the boundaries for audiences.

Perhaps it is important first to clarify what we mean by the term journalism. Zelizer (2004, p. 3) highlights five definitional sets through which journalism can viewed: ‘as professionalism, as an institution, as a text, as people, and as a set of practices’. Schudson (2003, p. 11) adopts a functional definition and writes that ‘journalism is the business or practice of producing and disseminating information about contemporary affairs of general public interest and importance’. While he warns about normative definitions of journalism, and acknowledges that there are other types of jo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 On the Relevance of Travel Journalism: An Introduction
• Part I Mapping the Terrain: Strategies for Studying Travel Journalism
• Part II Exploring the Producers: Professional Expectations, Routines and Markets
• Part III Destination Unknown: Content and Representations
• Part IV (Dark) Histories, Sustainability, Cosmopolitanism: The Old and New Politics of Travel Journalism
• Name Index
• Subject Index