The Discourse Of Tourism And National Heritage

The Discourse of Tourism and National Heritage: A Contrastive Study from a Cultural Perspective presents an in-depth research study in the field of online tourism promotion. It focuses on the national online promotion of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, on two different types of websites – institutional and commercial – from three countries, Romania, Spain and Great Britain. The book analyses the way in which each country combines various modes to create a virtual brochure with a promotional message from both institutional and commercial positions. In doing this, it studies the organization of the websites and their webpages, as well as the lexico-grammatical and visual features of their promotional messages. The theoretical framework used is Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1985, 1994; Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 2006; Halliday and Matthiessen 2004). The results are compared in relation to the types of websites and to the countries in which they were produced. These are further interpreted from a cultural perspective, showing that the findings can be accounted for by cultural variability, in particular the dimension of context (Hall 1976, 1990, 2000).

The remarkable success of the 1972 UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage is borne out by the fact that nearly 1,000 properties have now been designated as possessing Outstanding Universal Value and recognition given to the imperative for their protection. However, the remarkable success of the Convention is not without its challenges and a key issue for many Sites relates to the touristic legacies of inscription. For many sites inscription on the World Heritage List acts as a promotional device and the management challenge is one of protection, conservation and dealing with increased numbers of tourists. For other sites, designation has not brought anticipated expansion in tourist numbers and associated investments. What is clear is that tourism is now a central concern to the wide array of stakeholders involved with World Heritage Sites.

This book presents a new way of understanding heritage tourism that focuses on what people feel and not just what they see. Traditionally, semiotics points to the study of signs and symbols, and how we use them to make sense of the world. Here semiotics is extended into our other senses as part of what it means to experience heritage as tourists.

Tourism Governance takes a systematic approach to reveal the varying internal and external dynamics that influence tourism policy and strategy across countries. With particular attention to the role of stakeholders and governmental scales, the book offers a broad geographic representation, highlighting the diversity of governance relationships towards tourism in Colombia, Egypt, Finland, France, India, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, and United States. Two additional chapters push beyond borders to examine tourism driven nongovernmental organizations and international tourism governance. As the first and only comprehensive comparative analysis of tourism across governmental systems, Tourism Governance promises to be a platform for inspiring critical discourse on the forces that shape this global industry.

Heritage tourism has become an increasingly significant component of the global tourism industry, particularly in countries striving to diversify away from sea, sand and sun. This growth has had profound influences on the presentation and representation of both tangible and intangible heritage within tourism context. The concept of heritage continues to evolve with its fast-changing political, economic and socio-cultural surroundings. Therefore it is essential that heritage tourism engages with the new form of globalised communities and societies, which have become more assimilated to each other but yet strive to sustain their own distinctive locality. This book aims to offer a thorough critical examination and systematic evaluation of the unique dynamics of heritage and tourism development from both social sciences and management perspectives. It incorporates both global and local perspectives in theorising and managing heritage tourism. While focusing on reviewing and analysing key academic concepts and debates including authenticity, commodification, globalisation and heritage interpretation, this book also discusses and evaluates topical issues such as sustainable development, marketing strategies and digital technologies including social media. It theoretically locates heritage discourses in the analysis of heritage tourism development and management drawing on various perspectives, from tourism, heritage studies, sociology, anthropology, politics and geography to management and marketing studies. Including case studies of topical concerns, controversies and challenges it will encourage readers to develop a new and insightful understanding of the dialectical relationship between heritage and tourism development. This book is essential reading for students studying tourism, heritage studies, cultural studies as well as related disciplines.

For the first time ever, this book brings together an explicit linkage between empirical and theoretical perspectives on tourism and discourse. A broad social semiotic approach is adopted to analyse a range of spoken, written and visual texts providing a unique resource for researching and teaching tourism in the context of communication studies. Some of the key concepts explored in its chapters include space, representation, the tourist experience, identity, performance and authenticity, and the contributors are key sociologists of tourism as well as discourse analysts and sociolinguists.

The application of linguistic optimization methods in the tourism, travel, and hospitality industry has improved customer service and business strategies within the field. It provides an opportunity for tourists to explore another culture, building tolerance and overall exposure to different ways of life. Innovative Perspectives on Tourism Discourse is a pivotal reference source for the latest research findings on the role of language and linguistics in the travel industry. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant areas such as intercultural communication, adventure travel, and tourism marketing, this publication is an ideal resource for linguists, managers, researchers, economists, and professionals interested in emerging developments in tourism and travel.

The complex relationship between heritage places and people, in the broadest sense, can be considered dialogic, a communicative act that has implications for both sides of the ‘conversation’. This is the starting point for Heritage and Tourism . However, the ‘dialogue’ between visitors and heritage sites is complex. ‘Visitors’ have, for many decades, become synonymous with ‘tourists’ and the tourism industry and so the dialogic relationship between heritage place and tourists has produced a powerful critique of this often contested relationship. Further, at the heart of the dialogic relationship between heritage places and people is the individual experience of heritage where generalities give way to particularities of geography, place and culture, where anxieties about the past and the future mark heritage places as sites of contestation, sites of silences, sites rendered political and ideological, sites powerfully intertwined with representation, sites of the imaginary and the imagined. Under the aegis of the term ‘dialogues’ the heritage/tourism interaction is reconsidered in ways that encourage reflection about the various communicative acts between heritage places and their visitors and the ways these are currently theorized, so as to either step beyond – where possible – the ontological distinctions between heritage places and tourists or to re-imagine the dialogue or both. Heritage and Tourism is thus an important contribution to understanding the complex relationship between heritage and tourism.