Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
composition, the position of the host is also reinforced by the angle, position or size of
represented participants.
The elevation of the guest's status is an important convention as it reinforces the extraordinary
nature of the tourism experience, and is part of offering an escape even if temporary from the
role they may have in the home society, it provides tourists with the opportunity for a temporary
period to be a King or Queen, or to take on the role of Master. This process is plainly demonstrated
in SAGA Travellers World Brochure
where the guest is transported to a rarifi ed world of formal
service, luxury and chauffeurs, the tourist's status is reinforced by their relationship to the
indigenous people, who again are only seen in the service or entertainment context. The
representations of people or cultural manifestations that have the utmost attractive assets and
economic value are accentuated in the foreground while those that are not linger in the
background. In this sense, marketing maintains and replicates cultural and social myths of people,
places, and cultures by commodifying, packaging and selling them to potential tourists. It is
interesting to note that SAGA, and in particular SAGA Cruises, are targeting a particular segment
that has become known as the SKIER (Spend Kids' Inheritance in Early Retirement).
This offers a very different experience from the idea of the semiotics of authenticity, by
offering a more individualistic form of experience where meaning can be found through
adoption of status and membership to a particular social or cultural group or tribe. The SAGA
example is archetypal of a number of host/guest semiotic conventions and power relationships
that are contained within tourism marketing texts. It is important to remember that Kress and
Van Leeuwen see general 'signs and images' and other representational customs such as
communicative staging, as (re)producing 'hierarchies of social power' (1996: 83), these concerns
are not merely associated with the marketing of tourism, but involve the use of signs and images.
Thus, many of the semiotic structures and material practices identifi ed in tourism marketing
'represent the world in hierarchical order' (1996: 85) and essentially in which the connection
between the host (be it the culture, population or service personnel) and the guest or tourist is
identifi ed. In a way the host is often represented as a servant or a cultural attraction and the
visitor is consuming this through the marketing process and their experience.
Conclusion
Semiotics provides an alternative approach to understanding the relationship between the
tourism product and the end consumer. Understanding how images are formulated and read or
interpreted by tourists provides an insight into how marketing campaigns can be built, formulated
and staged. The semiotics of tourism marketing should not sit in isolation, but should be used to
enhance marketing practices and to understand how particular market segment groups fi nd and
generate meaning through the interpretation process. It can also be argued that the tourism
experience does not start and fi nish when we get on or off a plane, but the benefi ts we feel in
terms of escape and longing start the minute we begin to plan and research our holiday choices.
This chapter explores the semiotic language and experience of tourism and outlines a general
theory of the semiotics of tourism, we live in an increasingly visually orientated world and as
such, semiotics is increasingly being recognized as performing an important role in con-
temporary marketing practice. Semiotics, as an approach, supports the marketing and promotion
of tourism as it raises practical and ethical issues as to how tourism, and the subjects of tourism,
are presented and consumed within both contemporary marketing texts and represented
servicescapes.
Often we do not question the meaning or purpose of the signs and images we are presented
with on a daily basis, neither do we take the time to understand the signs that are put in front of
