Abstract
Hallett and Kaplan-Weinger’s book Official Tourism Websites is a timely and pertinent publication, as international travel becomes the norm and the internet a major venue of information. While the internet’s ‘hypermodal’ (Lemke, 2002) texts provide opportunities for cities, regions and nations to utilize multi-semiotic resources in the construction of their identities as tourist destinations, the internet also inevitably presents challenges in decoding these web representations. In Official Tourism Websites, a discourse analytical exploration of tourism websites, these challenges are taken up by Hallett and Kaplan-Weinger, who, in the manner of seasoned guides, take readers on an intriguing journey.
Before embarking upon their journey the authors briefly survey the landscape. Chapter 1 puts their research in a modern context: tourism discourse as a discourse of identity construction, promotion, recognition and acceptance, and websites as evolving texts which inherit precedent tourist discourses such as those found in travel guidebooks.
In Chapter 2, the notions and frameworks adopted in the exploration of identity construction on the World Wide Web are introduced. The decoding of representational practices on the web is multi-perspectival, incorporating social constructionism, critical discourse analysis, mediated discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, and metaphor analysis.
The journey officially begins in the Baltics in Chapter 3. To decode Baltic tourism websites in the post-Soviet context, Hall’s (1996) model for the construction of national identity is adopted. Linguistic and visual means are employed by the Baltic states in an effort to construct and promote independent national identities, with the visual choices revealing a shifting of identity from an objective and ecologically favourable one to a more subjective and culturally favourable alternative. These cases stand as solid proof of the internet’s power in constructing and transforming national identities.
In Chapter 4, 5 and 6, the authors demonstrate how the content and design of official tourism websites construct identities for cities and function to promote social action. Chapter 4 is about the website of Santiago de Compostela, a spiritual capital of Christendom in Spain. The linguistic and visual texts on the website construe the city as being sacred and secular, the juxtaposition of which turns tourists into pilgrims. Chapter 5 examines the website of New Orleans, Louisiana, before and after Hurricane Katrina. A rebirth metaphor is found in the visual and verbal representations on the website after Katrina; visiting the city now revives the city, and tourists become revivers, an image and experience no less appealing than the previous gourmet hunter metaphor. Similarly, in Chapter 6, a metaphor of steel is found to forge an identity of strength on the website of Gary, Indiana, a historical steel town. The steel metaphor serves as a call to tourists’ contribution to Gary in its regeneration after economic distress.
Chapter 7 focuses on the websites of sports Halls of Fame, which define the spirits of sports as national spirits and hence the Halls of Fame as desired tourist destinations. The linguistic and visual representations on the websites of the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame advertise missions and artefacts of popular sports in the USA. More importantly, they honour individuals and activities that contributed to the fame of the nation and pride of American culture, thereby attracting potential visitors looking for a sense of solidarity.
In Chapter 8, the authors analyse the tourism websites of Myanmar/Burma designed by different parties. The official Myanmar website presents the country as an idyllic place, as tourists would bring much needed foreign currency into the country. In contrast, the website of the Burma Campaign UK, which opposes the ruling junta of the country, depicts Myanmar as a hostile regime. The conflicting stances, however, are presented on the website of The Lonely Planet, where the place is promoted and warnings are duly given. Tourism discourse, as the case illustrates, can be a tool to solicit funds through tourism, a weapon to attack the ruling junta, or mediation between conflicting stances.
Chapter 9 demonstrates that official internet tourism discourse has become so dominant that parodies of those discourses are readily available. This chapter is about a website devoted to three fictional exotic nations: Molvania, Phaic Tan and San Sombrèro. On the website, Molvania is constructed as a stereotypical Eastern European country, while Phaic Tan and San Sombrèro are construed as exotic Southeast Asian and Central American countries. The exoticness created in the parodic travel guides arouses potential tourists’ desire to visit.
Chapter 10 is a summary of previous chapters, and the authors conclude the book with a thought-provoking discussion on tourism discourse, identity construction and website representations. Tourism discourse integrates various semiotic resources to represent places as desired destinations for tourists, the representations of which are integral to the identity construction of both the place and potential tourists. The identity constructed on the website of a tourist locale is fluid as virtual representations are ever-changing due to the ephemeral nature of cyber-discourse.
In an effortless manner, Hallett and Kaplan-Weinger guide their readers through new and rough terrains. Their in-depth analyses of the rich web data provide critical insights into meanings and functions of official tourism websites, a prevalent but somewhat neglected field. They do not hesitate to point out that their analysis is limited to English-language websites, but their exploration of the monolingual websites outlines methodological frameworks to decode websites in other languages. However, it is more problematic that the authors’ discussion takes place in the print medium where the experience of navigation in the web is lost. Hypermediated texts, as Askehave and Nielsen (2005: 129) put it, ‘become severely “handicapped” when printed out on paper and removed from their medium’. A tip I would recommend for readers is to visit the websites while doing the reading.
In short, Official Tourism Websites is a successful and accessible exploration of issues such as tourism discourse, identity construction and representational practices in the information age.