Postmodern Tourism: Staging Authenticity

Catering to the postmodern tourist who– Seeks rapidly changing art/enter-/edutainment– Seeks extraordinary and individualistic experiences– Who expects experiences to be produced but presented as

real – Has not always time to cross the globe to visit.– Who has been socialized into consuming by gazing - the

tourist gaze is demanding

The development of the tourist gaze

Tourist landscapes are ‘consumed’ by the tourist who ‘gazes’ upon them

The idea is of – seeing as discovering– interpreting the seen as aesthetically significant– and determine its difference to the mundane.

The tourist gaze The ‘gaze’ is defined in terms of difference Perceived strangeness (but only to tourist) Exotic, pleasurable Distinguished by semiotics - symbolic icons –

e.g., Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, Taj Mahal rational work and seeks efficiency

Authenticity The gaze is a construct Tourism as pilgrimage – a quest for the

authentic Authenticity versus ‘staged authenticity’ Staged authenticity protects hosts from

intrusion, yet allows commercial benefits of tourism

Can any form of tourism be totally inauthentic?

Caves at Lascaux

Caves at Lascaux

Caves at Lascaux

Romeo and Juliet in Verona

Still there:

Capello and Montecchi, the families that Shakespeare turned into the Capulets and Montagues

Evidence is overwhelming:

Shakespeare’s characters are fictitious. Most scholars believe that Shakespeare simply

reworked an old drama by an Italian playwright. Lack of factual basis offset by imagination to fill in

the gaps left by documentation. Entire package tours of tourists insist to see the site

of the most romantic episodes in all of literature – the immortal balcony scene.

Casa di Guilietta, situated at No. 27 Via Cappello

Authenticity?

Authenticity?

Staged Authenticity?

Hawaii

1920

Today

Also Today: Hula Contest

Staged Authenticity and Pseudo-Events:Tourism as the Production and Consumption of Simulation

Producing the Lake District

Nothing natural about it says “beautiful tourist site”

So how come it is?

Answer: symbolic construction of difference though signs and images and cultural production in general.

The “place myth” in three stages:

Discovery Interpretation (capacity of being in, seeing, and

experiencing the site) Management of the discourse

– What activities are allowed or appropriate– Physical and perceptual capacity– Aesthetic dimensions– Cultural hegemony (of taste, of language, mobility)– Create attractions

Established place myths

Stonehenge

Lake District

Place myth under construction:

Summary History of tourism as the formation of the tourist gaze The patterns of tourism consumption TODAY are

indebted to the forces socializing the tourist gaze. The production of place requires symbolic and

cultural work! Authenticity is a historical and cultural construct. Authenticity as attraction superseded by staged

authenticity as the attraction.– Authenticity is a floating (ie., non-essential) concept