The construction of literary tourism site

This paper explores the approach to the construction of literary tourism site from the perspective of authenticity which is a keyword in heritage tourism. Since MacCannell (1973, 1976) introduced the concept of authenticity into studies of tourism motivations and experiences in 1970s, the various notions of tourism authenticity can be summarized into four types of theories - objective authenticity, constructive authenticity, postmodern authenticity and existential authenticity. They have different attitudes to the authenticity of tourist experiences (or authentic experiences) and the authenticity of toured objects. By comparing these four theories, the paper reveals that the theory of constructive authenticity which emphasizes the authenticity of toured objects as well as the tourist experience is more likely to underpin the development of a literary tourism site as, both, fact and fiction are involved in literary tourism. Then it demonstrates the application of the constructive authenticity theory through a case study - the planning of “Wang Zengqi Water Region Folk-custom Theme Park” in Jieshou, China. In approach to the construction of this literary site, a part of Herbert’s circuit of construction of heritage places was adopted (Herbert, 2001), especially illustrating the construction of “text”, and proposes “poetic tourism” as an object for literary tourism destinations to pursue

Working definitions in literature and tourism: a research guide

Working definitions in literature and tourism: A research guide is a volume that assembles a large set of working definitions aimed at all researchers in the field of literature and tourism. The entries are written by around 50 scholars and experts from all over the world, covering a wide range of concepts that go through the areas of literature and tourism and also, among others, culture, geography, anthropology, and methodologies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Political Theatre in Public Spaces: Manifesting Identity in Venice, Italy

The combination of poorly managed mass tourism, rapidly increasing international migration, and a declining economy facilitated a permanent exodus of natives out of the Venetian lagoon. This thesis examines how the community activism group and social network Venessia.com attempts to reclaim a place-­based and place-­manifested Venetian identity (venezianità) through theatrical public protests. While members are sensitive to an ethic of intercultural awareness, the discourse accompanying their concerns reveals nostalgia for the power and grandeur of Venice’s past that is threatened by a perceived invasion by suspicious outsiders. The theoretical framework I employ to illuminate Venessia.com\u27s efforts includes the socio-­cultural and economic implications of mass tourism, theory of space and place, and critiques of modernity and postmodernity

The Globetrotter: Cosmopolitan Travel, Connecting Cultures and Conjuring the 'Authentic' East, 1870-1920

Abstract: The Globetrotter: Cosmopolitan Travel, Connecting Cultures and Conjuring the ‘Authentic’ East, 1870-1920 Amy Miller Globetrotters were a new type of nineteenth-century traveller created from the confluence of three historic developments: British imperial dominance in India, the new presence of Britons in Chinese and Japanese Treaty Ports, and the improvements of steam technology, railway networks and the engineering that produced the Suez Canal. These technological advances accelerated the compression of time and space which meant that not only were the British colonies, with their mercantile and military concerns, nearer to home, but that tourists could ‘trot’ around the world in a matter of months. This dissertation considers how the gaze of globetrotters developed and changed during the period between 1870, when the opening of the Suez Canal promoted greater accessibility to the ‘East’, and 1920, when luxury Cruise Liners changed the culture of travel. Globetrotters’ collections and accounts brought something new to those at home: the global East, which notwithstanding their ‘orientalist’ view, distinguished among Asian cultures. Travellers chronicled a ‘cultural’ journey of distinct cultures and customs that both challenged and confirmed pre-existing tropes of the ‘East’ by conjuring their own ‘authentic’ version through their experiences and the objects they brought home. They also charted a journey, that of the transformation of self through mutual encounter with local populations. In this dissertation, chapters assessing globetrotters’ experiences through the cultural engagement of networks, space, food and collecting will explore these developments through three overarching themes: the gaze and mutual encounter, social distinction and authenticity, and cosmopolitanism and the differentiated East of India, China and Japan

Self-identity matters: an extended theory of planned behavior to decode tourists’ waste sorting intentions

Waste sorting is a practical way of handling the garbage and an effective strategy for facilitating sustainable waste management. This research extended the theory of planned behavior (TPB) with self-identity and moral norms to predict waste sorting intentions in a heritage context of tourism. A total of 403 valid self administrated questionnaires were achieved at a heritage destination in China. The results indicated that: (1) TPB variables (i.e., attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control), self-identity, and moral norms were all directly and positively linked to tourists’ waste sorting intentions, respectively; (2) self-identity indirectly influenced tourists’ waste sorting intentions through the mediation of moral norms; and (3) the integrated model exhibited better predictive utility than any single model. This research contributes to the literature on waste management in the context of tourism by extending TPB with identity and personal normative constructs. It also provides practical implications for destination managers to leverage tourists’ self-identity and moral norms for sustainable management

Heritage in the Clouds: Englishness in the Dolomites

Guided by the romantic compass of Byron, Ruskin and Turner, Victorian travellers to the Dolomites sketched through their wanderings in the mountainous backdrop of Venice a cultural ‘Petit Tour’ of global significance. As they zigzagged across a debatable land consumed by competing frontiers, Victorians discovered a unique geography characterized by untrodden peaks and unfrequented valleys. This landscape blended aesthetic, scientific and cultural values utterly different from those engendered by the bombastic conquests of the Western Alps achieved during the ‘Golden Age of Mountaineering’. Filtered through the cultivated lens of the Venetian Grand Tour, their encounter with the Dolomites is marked by a series of distinct cultural practices that paradigmatically define what I call the ‘Silver Age of Mountaineering’. These cultural practices, magnetized by symbols of Englishness, reveal a range of geographic concerns that are more ethnographic than imperialistic, more feminine than masculine, more artistic than sportive – rather than racing to summits, the Silver Age is about rambling, rather than conquering peaks, it is about sketching them in fully articulated interaction with the Dolomite landscape. Through these practices, the Dolomite Mountains came to be known in England as ‘Titian Country’, spurring among Victorian travellers the sentimental drive to ramble in the backgrounds of Titian’s paintings. Freed from their historical conditions and rehashed in different discursive patterns, these symbols of Englishness re-emerge through a history collapsed through geography: a heritage that is subtly, if controversially, exploited today in the wake of the recent inscription of the Dolomites onto the UNESCO World Heritage List

Study To Evaluate Pedestrian Systems

The number of pedestrians in the city of Venice has been rapidly increasing and the mobility of the streets has been compromised. Since 2007 pedestrian data on bridges and street segments has been collected by WPI students. Our project sought not only to continue this, but also analyze how pedestrians impact the streets. Our data provides information on the understanding of traffic flow on the streets. It will also serve as a baseline to later determine the effect the installation of a new tramline will have on the city. Our team also worked to model the infrastructure of the streets through the creation of GIS map layers as well contributed data to a Pedestrian Model. The infrastructure information was published in Venipedia pages where it will be preserved for the future

Venice in Varanasi: Fluid landscapes, aesthetic encounters and the unexpected geographies of tourist representation

This article has developed from a broader research project on tourist representations and practices in Varanasi, India's renowned sacred city and popular tourist destination situated by the 'holy' Ganges. Here, a recurring 'sense of Venice' emerged from Western travel narratives and landscape representations, evoked by both visual and morethan-visual encounters. Drawing on cultural geographies of landscape engaging postcolonial, representational and non-representational theories, the article unravels Venice's capacity to exist beyond Venice and to mobilise affectual aesthetic connections across different social, material, spatial and temporal contexts. Through an empirical analysis of aesthetic experiences of 'Venice-in-Varanasi', it illuminates the ontological liminality of Venice as waterland and image and its epistemological capacity to navigate the entangled material, affective and representational modes through which we encounter the world. Advancing relational theories of landscape via an empirical focus on the waterscapes of Venice and Varanasi, the article contributes to water studies and critical tourism by proposing a fluid and mobile ontology of landscape which seeks to destabilise the representational/non-representational binary, thus feeding into growing research in this direction