The Tourist Spot as a Textile Made from Its Image

Abstract

Many of us are travelling more than ever before. Tourism is becoming an increasingly prominent feature of contemporary life, and is deeply related to many aspects of modern society. In particular, most tourist spots are constructed after their image, which are constantly reproduced through media such as brochures, magazines, television, and movies. This paper studies the relationship between tourism and image in Nara, one of the most famous Japanese tourist spots. By doing so, I will show that tourism cannot be analyzed without considering the power of image, and that the media play an essential role in reproducing the image of tourist spots. This is a very important theme in the sociology of tourism, which Daniel J. Boorstin's works are well known for. According to Boorstin, tourists do no more than see media-created images. He argues that tourists' experiences are only the “pseudo-events” that media create, and therefore these experiences are contrived and superficial in nature. Tourists, however, do not simply accept media-created images passively. Going beyond the scope of Boorstin's analysis, I will also argue that tourists use “bricolage”, and subjectively “read” tourist spots as textiles made from their image. This “reading” is considered equivalent to the “negotiated reading” that Stuart Hall discusses in his cultural studies. In conclusion, I will suggest that tourists transform the structure of the media-created images, despite being strongly influenced by the media that reproduces the image of tourist spots. Thus, they are able to escape from the web of media power that makes the image look natural. In this way, this paper is an attempt to demonstrate the “bricolage” practices of tourists and provide new insight into theories on the relationship between tourism and image.