Pseudo Authenticity And Tourism

This book explores the concept of authenticity in tourism through the analysis of six tourist sites in Guangdong Province and Macau, China. Through a review of tourism literature, it develops the concept of pseudo-authenticity in which tourist sites and cultural products function to give signs of authenticity for tourists. This is achieved through the influence of media, authentic fakery, and façadism. Readers will gain greater insight into tourist sites in China that operate through cultural preservation, the miniaturization of cultural assets, and the replication of foreign signs through reproductions of foreign cities. The authors outline the tourist sites, an aesthetic analysis, on-site interviews with tourists, and an examination of online reviews of the sites. This is a useful work for scholars and students of tourism studies in China and around the world, especially those concerned with issues of authenticity and the effects of commodification on cultural assets.

This book explores the concept of authenticity in tourism through the analysis of six tourist sites in Guangdong Province and Macau, China. Through a review of tourism literature, it develops the concept of pseudo-authenticity in which tourist sites and cultural products function to give signs of authenticity for tourists. This is achieved through the influence of media, authentic fakery, and façadism. Readers will gain greater insight into tourist sites in China that operate through cultural preservation, the miniaturization of cultural assets, and the replication of foreign signs through reproductions of foreign cities. The authors outline the tourist sites, an aesthetic analysis, on-site interviews with tourists, and an examination of online reviews of the sites. A useful work for scholars and students of tourism studies in China and around the world, especially those concerned with issues of authenticity and the effects of commodification on cultural assets.

This book brings together contributions from authors who are actively engaged in authenticity research in a tourism context. In so doing, it demonstrates the various trajectories research has taken towards understanding the significance of authenticity.

This book brings together contributions from authors who are actively engaged in authenticity research in a tourism context. In so doing, it demonstrates the various trajectories research has taken towards understanding the significance of authenticity.

This interdisciplinary book addresses the highly relevant debates about authenticity in North America, providing a contemporary re-examination of American culture, tourism and commodification of place. Blending social sciences and humanities research skills, it formulates an examination of the geography of authenticity in North America, and brings together studies of both rurality and urbanity across the country, exposing the many commonalities of these different landscapes. Relph stated that nostalgic places are inauthentic, yet within this work several chapters explore how festivals and visitor attractions, which cultivate place heritage appeal, are authenticated by tourists and communities, creating a shared sense of belonging. In a world of hyperreal simulacra, post-truth and fake news, this book bucks the trend by demonstrating that authenticity can be found everywhere: in a mouthful of food, in a few bars of a Beach Boys song, in a statue of a troll, in a diffuse magical atmosphere, in the weirdness of the ungentrified streets. Written by a range of leading experts, this book offers a contemporary view of American authenticity, tourism, identity and culture. It will be of great interest to upper-level students, researchers and academics in Tourism, Geography, History, Cultural Studies, American Studies and Film Studies.

The ubiquity of computation in daily life has had decisive influence on the imaginative aspects of tourism. Online knowledge of the world is readily available through mapping services, social media, travel blogs, and online reviews. From booking and Googling, to posting and reminiscing: all stages of one’s trip can be guided and augmented by increasingly connective, personalized, and optimized algorithmic systems. In the face of this informational abundance, hypermediated tourism is fixated on access to authenticity. Peer to peer accommodation offers tourists a chance to "live like a local." Professional bloggers instruct not just on where, but on how to travel. Review websites aggregate the feedback of millions into "objective," data-driven authentication of destinations. And virtual technologies take users to places they could not dream of reaching physically. Based on a comparative ethnography of touristic blogs and vlogs, review websites, and video game environments, Scripted Journeys presents a critical analysis of touristic practice in digital ecologies. This hypermediated tourism engages technology as a harbinger of self-possession and waywardness, yet produces its own forms of digital dependence. The resulting "scripted journeys" internalize a tension between authenticity as autonomy and control, and the implicit compliance of making use of technological extensions.

In recent years there has been a considerable interest in the cultural aspects of tourism such as the impacts of culture on tourism planning, development, management, and marketing. However, the focus has been on material forms of culture such as arts, music, or crafts. The impacts of national culture on tourist behavior and travel decision-making have not been paid much attention. Only in the last two years have cross-cultural issues begun to generate significant interest among academics. An examination of cultural characteristics and differences is extremely important to the tourism industry because today’s tourism environment is becoming increasingly international. Information on the nature of the cultural differences between international tourists and locals is not readily available in tourism literature. The concept of culture is very complex and includes such abstract concepts as satisfaction, attitude and loyalty. International Tourism brings these concepts to the undergraduate student in tourism, as well as students in the related fields of marketing, management, international business, and cross-cultural communication. Designed as a textbook, it isorganized and presented in an integrated and relevant way for the benefit of a worldwide audience.

From the highly influential concept of ‘staged authenticity’ discussed by Dean MacCannell, to the general claim of longing for authenticity on behalf of all Western consumers, made by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, it is obvious that the concept of authenticity is still worth considering. This ground-breaking book re-thinks and re-invests in the notion of authenticity as a surplus of experiential meaning and feeling that derives from what we do at / in places. In Re-investing Authenticity - Tourism, Place and Emotions international scholars representing a wide range of disciplines, examine contemporary performances of authenticity in travel and tourism practices: From cultural place branding to individual pilgrim performances; from intensified experiences of imaginary crime scenes to the rhetorical features of the encounter with the traumatic and; from photography performing memories of place to experiences of wilderness producing excitement, this book demonstrates how the feeling of authenticity within places is produced.