the Tourist Imaginary?
between Production and Consumption
of Tourist Imaginaries
The papers in this special issue of Via@
on "Tourist Imaginaries" explore a set of questions about
the role, function and impact of these imaginaries on the places, actors
and practices of tourism.The papers are from the conference "Tourism
imaginaries /Imaginaires touristiques"1
held in February 2011 in Berkeley by EIREST2
and the TSWG3
under the scientific leadership of Nelson Graburn (Anthropology) and
Maria-Gravari Barbas (Geography). They aim to deepen the concept of
the tourist imaginary and to propose methodologies and understandings
leading to a more comprehensive grasp of these imaginaries.
the Tourist Imaginary?
The tourist imaginary calls for multidimensional definitions taking
into account the whole chain of tourism production. Even if these definitions
refer primarily to the imaginary of geographical locations where tourist
activity takes place, it would be a mistake to neglect the imaginaries
related to the practices and stakeholders of tourism.
Tourist imaginaries represent a specific sector of the overall worldview
of individuals or social groups concerning places outside their primary
residence where certain types of leisure activities could take place.
Very often, these imaginaries of other places and other peoples are
deeply rooted, stemming from intimate early experiences within the family
or from visions of the world, people and places taught in elementary
school (Graburn 2000).
Imaginaries can be both idiosyncratic and familial, or culturally shared.
They can be instilled at such a young age that they become part of the
unconscious attitudes that Bourdieu calls habitus
Imaginaries of Place
Tourist imaginaries can be defined
as spatial imaginaries that refer to the potential of a place as a tourist
destination. According to Bachelard, imaginaries represent a way of
relating to space and matter that generates meaning, without strictly
determining behaviors and configurations (Bachelard, 1957, cited in
They allow individuals and groups to imagine
a place as a conceivable tourist destination; they create the desire,
they render the place attractive, they help render travel plans concrete
(by influencing both the selection of the place visited and the practices
associated with undertaking the trip), they reduce the “distance”
to the tourist destination, and they tame its exotic character(Staszak,
2008). They intervene not only when choosing the destination, but also
once there, directing, controlling or avoiding certain practices. If
they are negative, they contribute to the avoidance of certain destinations.
Tourist imaginaries thus facilitate
the transition between here and elsewhere, the familiar and the exotic,
the known and the unknown. They intervene decisively in travel planning.
Without a tourist imaginary to select among the whole range of desirable,
attractive or challenging destinations, there can be no travel plans.
The role of tourism imaginaries is thus essential, since they allow
concerned individuals to approach the tourist destination in its various
dimensions, without their getting physically and symbolically lost.
An Imaginary of Practices
Tourism imaginaries are linked
as much to practices associated with categories of space, as to particular
identified places. Thus, “the beach” is related to rich
and deeply rooted imaginaries, which tend to emphasize far more the
similarities than the differences of practices likely to take place
there. Tourist imaginaries thus contribute to the consolidation of kinds
of behavior. They guide not only the performance of the practices themselves
(Urbain, 2002), but also, in turn, the spaces in which these practices
They participate in the creation of a modus
vivendi corresponding to Western
practices at the beach (Urbain 2002), or how to live in the countryside,
how to behave in the city (Menegaldo 2007), or how to be at home in
the mountains (Debarbieux and Rudaz 2010). They contribute to the understanding
of the rituals or ceremonies that take place (Graburn 2001), but they
also anticipate them, confirming or refusing them.
Imaginaries of the Participants
Tourism imaginaries are also about
the imagination of tourists, both as producers of imaginaries and as
imagined entities themselves. On the one hand, the often caricatured
figure of the tourist, in opposition to the traveler, characterizes
not only popular literature but also scholarly works, as was shown by
J D Urbain (1991 and Equipe MIT 2002). Stereotypical images of tourists,
their behavior, or their ways of dressing, have long produced a strong
and fertile image that infuses academic approaches and analyses. On
the other hand, the images related to the host communities are equally
shaped by artifacts or intangibles which create these imaginaries.
They both characterize and categorize peoples, and thereby prepare tourists,
to anticipate or be afraid encounters and confrontations with the Other.
The imaginary of Paris is linked to the imaginary of Parisians, just
as those of the Inuit, the Berbers or Aborigines are associated with
particular places that have been more or less well-defined by others,
who are nevertheless participants in the system. But the imaginary of
the Other may also replace ignorance, as demonstrated by Corlan-Ioan
(2001) for the people of Black Africa.
This set of imaginaries, referring to a place, to expected experiences,
hoped for or feared at the vacation site - as well as the practices
these experiences induce - and to the host population or other local
actors, requires a highly complex analysis. This is especially true
since it concerns not only the tourist who is at the center of the tourism
system and who is ultimately the decision maker for the trip, but also
the intermediaries who stand between the tourists and their destination,
at all the different moments in the decision-making process. These middlemen,
the tour operators, guides, and others may manipulate or even counteract
the tourist imaginary. They create desire by playing with risk (Guilland,
this issue), they provoke the imaginary linked to painful episodes (Naef,
Hertzog, this issue), they decode the images of local authenticity based
on imaginaries produced since the early days of tourism, related to
the pursuit of peak experiences (Debarbieux, this issue) or to otherwise
"empty spaces," the virginity of the great outdoors or to
Orientalism (Danteur, this issue). These professional agents of the
tourism system must be creative, and the most effective could be compared
to impromptu playwrights or film makers.
The necessarily interdisciplinary analysis of tourist imaginaries seeks
to understand the contemporary phenomenon of tourism. A conception which
pushes further is required, however, to avoid the "stereotyped
analysis of stereotypes." If we accept the imaginary defined by
Durant (1994) as the "museum of all images past, possible, produced
or that could be produced," Debarbieux (2003) invites us to consider
it "not as a mystifying fantasy, but as a mental faculty and psychological
construct, which can mobilize and make the elements of this "museum"
of images work together.
The demystification of the tourist imaginary invites the researcher
to systematically analyze the components and their genealogy. Stimulating
as it is for researchers to analyze the tourism imaginary, it is also
of interest for practical applications, which concern the entire chain
of tourism. Tourism marketing, which feeds on imaginaries and has long
contributed to remaking, proves the fact that the tourism sector was
concerned with these issues since well before researchers seized on
Images and Imaginaries
"A society is properly established through iconic and semantic
creation that permanently reorganizes an upwelling of figures, shapes
and images" (Castoriadis 1975). Tourist imaginaries therefore,
are made up of shared representations, fueled by - or associated with
- material images (postcards, posters, blogs, films and videos, guide
books, brochures, magazines, as well as handicrafts and other artifacts)
and intangible ones (legends, tales, accounts, speeches, anecdotes,
memories), worked by the imagination and socially shared by tourists
and/or the other actors in the tourism system (indeed sometimes by both
sides, even if they do not share the same meaning). Present since the
beginnings of tourism, material and intangible images play an even more
important role today, in the context of a modern society characterized
by the omnipresence of images - many of which are specifically generated
by tourism (Harvey 1989: 290). Among the material images, national cultural
or ethnic souvenirs are particularly important. As local people try
to manufacture and market aspects of their own traditions that can generate
tourist imaginaries, they must also know and meet the expectations of
tourists. (Graburn 1976). These images have a dynamic relationship with
imaginaries, and are constantly reworked. Images and imaginaries shift
continuously between correspondence and dissonance which either confirm
by the closeness or illustrate the gap between the "real"
and its representation. These correspondences or dissonances can provoke
feelings of discomfort or pleasure, attraction or repulsion.
Images and tourist imaginaries interfere with the creative processes
of tourists and local communities, showing tourist sites in a new light
and creating new ones. They can provoke the imagination and allow the
creation or recreation of the tourist sites. Although dynamic, their
relationship can be characterized by a great inertia tied to stereotypes.
Though images can easily change, the evolution of imaginaries does not
follow the same timescales. Slower to evolve, they are iconic obstacles
to perceiving the site. They can sometimes become "traps"
in which places find themselves stuck (Naef, this issue). To paraphrase
Rautenberg (2011), tourist imaginaries permit a reading of tourist sites
"by assembling images
and social representations through such representations as the logo,
the icon, the heroic figure, the urban myth or the stereotype4».
between Production and Consumption
Imaginaries of places, destinations and trips are produced and consumed
by various populations around the globe, through the increasing role
of media and opportunities for travel. The tourism system indeed maintains
a close relationship with the imaginaries that support, shape, and guide
it. For all this these imaginaries are not limited exclusively to the
sphere of tourism. They surpass it and transcend it to characterize
and model the spaces to which they refer, the people within them, and
the meanings attributed to them. The analysis of their contribution
to contemporary understanding of the phenomenon of tourism involves
not only in interweaving of the "triple quest" of tourism
(those of place, self and other) according to R. Amirou (1992) but also
the considering how the territories respond to, accompany or generate
Their constitution is thus dialectical: while they are largely produced
and mobilized by the tourism industry and by local tourism policies,
imaginaries are also produced and appropriated by the tourists themselves
who can criticize, reformulate or reject them. They can also be co-produced
by participants and local people who want to implement tourism projects
or to create an identity. They induce relations of reflexivity between
tourists, local communities, and local, national or international actors
and scholarly discourse.
Tourist imaginaries are thus simultaneously seized by both the production
side and the reception side, as a form of mediation that assumes a transmitter
and a receiver with all the complexity of the circuits mediation entails.
Their analysis must capture and examine producers of the imaginaries
working in the sphere of tourism, those for whom the co-production of
imaginaries of place is a prerequisite for the sale of a tourism product,
it must also analyze the images formed by the "consumers"
for whom the imaginary intervenes in the decision to take a trip.
Tourist Imaginaries, Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
In his work on the Maasai,
N. Salazar (2009) examines how tourism and the fantasies associated
with it have the potential to reshape the host populations (Naef, this
issue). "More than the actual movement itself, touristic culture
prepares people to see other places as objects of tourism, and it prepares
those places to be seen."
Turning to the contexts to which it refers, the tourist imaginary leaves
its mark on tourist regions and their populations. B. Debarbieux (this
issue) shows how the tourist imaginary participates in the construction
of new local identities which come to draw their sources (their legitimacy
and inspiration) from the tourist imaginary: "The inhabitants of
a place frequented by tourists quickly learn how they are perceived
not only by the tourists but also by the media."
The tourist imaginary influences and shapes
tourist areas or those that are in the process of coming into being.
Based on the case study of a place that is trying to develop tourism,
Naef (this issue) shows how a war-related imaginary, by sharing painful
images conveyed largely by the most recent European conflict, is exploited
by local actors in the endeavour, whose the outcome is still uncertain,
to create a tourist imaginary that "conforms" to the imaginary
of the place itself.
Bouhkris (this issue) shows how
the performativity of tourist imaginary ultimately contributes to identifying
the nation-building project as a “virtuous” tourist imaginary.
The tourist imaginary plays the role of a self-fulfilling prophecy,
helping to bring about the imagined territoriality (Staszak, 2000).
Though Danteur (this issue), warns against simplistic reading which
might consider that tourist sites as the mere result of "a staging
of an exactly reproduced imaginary," the analyses that the researchers
contribute to this collection suggest that the tourist imaginary "no
longer appears just as a way to 'see' the world, but also as a way to
'make' the world” (Boukhris, this issue).
A Genealogy of
The imaginary of a tourist site
or a circuit is formed from the slow sedimentation of images that in
some cases have developed since the beginning of tourist development
of the site. Favored views, engravings, and travel accounts have all
participated since the very beginnings of tourism in the consolidation
of tourist spots. Produced by artists, scholars, scientists and intellectuals
at first, for international elites, before being taken up by popular
narratives, they are the origin of representations that forever characterize
the tourist destinations, even if only in part.
The analysis of their temporality can be very rich, because it places
at the center those representations that deliberately shape and redirect
imaginaries, instrumentally or otherwise. It can help identify permanence
and ruptures, conformity and dissonance, and the impact of new players
as they progressively enter the touristic scene: tourist populations
themselves, intermediaries, leading local or foreign personalities.
The analysis of imaginaries and
their ideological, aesthetic, philosophical and political foundations
can be used to follow the touristic trajectory of a place: how did it
become touristic? How does it evolve in the travelers’ imaginaries?
Or on the contrary, how does it remain static in their imagination,
even though it has changed profoundly? And how is a single destination
represented by the different national cultures? Or, within the same
country, by people from different social classes, genders or age groups?
It is all these dimensions brought
forth in the articles collected in this first issue of Via @ which,
following the conference "Tourism imaginaries/imaginaires touristiques,"
carry forward the ambition to promote this research topic by wagering
that it can play a major role in understanding the trajectory of tourist
destinations and, thus, the role that tourism plays in contemporary
Tourism Studies Working Group wishes to acknowledge the generous sponsorship
of the conference by the Department of Anthropology, Canadian Studies
Program, East Asia National Resource Center, Department of Ethnic Studies,
Farrand Fund of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental
Planning, Center for Latin American Studies, Portuguese Studies Program,
Center for South East Asia Studies, and the Townsend Center for the
Humanities, of the University of California, Berkeley; Routledge Press,
PLC, Berghahn Publishers PLC; and the Consulate General of France, San
EIREST : Equipe Interdisciplinaire
de REcherches Sur le Tourisme, IREST, Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne.
TSWG : Tourism Studies Working Group,
University of California at Berkeley.
The author defines the emblem as a
conventional sign intended to represent an idea, an event, a place;
the icon as an image of an entity carries a meaning recognized by convention,
like a postcard; the stereotype as a shortcut, a opinion summarized
in a few words and related to certain human characteristics (Rautenberg,
Amirou R. (ed.), 2001, Imaginaire,
tourisme et exotisme, Montpellier,
Publications de l’université de Montpellier III.
Bourdieu P., 1984, Distinction:
A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste,
Castoriadis C., 1975, L’institution
imaginaire de la société,
Corlan-Ioan S., 2001, « Imaginer Tombouctou », Les
Cahiers de l’IRSA, Imaginaire,
tourisme et exotisme, n°5, 39-46.
Debarbieux B., 2003, « Imaginaire Géographique »,
in Lévy J. & Lussault M., Dictionnaire
de Géographie, Paris, Belin.
Debarbieux B. et Rudaz G., 2010, Les
faiseurs de montagnes : imaginaires politiques et territorialités,
XVIIIe – XXI e siècle,
Paris, CNRS, collection Espaces et milieux.
Durand G., 1994, L’imaginaire,
Essai sur les sciences et la philosophie de l’image,
Equipe MIT, 2002, Tourismes
1. Lieux communs, Paris, Belin.
Graburn N. (ed.), 1976, Ethnic
and Tourist Arts: Cultural Expressions from the Fourth World,
Berkeley, University of California Press.
Graburn N., 2000, “Learning to Consume: What is Heritage and When
is it Traditional?” in Nezar AlSayyad (ed.), Consuming
Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage,
London, Routledge, 68-89.
Graburn N. & Gravari-Barbas M., 2011, Introduction au numéro
thématique « Imagined Landscapes of Tourism », Journal
of Tourism and Cultural Change,
vol. 3, n°3, 159-166.
Harvey D., 1989, The condition
of postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change,
Menagaldo H. et G., 2007, Les
imaginaires de la ville, entre littérature et arts,
Salazar N., 2009, “Imaged or imagined? Cultural representations
and the “Tourismification” of Peoples and Places”,
Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines,
Salazar N., 2011, Envisioning
Eden: Mobilizing Imaginaires in Tourism and Beyond,
Staszak J.-F., 2000, « Prophéties auto-réalisatrices
et géographie », L'Espace
Géographique, n°2, 105-119.
Staszak J.F., 2008, « Qu’est-ce que l’exotisme »
?, Le Globe, Revue genevoise
de géographie, n°148,
Urbain J.-D., 1991, L’idiot
du voyage, histoire de touristes,
Urbain J.-D., 2002, Sur la plage,
Mœurs et coutumes balnéaires,
Maria Gravari-Barbas, Nelson Graburn, Tourist
n°1, 2012, published online on march the 16th 2012.
URL : http://www.viatourismreview.net/Editorial1_EN.php
IREST, EIREST, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
TSWG, University of California, Berkeley
TSWG, University of California, Berkeley