Media, Popular Culture And Tourism - Report Example

Media, popular culture and tourism "The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton. We have to ask ourselves what is going on here?" — AL GORE, in an interview with the British paper The Sun, before adding that he believes in 10 years it will be too late to save the planet (June 18, 2007) http://www.time.com Abstract Tourism is getting generated from every form of cultural activity and media like books cds movies, novels, TV shows etc. The role of this essay is highlighting the positive and the negative influence the media and culture has on tourism. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk Growth of Tourism The word “tourism” itself means traveling from one place to another and coming back to the first one. Tourism is one of the most perspective and dynamic businesses in the world. (V. Smith's Tourism: the Sacred Journey, 1977a) Tourism has been growing around the world from 1980’s .The big question is can tourism be media induced? Is tourism being generated by multiple of factors like cultural embracing with media and so on? (Britton 1979;Butler 1990;Gartner 1996;Gyte 1987;Mercille 2005;) The trend of the media is to project certain destinations under the hot words that sell without looking at the advantage of the destination. Some of the hot words that are projected are eco tourism, adventure tourism, cultural tourism, sports tourism, culinary tourism and the latest film tourism. World Tourism Organization has found that hot words tourism are catering to niche market and is having constant growth but has not been supported by mass markets, which is essential for big growth. (WTO Journal.) Tourism cannot be considered as a pure economical form. The development of tourism does have an effect on environment in some cases negative. The culture level can also alter with a center being projected as tourist center by media. http://www.tede.vgtu.lt In short tourism and media has got lot of overlapping connections that should not be ignored. Media to a large extent has fueled the concept of global mobility. Film may influence a decision of a person planning to go to exotic locale but that can be termed as minority. The positive side of the media projection The positive side of the media projection can be seen in movies. Mills has said that tourism products are seldom produced by tourism industry like beaches, local festivals cuisine and so on. Crouch D et al eds [2005] The power of the media is to convey a sense of feeling of seduction of a particular locale highlighting the strengths of the locale in appositive manner so as the consumer will feel filled after visiting the place and crave for more visits. There are certain locations in the world that has grown beyond media attachment to become an ideal place for family hangout like the Vancouver Worlds Far Edensor T.[2001] Media channels have used the traditional channels for presenting views on Tourism. Pre-trip information has helped in creating images of destination that has attracted tourists or consumers. Based on the consumer behavior, media has been trying to project a clearer image of the locale so that the untapped tourists are tapped in. The media is identified as the stimulus in creating positive image. .(Baloglu & McCleary1999; Crompton 1979; Gartner 1993; Gunn 1972; 1999). The expansion of online bloggers and the community of travelers in web media have opened the path to identify the positive side of visiting a location. The oral, visual and the media character of web based media attaches fast to the consumer and that has been showing to help tourism growth faster than the role of travel agents. But the negative side of this is that the distant and exotic locations are the most preferred by the consumer. The power of this type of media is the way the message is mediated rather than the message itself. Radio texts use language that can create a visual sense on the mind of listener .The role of popular books being made into movies has also attracted tourists to certain locations. Silverstone regards that the books of Penguin Publications like The Making of Emma and The Pride and Prejudice has been remade into movie and both the movies has attracted tourists in fact to the same location but seeking varied and different experience as shown in the movie and book. Fenton, Young, et al. (1998:l) did some study on the Great reef of Australia to understand the positive power of media. The people visiting the site for the first time did not have any clue to what a reef looked like in real but they were drawn into visiting the place based on the post card image of the reef shown by media. Media to a large extent as shown in this case influenced the experiential expectations of the tourists. McGregor (2000:46) also supports this claim. He adds that visitors visiting a place, which they have seen, on post card or any projections by media were found to reach the level of satisfaction which they have intended for when seeing the place for the first time. But the level of expectation was not found to be surpassing it. The tourists did not view certain sites, which were not mentioned, with the same level of expectation or enthusiasm. Merciless (2005:1041) compared the images presented by the brochures, films, books and range of materials on Tibet that were read by prospective tourists with their own imagination and perceptions of the country. Mercille (2005: 1050) also noted that there were instances of people not supporting the image in real to the projected image on media. That had to do with the cultural and social background change of the individual. Harrison (1997:398) says that the ultimate decision maker for a place is the tourist himself or herself and media has a role of projecting a good image of the place. Movies that have exotic locales and good scenery will always have a feed back to the place being shown and there will be buzz around that place. James Bond’s flicks always attract for exotic locales and the latest cars and gadgets. Spielberg in his ‘Indiana Jones’ had done marvelous trick. ‘Mummy Returns’ had the mummy tourism to Egypt. The Alps were the most covered place in the movies leading to more and more tourism. Media have covered the adventure of Indian cricket team to New Zealand and the players had loved to indulge in bungee jump a form of adventure tourism in New Zealand that sure is to attract a lot of expatriate Indians out there. The same principle applies when every sport of high quality takes place. Remember the Beijing Olympics where China scored more brownie points on the etiquette shown to visitors and the offer of sight seeing around the place. The concept of Commonwealth games and Winter Olympics need to be highlighted. The biggest draw in sports tourism is the FIFA World Cup for football. Here in all these cases people visiting the country of host are mainly doing it to see the sports which they are passionate about and it is in free times that they indulge in sight seeing and luxury viewing. That is where the role of local media will come in. The projections of media in showing the shopping malls that cater to premium and non premium segments will be watched for and small sight seeing will be visited more. To get a repeat view or new view once the game is over requires a new set of marketing style from the media. Most probably people referring the blogs of the persons who have visited the places when on games are getting the repeat. The norm is the blitz in the tourism while the game is on and media as always have gone overboard in projecting the images of the place where the game is hosted. Morgan & Pritchard (1998:242) has said about the power of media and tourism representations. In their own words “Tourism imagery is therefore one of those sites of struggle where particular ideologies triumph at the expense of others – these successful ideologies structure the ways in which tourists see the world and its inhabitants…For too long, tourism imagery has been divorced from discussions of power which have been articulated elsewhere. The cultural power of tourism and the discourse tourism imagery, demand more attention, revealing as it does, micro and macro relations of power.” Role of Media in projecting tourism negatively. In his study on the divergent representations of India presented by the media in the United States and that of the Indian government, Bandyopadhyay(2005:1017) found that although there were areas of similarities, There were differences of projections of India from the real self. Spivak has also projected the role of media in highlighting the negative effects of visiting third world countries.Loomba has said that it is the ideology that is in trouble in projecting the view about third world countries. Natural disasters or global disasters like Tsunami will always have an effect on the prospect of tourism in the affected areas. Sri Lanka a land known for beaches will not be considered safe now as the war against LTTE is on. Pakistan will not be considered safe now with the internal bickering. The principle applies to all nations. Terrorist attacks will always give a dent to the sentiment of being a safe haven for tourists. The recent attacks on Israel in Mumbai, India would have send an impression that tourists or business men from nations in supportive to America will not be safe. The two most prominent attacks by the terrorists was the USA attack of 2001 and the 2002 bombing in Bali where tourists were targeted. Airline tourism was the worst affected segment with people refusing to travel through air. Diseases are the other causes of people refusing to travel. The beginning of 2003 was the worst year for tourism as tourism fell down thanks to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). China, Hong Kong, Canada, and Uk were the worst affected hits. World Health Organization had issued health warnings against visiting the affected nations and it took some time to really get the pace back. The main culprit for the outbreak of SARS was the civet cat (China Daily, 2004: SARSReference, 2004); there is still discussion of the ease or difficulty of catching SARS, and the resulting mortality rate. Now a day, tourism is worst affected thanks to the global financial crunch. The era of spending has made way for the era of saving. But that has opened new avenues for tourism .The people are more willing to spend more time in local exotic places which were ignored before and the concept of local tourism has picked up. Community tourism in the format of traveling by sharing within the families has picked up. The link between media culture and its real world effect has been a hot topic for many years in the field of tourism. There are allegations of media spoiling the party or glorifying small event that can infact be pushed under the carpet. For example, Pakistan had a blot in their face when the recent tour of Sri Lanka to Pakistan to play cricket was cancelled due to the terror attacks on Sri Lankan team, that had problems on the safety of playing cricket in sub continent. Adding fuel to the fire, Bangladesh had to postpone or cancel the tour of Pakistan citing internal security reasons. That had effect on the prestigious Indian premier League. Doubts were raised all over the media about the security that were offered for the twenty 20 game in India and eventually it was decided to play in South Africa. Media had a role in this as the comments of safety of traveling to India when national elections was due and in context of terror attacks on cricket players in Pakistan were glorified. Certain people had apprehension and genuine doubts and media instead of supporting the act or play against terrorism really played into the hands of terrorists. Terror links have been shown to hit almost all parts of world and media and tourism industry should hit back against the terrorist by supporting the urge to travel .It is safe inside one’s own den but the wagon of history will move forward only when the civilizations share the culture by traveling. That is where the role of media should be there in projecting the real picture. Media has a role in highlighting the negative effects of visiting third world countries and has projected these countries as a haven for terrorist links and that had a negative effect on tourism. Media has projected Indonesia as the place for sex tourism and that has meant that children under the age of 18 are getting into act of prostitution by tourists seeking safe sex. That has meant more trouble for children. The moment media has stopped highlighting a scenario in negative sense, the tourism rates has picked up. This was in witness in Egypt. http://www.agendasetting.com/newsletter/Egypt_study.pdf Conclusion There is positive and negative side to tourism industry from the media. Bibliography http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686303_1690851,00.html http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttri/pdf/2007_1.pdf http://www.agendasetting.com/newsletter/Egypt_study.pdf http://www.tede.vgtu.lt/upload/ukis_zurn/tech%20eco%20dev_2008-2_3%20str.pdf WTO Journal 2002,p111 EdensorT. [2001] Performing Tourism; staging tourism. Crouch D et al eds [2005] The Media and Tourist Imagination, Convergent cultures. Bandyopadhyay, R (2005) ‘Representative Dissonance: India’s Self and Western Image’ Annals of Tourism Research 32 (4) 1006-1021. Baloglu, S. and McCleary, K.W. (1999) ‘A Model of Destination Image Formation’. Annals of Tourism Research 26, (4) 869-897. Gartner, W.C. (1993) 'Image Formation Process'. In: Uysal, M. and Fesenmaier, D.R., (Eds.) Communication and Channel Systems inTourism Marketing, pp. 191-215. London and New York: The Haworth Press. Silverstone, R. (1999) Why Study the Media ?, London: Sage Publications. Fenton, D.M., Young, M. and Johnson, V.Y. (1998) 'Re-presenting the Great Barrier Reef to Tourists: Implications for Tourist Experience and Evaluation of Coral Reef Environments'. Leisure Sciences 20, (1) 177-192. McGregor, A. (2000) 'Dynamic Texts and Tourist Gaze - Death, Bones and Buffalo'. Annals of Tourism Research 27, (1) 27-50. Mercille, J (2005) ‘Media Effect on Image: The case of Tibet’. Annals of Tourism Research 32 (4) 1039-1059. Harrison, D. (1997) 'Barbados or Luton ? Which way to Paradise?'.Tourism Management 18, (6) 393-398. Spivak, G.C. (1994) ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ In: Williams, P. and Chrisman, L., (Eds.) Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, pp. 66-111. New York: Colombia University Press Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (1998) Tourism Promotion and Power :Creating Images, Creating Identities, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Loomba, A. (1998) Colonialism/Postcolonialism, London: Routledge. Valene L. Smith and Maryann Brent, 2001. in Hosts and Guests Revisited: Tourism Issues of the 21st Century, Cognizant Communication Corporation, page 33-45. Read More

The oral, visual and the media character of web based media attaches fast to the consumer and that has been showing to help tourism growth faster than the role of travel agents. But the negative side of this is that the distant and exotic locations are the most preferred by the consumer. The power of this type of media is the way the message is mediated rather than the message itself. Radio texts use language that can create a visual sense on the mind of listener .The role of popular books being made into movies has also attracted tourists to certain locations.

Silverstone regards that the books of Penguin Publications like The Making of Emma and The Pride and Prejudice has been remade into movie and both the movies has attracted tourists in fact to the same location but seeking varied and different experience as shown in the movie and book. Fenton, Young, et al. (1998:l) did some study on the Great reef of Australia to understand the positive power of media. The people visiting the site for the first time did not have any clue to what a reef looked like in real but they were drawn into visiting the place based on the post card image of the reef shown by media.

Media to a large extent as shown in this case influenced the experiential expectations of the tourists. McGregor (2000:46) also supports this claim. He adds that visitors visiting a place, which they have seen, on post card or any projections by media were found to reach the level of satisfaction which they have intended for when seeing the place for the first time. But the level of expectation was not found to be surpassing it. The tourists did not view certain sites, which were not mentioned, with the same level of expectation or enthusiasm.

Merciless (2005:1041) compared the images presented by the brochures, films, books and range of materials on Tibet that were read by prospective tourists with their own imagination and perceptions of the country. Mercille (2005: 1050) also noted that there were instances of people not supporting the image in real to the projected image on media. That had to do with the cultural and social background change of the individual. Harrison (1997:398) says that the ultimate decision maker for a place is the tourist himself or herself and media has a role of projecting a good image of the place.

Movies that have exotic locales and good scenery will always have a feed back to the place being shown and there will be buzz around that place. James Bond’s flicks always attract for exotic locales and the latest cars and gadgets. Spielberg in his ‘Indiana Jones’ had done marvelous trick. ‘Mummy Returns’ had the mummy tourism to Egypt. The Alps were the most covered place in the movies leading to more and more tourism. Media have covered the adventure of Indian cricket team to New Zealand and the players had loved to indulge in bungee jump a form of adventure tourism in New Zealand that sure is to attract a lot of expatriate Indians out there.

The same principle applies when every sport of high quality takes place. Remember the Beijing Olympics where China scored more brownie points on the etiquette shown to visitors and the offer of sight seeing around the place. The concept of Commonwealth games and Winter Olympics need to be highlighted. The biggest draw in sports tourism is the FIFA World Cup for football. Here in all these cases people visiting the country of host are mainly doing it to see the sports which they are passionate about and it is in free times that they indulge in sight seeing and luxury viewing.

That is where the role of local media will come in. The projections of media in showing the shopping malls that cater to premium and non premium segments will be watched for and small sight seeing will be visited more. To get a repeat view or new view once the game is over requires a new set of marketing style from the media. Most probably people referring the blogs of the persons who have visited the places when on games are getting the repeat.

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