Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of Frenchness, typical Italian behaviour, exemplary Italian scenes'. Visitors not only seek out
these signs, but they also capture them in photographs. Stallabrass (cited in M. Crang, 1997:
361) noted how 'we might consider the 60 billion photographs each year as points of light on
the globe, densely clustered around iconic sights, and trailing off into a darkened periphery'.
Ringer (1998: 8) reminds us of the active role of urban tourists, as landscapes are 'articulated
and made visible through the expression and acquisition of experiences'.
As Shields (1996: 231) argues, 'a shroud of representations stands between us . . . and the
city'. Researchers such as Watson (1991), Goss (1993) and Bramwell (1998) demonstrated
how urban tourism destinations are promoted through signs that symbolise high-quality,
gentrifi ed lifestyles, heritage, arts, unique cultures, ethnic and regional identities, and festi-
vals. Pritchard and Morgan (2001: 168) demonstrate how through signs tourism promotion
'directs expectations, infl uences expectations, and thereby provides the preconceived land-
scape for the tourist to discover'. As feminist geographers such as Rose (1993) have argued,
this gaze is invariably from a privileged masculine perspective, not unlike Benjamin's
fl a n e u r
(Benjamin, 1979). Morgan and Pritchard (1998) also demonstrate how it is possible to iden-
tify discourses (promotional and/or mass media) that represent urban tourism destinations in
stereotypical ways. Such representations are highly culturally specifi c, relying upon both a
consistent set of representations and a 'textual community' that interprets the representations
in a consistent manner.
In terms of the urban tourism landscape, signs and symbols are produced and manipulated to
feed the semiotic appetite of place consumers. It is increasingly common for the agents of urban
tourism to create the 'hyperreal' landscapes described by Eco (1986). The totemic monoliths of
Las Vegas, for example, may seem more real for place consumers that the originals. Reconstructions
of Egyptian temples, the 'Wild West' and Victorian England create a hyperreal spectacle. Ritzer
and Liska (1997) famously coined the phrase 'McDisneyisation' to describe the search for the
perfect simulation. In many cities, hyperreality is complemented by 'heterotopias', where actual
times and spaces are 'simultaneously represented, inverted, contested' (Foucault, 1986: 23),
appearing to both abolish and preserve time. This practice of juxtaposing in a real place several
sites that are in themselves incompatible (Foucault, 1986: 24) has been frequently analysed in the
context of shopping malls (Fairburn, 1991; Hopkins, 1990; Shields, 1989), and it is also apparent
in the urban tourism bubble ( Judd and Fainstein, 1999). Pile (2005: 20) demonstrates how the
authorities and industry of urban tourism often produce phantasmagorical representations and
landscapes, evoking dreams, magic (including voodoo), ghosts, and even vampires. Whilst ghost
stories have been a staple of promoting historic houses and castles for years, Pile (2005) demon-
strates a more insidious side to phantasmagoria. His analysis of New Orleans reveals how the
superfi cial and light-hearted 'voodoo tours' conceal the brutality of slavery.
The non-representational
Increasingly, however, the limitations of relying too heavily upon the visual and representa-
tional have been recognised. As Veijola and Jokinen (1994) point out, it is easy to forget that
tourists are fragile, aged, gendered and racialised bodies. Even researchers of the visual are
increasingly seeking a more complex understanding of the visual (Degen
et al.
, 2008; see also
Edensor and Falconer,
Chapter 9
of this volume). The urban tourism destination is experi-
enced by visitors who draw upon their imaginations and memories to reconfi gure the land-
scape (Crouch, 2000: 96). More fundamentally, 'non-representational geography' emphasises
the embodied and performative nature of urban tourism, including the complex styles,
rhythms, steps and gestures of different groups (see Larsen,
Chapter 8
of this volume).
