Managing Routes and Trails - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 230

Since many routes become famous by media coverage and word of
mouth, promotional efforts tend to be relatively scarce. In some cases, man-
agement might need to establish demarketing policies that encourage certain
consumers and behaviors while discouraging others. Beeton (2006) proposes
that 'desirable' markets can be encouraged through the information provided
in promotional materials, while less-desirable markets may be discouraged
from visiting in the same manner. As well, re-imaging efforts can help attract
a certain visitor type and repel others.
Although there are intentional efforts in many places to encourage path
use, as noted above, most exposure comes from word of mouth. There are
several ways in which this occurs that go beyond the traditional advertising-
centered approaches used by most destinations and tourism agencies. These
include media exposure, social media and advanced technology, and place
branding (Hankinson, 2010; Thevenot, 2007).
Media images and portrayals of trail life and recreation have made an
indelible impact on public perceptions of long-distance routes. Hollywood
motion pictures about the Oregon Trail, the Trail of Tears, Route 66, the
Appalachian Trail and many others have provided considerable visibility for
many long-distance trails in the US and have intensified their recognition
(Eyerman & Löfgren, 1995; Kelly, 1988). Beeton (2006: 48) notes how the
1980s Man from Snowy River movies have increased the popularity of horse-
back riding on some of Australia's most important equestrian trails.
Another fact of modern life is technology and its far-reaching effects on
global tourism (Lee et al. , 2012; Thevenot, 2007). Social media, including
Facebook, blogs, photo sharing sites, YouTube, Google Earth, and other 'neo-
geographic' spaces (Johnson et al. , 2012; Turner, 2006) are teeming with vol-
unteered geographic information (Elwood et al. ; Goodchild, 2007; Ricker
et al. , 2013) regarding trail use and people's route-based travel experiences.
This form of unintentional promotion is critical exposure for most modern
routes and trails.
Likewise, advanced technology has enabled more trail-based recreation and
tourism, particularly as regards the growing popularity of geocaching (Ihamäki,
2012, 2013), wherein GPS allow people to navigate the earth in search of places
and 'caches' at even the smallest scale. This has become a highly competitive
endeavor, and enthusiasts often spend their entire holidays and many week-
ends seeking the next location to mark on their map. This adheres to a larger
phenomenon that Timothy (1998a) refers to as 'collecting places' - a trend also
evident in 'peak bagging' where people 'collect' the most challenging trails or
hike the highest mountains in a region, or 'highpointing', which entails hikers
climbing the highest points in every region (Kuby et al. , 2001: 456).
Branding
While destinations can make deliberate efforts to brand themselves in
the tourism world (Ashworth & Kavaratzis, 2012; Govers & Go, 2009;