1st Edition

Mediating the Tourist Experience From Brochures to Virtual Encounters

Edited By Jo-Anne Lester, Caroline Scarles Copyright 2013
    294 Pages
    by Routledge

    294 Pages
    by Routledge

    Traditionally, tourism media has referred to the image of destinations constructed through media texts such as brochures and postcards, with increasing attention towards other mediascapes such as films and television. Yet, with prolific advancements in technologies of media communication, such traditional formats have experienced a shift in the productive and consumptive practices through which they come into being. The possibilities of production and subsequent consumption are unequivocally changing the ways in which tourists imagine, understand and engage with destinations. This book therefore explores the role of tourism media and mediating practices in the development of non-linear processes of communication and understanding as both producers and consumers come together to negotiate the tourist experience. In varying ways it examines the emergent relationships and connections between media practices and tourism practices, everyday experiences and encounters of place. Collectively, the authors in this book address a range of media and technologies from brochures, television, video and film to mediated virtual spaces, such as e-brochures, Internet cultures, social networks, and Google Earth. In doing so, the book highlights the continued significance of media in tourism contexts; recognising both traditional and newer technologies, and the non-linear, continuous cycle of mediated representations and experiences.

    Contents: Mediating the tourist experience: from brochures to virtual encounters, Caroline Scarles and Jo-Anne Lester; Media-related tourism phenomena: a review of key issues, Noëlle O’Connor and Sangkyun Kim; From the landscape to the White female body: representations of postcolonial luxury in contemporary tourism visual texts, Karen Wilkes; A necessary glamorisation? Resident perspectives on promotional literature and images on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand, Leon Hoffman and Robin Kearns; The effect of British natural history television programmes: animal representations and wildlife tourism, Susanna Curtin; Internet cultures and tourist expectations in the context of the public media discourse, Nicolai Scherle and Ralph Lessmeister; A comparative analysis of the projected and perceived images of Gloucester, Kathryn Bell; Individualising the tourist brochure: reconfiguring tourism experiences and transforming the classic image-maker, Constantia Anastasiadou and Nikos Migas; The mediatisation of culture: Japanese contents tourism and pop culture, Sue Beeton, Takayoshi Yamamura and Philip Seaton; Developing the e-mediated gaze, Peter Robinson; Souvenir or reconstruir? Editing experience and mediating memories of learning to dive, Stephanie Merchant; The mediation and fetishisation of the travel experience, Michael Salmond; Being a tourist or a performer? Tourists’ negotiation with mediated destination image in popular film, Maltika Siripis, Caroline Scarles and David Airey; The hollowed or hallowed ground of Orange County, California, Chris Lukinbeal and Ann Fletchall; Maps, mapping and materiality: navigating London, Catherine Palmer and Jo-Anne Lester; Mediating tourism: future directions?, Jo-Anne Lester and Caroline Scarles; Index.

    Biography

    Jo-Anne Lester, Caroline Scarles

    ’Researchers interested in mediating the tourist experience have been observing the migration from traditional brochures to virtual encounters. While mediation and resultant media remain important, tourists now play an active role in co-creation through the mediation of their own tourist experience as well as the experiences of other tourists. Technology is often critical in this process. This comprehensive book brings together unique contributions to explore this area and therefore it is highly recommended.’ Dimitrios Buhalis, Bournemouth University, UK ’In this important, insightful and innovative contribution to tourist theory, Lester and Scarles have compiled a lively collection of diverse chapters that account for the multiple ways in which the tourist experience is mediated by professionals, tourists and locals. Taking account of recent technological developments and moving beyond conventional theoretical approaches, the volume acknowledges how power persistently mediates tourist representations, while revealing that tourists are progressively involved in co-producing images of cultures and places, negotiating identities through fluid and increasingly mobile relationships.’ Tim Edensor, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK ’Tourism is a powerful mediator of people and places. This thought-provoking collection edited by Lester and Scarles with contributions by leading thinkers in the field explores a range of theoretical and empirical frameworks that mobilise new understandings of media and mediatisation in tourism contexts. It is a must have text.’ Nigel Morgan, University of Surrey, UK ' ... a comprehensive theoretically and empirically informed insight in the mediation of tourist experiences, it may also subsequently inspire further research in this significant topic in tourism studies.'Tourism Analysis '... a thought-provoking book responding to the challenges of the twenty-first century tourist practices, performances, and theories