Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tourism texts can re-work discourses (e.g. on freedom) into specifi c local contexts refl ective
of particular tourist groups that marketers want to communicate with. When we begin to think
about tourism in this way, we acknowledge the 'situatedness' of tourism texts and the role
of marketing communications in mediating potential interpretations of tourism practice
through discourse.
'Cultural brokers' and the 'situated text'
Earlier in this chapter it was noted that conceptualizing marketing communications as a dis-
course had various implications, including, as discussed now, how we think about the role of
marketers. A fundamental facet of discourse is that it produces intended or ideal interpretations
for particular audiences (Fairclough 1995). More than just a text about tourism meanings,
tourism texts are thus both 'purposive' and 'situated' - they are cultural repositories of meaning
that are organized with a specifi c audience and ideal interpretation in mind. One tourist may
produce a text (e.g. postcard or narrative) for interpretation by another tourist (Johns and Clarke
2001). A local guide may reproduce a text (e.g. about authenticity or tradition) for a foreign
tourist to interpret (Salazar 2006). A tourist board or travel agent may produce a text for the
international tourist (Ateljevic and Doorne 2002). That we consider marketing communications
to be a kind of 'situated text' - produced to be read in a certain way by a particular audience -
radically transforms our understanding of tourism marketers and the mediating role of their
communications with tourists. More than just informing an audience about the attributes of a
given tour product, marketers become infl uential cultural mediators over tourism knowledge
and practice for that audience, rendering the 'choice arena' for a given tour product culturally
relevant, plausible and desirable (Caruana and Crane 2008).
Thinking in line with Cheong and Miller (2000), it is thus possible to consider the role of
tourism marketers as 'cultural brokers' (rather than product informers). This implies that marketers
have some kind of authority in defi ning how, where, why and by whom tourism is practiced by
tourists and others. Bhattacharyya (1997) evidenced how writers of the popular tourism
publication
Lonely Planet
played a key role in mediating the 'backpacker' tourist's interpretation
of India, providing guidance on what subjects and objects are of value to the tourist, how tourists
should interact with local communities and (of some controversy) how to behave as an
'independent' category of tourist: 'In this regard, the analysis concludes that this guidebook serves
a primary function as mediating tourists' experiences in India in ways that reinforce both certain
images of India and certain relationships with indigenous inhabitants' (Bhattacharyya 1997: 371).
This implies that such forms of marketing communications are not just about where to go,
what to see and do when on holiday, but, more fundamentally,
how
to go, how to see and do
tourism, and indeed how to interact with other constituents of the tour product (guides, reps,
local people, as well as other tourists). Travel writing, as a genre of tourism texts, becomes
a powerful representational space for tourist knowledge of social practices and relationships
(Santos and Rozier 2009). As an author of this tourist knowledge, marketing practitioners can
(unwittingly) become powerful 'cultural brokers', authorizing legitimate social practices and
relationships that tourists and others can have.
Crucially, this 'cultural authority' over tourist practices and relationships has
impacts
that
extend beyond the creation of a particular travel ethos for the tourist to interpret. This brings us
to the second major component of this chapter: considering the
relations of power
produced in
tourism discourse. For as Bhattacharyya (1997: 388) goes on to show, in defi ning an 'indepen-
dent' travel ethos for backpacker tourists, guidebooks represent local people in coercive practices
and relations, often being 'portrayed as a passive, non-participating, non-autonomous object
