Guidebooks and the representation of ‘other’ places

Abstract

Tourism destinations do not simply exist. In what can be described as processes of symbolic transformation (Dietvorst & Ashworth, 1995), destinations are created and recreated by both tourists and tourism texts. Postcards, brochures, souvenirs, travel magazines, websites, advertisements and guidebooks all play their part in these processes. Tourism texts imbue places with meanings and create sights that tourists should see (Crang, 2004). These meanings attached to destinations can be part of wider circuits of culture and reproduce images or ideas from the literature, movies or news media. Such processes of symbolic transformation, or ‘sacralization’(Crang, 2004; 71), turn ordinary places into destinations to visit and sites into ‘must-see-sights’. Tourism texts are the focus of this chapter.