Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
this context, public relations activity is integral to tourism at many levels. In addressing tourism
fl ows, its concerns are central to public diplomacy, to international relations and state diplomacy,
public and cultural diplomacy, corporate diplomacy and to inter-cultural communication as part
of the political, economic and socio-cultural fabric, not solely management technocracy. More
important in terms of tourism fl ows and as a consequence of a socio-cultural 'turn' (Edwards and
Hodges 2011), it is becoming more common for public relations to be understood as a dynamic
societal process or even, drawing on Appadurai's notion of cultural fl ows, as 'fl ow' (Edwards
2012). If that is the case, then it is possible to argue that PR and tourism not only are interlinked
but are in many ways intrinsic to each other.
Therefore, if we assume that public relations and tourism are indeed intrinsic, then we need
to understand the nature of this relationship by exploring what public relations theory has to say
about tourism. In this sense, public relations literature can be roughly divided into two main
approaches along a continuum: work that focuses on improving the effectiveness of practice and
work that pursues interpretive and exploratory themes. A functional approach to tourism public
relations will likely focus on the way in which public relations supports a variety of tourism
clients. Functional defi nitions may describe public relations as an adjunct of organizational
management, a defender and protector of organizational reputation, a risk manager, a nurturer of
relationships, and a producer of communication outputs. Functional approaches tend to assume
a benign and rather ideologically neutral approach to public relations, but the main thing that
they have in common is their organizational rather than a societal focus. Non-functional
approaches, on the other hand, might explore, for example, the way in which power, enacted
through communication and discourse, shapes tourism interactions at local, regional, national
and global levels; the way the tourism industry promotes a consumerist discourse that disguises
underlying political issues; hegemonic relations within the supply chain; exploitative practices
promoted by sex tourism; industry evasion of negative tourism side-effects and efforts to
ameliorate reputation through corporate social responsibility. Thus non-functional approaches
will tend to take a societal or cultural approach to public relations.
Johansson and Heide (2008) identifi ed three key approaches within the public relations litera-
ture: communication as a tool; communication as a socially constructed process; communication
as social transformation. 'Tool' literature focuses on persuasive/education approaches to increase
effectiveness by aligning organizational members' views and behaviours with management goals.
Some literature has suggested that communication during change needs to focus on the manage-
ment of expectations in the context of uncertainty, to create readiness for change and to reduce
resistance and dependence on rumour and grapevine. Literature pursuing this approach is
functional and technical but does not engage with 'the fundamental relationship between com-
munication and organization that organizations are produced, maintained and reproduced
through communication' (Johnasson and Heide 2008: 293). The exploration of the communica-
tions function as a socially constructed process focuses on understanding and sense-making
processes so that planned change communication programmes can be seen necessarily to alter
the communication and organizational context and the relationships within it. Although change
processes are often presented as linear they are in fact non-linear, unpredictable and haphazard
because all the time multiple interpretations are being formed and preformed within multiple
relational contexts and communication dimensions constantly reinterpreted, reconfi gured and
re-mediated in digital space. Managers can initiate change processes and associated communica-
tions, but they do not necessarily control interpretations or responses to the discourse of change
they set in motion. There will always be multiple narratives, there will be discourses that are more
dominant and 'communication managers' (one of many terms used to describe public relations)
will seek to create a dominant discourse that may be transformative, that is, managers' discourses
