On the relevance of travel journalism: An introduction

Not many people will be instantly familiar with British woman Dale Sheppard-Floyd, but – at least symbolically – she represents a significant milestone in the development of travel and tourism. In fact, the milestone was so significant that the United Nations World Tourism Organization booked Madrid’s venerable Museo del Prado to announce to the world’s media her visit to Spain on 13 December 2012. For Ms Sheppard-Floyd’s arrival for a three-day trip meant that more than one billion times in that year, someone had crossed a border as a tourist. An astounding number, considering that, in 1950, there had been only 25 million tourist arrivals worldwide, and even only two decades previously – in 1990 – the number had been less than half at 435 million arrivals (World Tourism Organization, 2012a, 2012b). While people have traveled for pleasure for millennia (Towner, 1995), tourism really came into its own with the expansion of the middle classes in the 19th and 20th century, and today it is considered the world’s largest business sector, with unprecedented numbers of people venturing outside of their immediate environments to explore the world around them. In 2012, travel and tourism’s total contribution to the world economy amounted to a staggering $6.6 trillion, or 9 per cent of GDP (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2013). More than 260 million jobs were generated by it worldwide, which equates to one in every 11 jobs across the globe. While there were some hiccups during the Global Financial Crisis, growth in 2012 was stronger than in other industries, such as manufacturing, financial services and retail (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2013)..

Exotic or erotic-contrasting images for defining destinations

Sex and sexuality are powerful human emotions that have been exploited by the tourism industry to develop aspects of destination image. Where destinations have sought to exploit sex by use of the erotic as an appealing image, sex becomes a featured selling point and may inadvertently become more important than other elements of the destination's preferred image as a result of image capture where the preferred image is displaced by a less preferred image. This paper examines the potential for image confusion when the erotic is used alongside the exotic as part of destination image. In particular, Thailand's preferred image as an exotic destination and the nation's unofficial image as a location for erotic activities are considered. Marketing implications are examined, as are potential measures that may be implemented to soften or even eliminate potentially negative impacts that are presently associated with Thailand's reputation as a center for sex tourism