Tourist Attractions: From Object to Narrative 9781845415433

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Tourist Attractions

TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE Series Editors: Professor Mike Robinson, Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham, UK and Dr Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK TCC is a series of books that explores the complex and ever-changing relationship between tourism and culture(s). The series focuses on the ways that places, peoples, pasts, and ways of life are increasingly shaped/ transformed/created/packaged for touristic purposes. The series examines the ways tourism utilises/makes and re-makes cultural capital in its various guises (visual and performing arts, crafts, festivals, built heritage, cuisine etc.) and the multifarious political, economic, social and ethical issues that are raised as a consequence. Understanding tourism’s relationships with culture(s) and vice versa, is of ever-increasing significance in a globalising world. This series will critically examine the dynamic inter-relationships between tourism and culture(s). Theoretical explorations, research-informed analyses, and detailed historical reviews from a variety of disciplinary perspectives are invited to consider such relationships. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.channelviewpublications.com, or by writing to Channel View Publications, St Nicholas House, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE: 46

Tourist Attractions From Object to Narrative Johan R. Edelheim

CHANNEL VIEW PUBLICATIONS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Edelheim, Johan R. Tourist Attractions: From Object to Narrative/Johan R. Edelheim. Tourism and Cultural Change: 46 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.  Tourism – Psychological aspects.  2.  Tourists – Psychology.  I. Title. G155.A1E293 2015 338.4’791–dc23 2015015438 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-542-6 (hbk) Channel View Publications UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Website: www.channelviewpublications.com Twitter: Channel_View Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/channelviewpublications Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2015 Johan R. Edelheim. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by R.J. Footring Ltd, Derby Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Books Group

Contents

Figures, Tables and Boxes

viii

Acknowledgementsx Prologue: ‘So, What’s Wrong With the Old Way?’  The Bushranger and the Big Banana  The Aim of This Book A Rationale for Using Narrative Analysis  What Makes a Phenomenological Study Relevant and Reliable?  Validities  Structure of the Book Part 1: Tourist Attractions

xi xiv xvi xvii xviii xx xxii 1

1 Defining TAs  Tourist Attractions or Visitor Attractions? Tourist Attraction Categories and Typologies  Definitions of TAs The TA System  Poststructural Narrative Analysis  Conclusion 

3 5 9 14 20 26 31

2 Managing TAs 33 The TA Management Paradox 34 Quadruple Bottom Line – Infrastructure and Local Distinctiveness 38 Success Factors – Good Practice 41 White Elephants – Or How Not to Plan and Manage TAs  46 Managing Individual Tourist Experiences  49 Phenomenological Aims – My Methodology  54 Conclusion  58 v

vi Contents

3 Maintaining TAs Fulfilling Tourists’ Expectations – The Power of Marketing Planning and Designing of TAs  Challenges for TAs Quality Assurance and Benchmarking in the TA Sector Revenue Creation  Conclusion 

60 61 64 66 75 78 81

Part 2: Deconstructing TAs  Interlude A

83 83

4 Reading TAs Attraction Markers/Texts Narrative Synthesising Places  Terminology Used in Narrative Analysis of TAs Diegesis of Thunderbolt  The Big Banana Conclusion 

85 86 92 95 97 103 109

5 Forming TAs Pre-travel and On-travel Narrative Consumption Diachronic, Synchronic and Anachronic Narratives  Narrative Voice  Conclusion 

111 111 114 122 134

6 Forging TAs  135 Hegemonic Messages in Heritage Attractions 136 Focalisation137 Fear of Falling 147 Narrative Tempo 149 A ‘Touristic Terra Nullius’  153 Conclusion157 Part 3: Constructing TAs Interlude B 

159 159

7 Experiencing TAs Phenomenology in General Phenomenology and Cartesian Dualism Hermeneutic Phenomenology Linguistic Phenomenology 

163 164 168 170 177

Contents vii

Phenomenology in Tourism and Leisure Studies  181 Conclusion184 8 Performing TAs  Tourist Identities – Authentic Performances?  Uralla Visitor Information Centre – Thunderbolt Tourism Performance Tamara and Suspension of Disbelief  Hegemony of Vision The Thunderbolt Experience

185 185 188 192 196 203 207

9 Remembering TAs  210 Memories210 The Big Banana  211 Souvenirs215 The Gift Shop 221 A Meaning of the Big Banana 223 Epilogue226 Every TA is a New Narrative 226 Every Tourist is a Phenomenologist 227 Limitations of the Research 229 Where to Now? 230 References231 Index253

Figures, Tables and Boxes

Figures   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Australia, with case locations marked  Structure of the book UNWTO’s classification of travellers  Classification of visitor attractions Tourist attraction attributes  Model of tourism transformations Tourist attractions as narratives Thunderbolts rock – sign and rock Core marketing concepts of TAs  Model of factors in the effective management of visitor attractions  New South Wales (NSW) with case locations marked  Coffs Harbour coat of arms Advertising logo for Coffs Coast, used 2001–11 Simple diagram of a narrative with a diachronic axis, several synchronic axes and an anachrony Tourist performance at the Big Banana Pioneers’ Cemetery Thunderbolt’s grave The sign for the Big Banana Thunderbolt statue Thunderbolt’s rock Thunderbolt exhibits at the museum ‘Artistic’ view from the Big Banana lookout

viii

xiv xxi 6 12 13 19 25 49 62 74 89 105 106 115 161 173 176 180 194 199 206 212

Figures, Tables and Boxes  ix

Tables 1 2 3 4 5

Attraction typologies: Nominal inventories Attraction categories/classifications Definitions of TAs Attraction precincts TA impacts on environments

10 11 16 18 37

Box 1  Types of souvenirs

216

Acknowledgements

There is a multitude of forces that I am deeply grateful to for lending me their support while I was writing this book. First and foremost my dear wife Sri, who never faltered in her belief and encouragement to finalise the book. My employers, over the years of the project, allowed me to focus some periods on writing, and Southern Cross University allowed me to hire Joshua Hills to revise the manuscript and check my language: thank you SCU and thank you Josh. The theories presented here took shape in discussions with Nick Mansfield and Anthony Lambert at Macquarie University. I do also want to acknowledge that I lived on Indigenous land for most of the time while the book was being written, initially the land of the Gumbaynggirr people, later on the Bundjalung people’s land and finally on Sámi land – the historical palimpsest this creates has shaped my writing, and for that I am thankful.

x

Prologue: ‘So, what’s wrong with the Old Way?’

It was a bright spring morning in 2004. I was sitting outside our family’s vacation house in Lappvik, southern Finland, reading Culture by Chris Jenks (1993). I had arrived only days earlier from Australia, where I had lived for the past four years, and was not being very social in sitting alone reading books. My aunt Nora came up to me and after our initial greetings wondered what I was reading. I showed her the book and explained how Jenks illustrates the different meanings ‘culture’ takes in society and why that is important. She went on to ask why I was reading it. I explained that I wanted to examine and understand tourist attractions in a ‘new way’, to which she replied: ‘So, what’s wrong with the old way?’ Regardless of how simple and self-evident the question sounds now, it was profound. It drew attention to a matter I could not really grasp. I have forgotten how I replied, but I doubt that it was a good answer, because I did not have one – the question was, however, a true turning point in my investigations and something that I would have on my mind from that point forward – and even though I presume you have forgotten the question long ago, dear aunt, my hope is that this book nonetheless provides an answer. Culture is a complicated concept. The fact that it constantly changes is hardly necessary to point out; indeed, ‘cultural change’ features in the name of the book series this work is published in. The ‘new way of seeing things’ was something I unconsciously realised along the way had a strong linkage to tourism and especially how tourist attractions are part of cultural change. Attractions can act as potent agents that change cultures, or can be seen as bastions of conservative cultural maintenance, where changes are resisted, examples of which I will illustrate throughout. This is where my journey started – when I started searching for a new way of seeing tourist attractions, after having studied and worked in the field for several years, and I suddenly felt that many current understandings xi

xii Prologue

were built on loose foundations. I set out to look for an alternative foundation for myself – but did not really know what it was I was looking for, or even why I was not satisfied with the current understanding. There were several nagging concerns that I had, one of which was the use of the self as a study object seemed at that time to be missing in tourism studies (Botterill, 2006). I appreciate the fact that writing in the third-person ‘voice’ is, in positivist discourse, regarded as a more objective and distanced way to analyse experiences, while writing in the first person is often seen as subjective and possibly not analytical enough (Piirto, 2002: 412). I suggest, however, that tourism, in essence, is such a subjective experience that an analysis that closes out the subject in order to remain objective runs the danger of closing out the ‘existence’ of the phenomenon from the studies of it (Tomlin, 1999: 147). It is therefore with pleasure that I have started finding an increasing number of examples in tourism where writing is done in the first person (see, for example, Gran, 2010; Kayser Nielsen, 2010; Morgan & Pritchard, 2005; Wheeller, 2009). My belief is that such an approach has great benefits to offer the general literature, through its closeness to the experience and the subject studied. I will alternate in this book between theoretical sections introducing and examining concepts, and highly personal sections where I am acting the role of a tourist travelling in regional Australia to tourist attractions. The fact that each micro-event is a part of a macro-environment is widely acknowledged (Manning & Cullum-Swan, 1994: 464–465) and I do not assume that all critics will accept my proposed micro-analysis approach without reservation. It might be claimed that my analysis is a mere illustration of a certain experience – nothing that can alter the ways operations are currently managed or understood (Currie, 1998). I answer this criticism by pointing out that my analysis should not be seen as a new ‘grand’ narrative (Barker, 2000: 147). The intention is that my individual account will serve as an illustration of the multitude of small, and at times contradictory, narratives that make up the world of tourist experiences. Another concern I had was the prevalent structuralist emphasis of tourism studies (Jaworski & Pritchard, 2005). I initially accepted the idea that a certain essence could be found in individuals’ as well as in attractions’ beings, and that a commonality could be uncovered through thorough research. I have, however, through my studies of post-structural narrative analysis (Hackley, 2003; Saukko, 2003) and phenomenological accounts (Cresswell, 2004; Ihde, 1993), learned to see the constructedness of each account. An example would be the analysis of tourist attractions (TAs): the general assumption is that an attraction is a ‘thing’ and this ‘thing-ness’ is understood in accounts that analyse the extrinsic parts either as ‘natural’

Prologue xiii

or ‘manmade’. After this initial polarisation, it is then easy to continue analysing how the attraction has been altered, commodified or managed for human consumption – and all of this will be discussed in detail in chapter 1, where I will be defining TAs. However, what I want to do is to take a step back from seeing attractions as things, and rather see them as constructs (Rojek, 1997: 53–54) that can be experienced and perceived in a multitude of ways without any of them being more or less correct than any other. What is so special about TAs? Well, without something that attracts a traveller’s attention, there is really no point in travelling – attractions, in their different forms and types, are the raison d’être for tourism. This is a standard initial statement in much of the research on TAs, and many researchers go on from there to discuss how little attractions have been studied, and how few authors have problematised the concept of attractions (Benckendorff & Pearce, 2003; Fyall et al., 2008; Gunn, 1988; Ioannides & Timothy, 2010; Leask, 2010; Shoval & Raveh, 2004). The word attraction for the attracting entity is, in simplistic terms, merely stating what it is, but the term is also problematic, as no metaphysical force of attraction exists (Leiper, 2005). The equivalent word in many Germanic languages would be literally translated as ‘something worth seeing’ (Swedish – sevärdighet; German – Sehenswürdichkeit; and Dutch – Bezienswaardigheit). All of these words are informative, as they literally state two main elements: the attracting entity can be seen, and somebody has determined that it is worth seeing. The reason I want to critically examine TAs, and their management , is that in choosing one way of looking at a topic, other ways of looking at the same topic are neglected or forgotten (Phillips & Hardy, 2002). A main concern is that in tourism studies words are often too eagerly used to describe complex wholes as if there were no complexity in them at all. An attraction is never just a place that can be described in neutral terms by a passive observer; every description is a construct that already has emphasised some points and forgotten, neglected or suppressed other points. This book aims to deconstruct and construct TAs and show in what way they are related to how people come to understand the locality, region, nation and culture they are a part of – or that they visit. The two methodologies used complement one another by collectively allowing the reader to deconstruct the texts describing a TA, while at the same time being involved in the experience and the construction of the meanings attached to it. One of the key ideas proposed is to critically examine concepts, commonly investigated in tourism, as reified nouns (Bal, 2002; Sharpley, 1994). By not accepting the status of a concept such as an attraction, or a place, as a ‘thing’ (Rantanen, 2003: 437), the concept’s constructedness will

xiv Prologue

be more evident (Rojek & Urry, 1997). My aim is to show the strengths, but also the limitations, of how TAs are currently studied. In order to do this, the book is divided into three parts. The first deals with the current state of how attractions are discussed and understood. The second part deconstructs TAs and shows alternative ways of reading, perceiving and understanding them. The third part then constructs the attractions by detailing the meanings of experiences at selected TAs. The aim in the third part is to show how and why subjective experiences of tourists can be used to understand attractions in a more general sense – not for what they offer to the individual, but as metaphors that aid an understanding of other attractions. I will illustrate my ideas by taking you to TAs I have visited and analysed since this project started. Two Australian TAs are analysed more than others in this book: Thunderbolt – an attraction built on bush romanticism and heritage tourism; and the Big Banana – a postmodern attraction. The fact that my cases are located in Australia should not be seen as a limitation in applying the theories to other places. I happened to live in Australia when the project started, but I am originally from northern Europe, and I have lived and worked in central and southern Europe as well as in North America. I have married into a Southeast Asian family, and I lecture in several Asian countries each year. I therefore try my best to bring a global perspective to these matters and I will, as far as I can, shy away from a simplistic Eurocentric, Anglophone and male-centred viewpoint. Let me briefly introduce my main case studies:

The Bushranger and the Big Banana There are several places in Australia where tourists can experience attrac­ tions based on one specific part of the nation’s history, namely highway bandits called bushrangers. The most famous of these bushrangers – who were active in Australia during the 1800s – was Ned Kelly and his gang. I will, however, focus on a slightly less well known individual: namely Fredrick Ward, or Captain Thunderbolt as he called himself. Thunderbolt was active in the 1860s and committed his crimes in a large area north of Sydney, mostly in the Upper Hunter Valley region, nowadays known as the home of numerous vineyards, and in the New England tablelands, approxi­ mately halfway between Sydney and Brisbane (Figure 1). Rather than discussing the historical veracity of the stories surrounding Thunderbolt, the aim of the case study is to describe to the reader what type of meanings a tourist can draw from experiencing the locations related to Thunderbolt as an attraction. The account is written in the first person,

Prologue xv

Figure 1  Australia, with case locations marked

and at no stage aims to uncover a ‘core’ meaning the local community might attribute to the attraction; rather, the aim is to produce a subjective description of one tourist’s experience of the attraction. By giving the reader an account that describes in detail a visitor’s experience and the texts encountered surrounding the attraction, the aim is to highlight how similar attractions could be analysed, but also managed, in a more inclusive way. The second attraction examined is a ‘Big Thing’ (Barcan, 1996): the Big Banana, located in the sub­tropical town of Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. Big Things are an integral part of post-colonial settler nations; they are typically super-sized statues or monuments of something that signifies the region in which they are situated. The suggestion is that individuals who settle in regions with a short colonial history have an urge to inscribe on the landscape symbols that emphasise a specific product or event related to the region, in order to give the locale an essence (Marling, 1984: 54). This suggestion is partially confirmed by the fact that the two regions in Australia with the highest Indigenous population relative to total population – Northern Territory and Western Australia – have the lowest count of Big Things. Hodge gives additional explanation for this by pointing out that

xvi Prologue

Aboriginal symbols of place are ‘largely non-material’, while White symbols are ‘material – buildings, cities, fences, monuments’ (Hodge, 1999: 60). The Big Banana is a hilariously strange attraction in its frenetic mix of different themes and attractions that, together, form the site. The initial attractor was (and remains) simply a statue made of concrete – an oversized banana. In order to have their pictures taken beside the statue, tourists have to pull off the highway and either stop by the roadside to take a quick picture and then leave or, alternatively, park behind the building where the banana is located and possibly stay for a more extended visit. My intention with the study of the Big Banana was again to search for a meaning that a tourist would attach to the attraction, not to study the meaning attached to it originally by its founders. I experienced it as a postmodern ‘joke’ on what tourism is. The Big Banana and the activities surrounding it all referred intertextually to other popular-culture attractions, and I therefore found that visitors should not so much search for a continuing storyline, as one would in heritage attractions, but rather enjoy the experience as a postmodern narrative, ironically referential. I had heard about the Big Banana long before I first experienced it. It is a tourist icon in the Australian setting, similar to ‘the Roof ’ (of the Opera House) in Sydney, or ‘the Rock’, also known as Uluru (Heimerson, 2000), which immediately associates a specific visual symbol with a place. The first time I heard about Coffs Harbour was at an annual conference in Western Australia. At the conference’s final dinner, the next location for the conference was about to be announced. The MC asked all participants to place one hand between their legs and touch under their seats to see if they could find something surprising. Amongst a wave of laughter, everybody in the room followed the instructions, and a moment later three or four delegates pulled out a banana that had been taped under their seats. The MC then asked: ‘Do you now know where the conference will be arranged next year?’ and to my surprise several people screamed out ‘Coffs Harbour’.

The Aim of This Book This book has the broad focus of exploring the complex and changing relationships between tourism and culture. Specifically, it focuses on places that people visit for touristic purposes and how these tourist attractions are shaped, transformed, created and packaged. Furthermore, by considering TAs from a cultural studies perspective, it questions the way in which they are being managed. In particular, I question the usefulness of existing approaches to managing TAs, given their unquestionably cultural context and

Prologue xvii

nature. I want my work to be a continuation of other books in the Tourism and Cultural Change series, some of which I have used extensively in this book as references. This book is aimed at initially illustrating ‘the old way’ of studying TAs and simultaneously ‘new ways of seeing’ them. I consciously choose to investigate two TAs that seem simple, even mundane. Neither is very well known outside the regional area in which it is located, and neither acts as a primary attraction that individuals would plan their travels around. The rationale for this choice is that cultural studies, as one of its raisons d’être, investigates the popular-culture practices that make up the daily life of people, and through that to elucidate both the society where those practices take place and the political dimensions connected to people’s everyday activities (Barker, 2002: 5). The term ‘political’ should not be seen too narrowly, as referring only to party politics, but also in the sense of ethnic, sex, gender and sub-cultural politics, to name a few dimensions. Therefore, by investigating TAs, through the eyes of cultural studies, I aim to be critically aware of the content – the experience that an individual has when being a tourist. My aim is also to be critically aware of the context in which that tourist is situated, by examining the texts that construct their experience. I aim to pedagogically underline the potential dangers in not conducting a deep enough cultural analysis. Finally, I aim to raise awareness of the hidden political power that is always inherent in all popular-culture practices. In the deconstructive part, using narrative analysis, the aim is to explain how attractions are constructed in certain ways through their surrounding texts. In the constructive part, using linguistic–hermeneutic phenomenology, the aim is to uncover a meaning of the experience of the attraction through personal involvement. The combination of the two approaches allows the reader to follow the complex nature of tourist experiences at particular attractions. Because every experience is a new narrative, into which the tourist combines the different texts that surround a site, each tourist thereby creates a distinctive understanding of that attraction. Additionally, as tourists are isolated in their own experience, they can never understand attractions as stable objects, but only as stages for certain performances.

A rationale for using narrative analysis Narrative analysis is nowadays used in a range of disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology and education. This is, however, a relatively recent development, as narratives used to be viewed, as Margaret Somers puts

xviii Prologue

it, as the ‘epistemological other’ of social sciences, essentially ‘discursive, rather than quantitative; non-explanatory, rather than conditionally propositional; and non-theoretical, rather than one of the theoretically-driven social sciences’ (Somers, 1994: 606). Narrative analysis used to be strongly connected with structuralism, where ‘meanings’ of texts were deduced from different sources to show underlying structural similarities, thus greatly reducing the diversity in each account (Currie, 1998). This book, however, uses narratives in a constructivist manner, where an ultimate meaning is a formation based on the (mini-)narratives included in the analysis. The meaning does in this case not exist ‘before’ the texts describing it – it is constructed by the texts. Where discourse analysis looks at texts and their interconnection with their context, narrative analysis focuses specifically on texts and how they are constructed. Catherine Kohler-Riessman claims that ‘narrative analysis takes as its object of investigation the story itself…. The methodological approach examines the informant’s story and analyzes how it is put together, the linguistic and cultural resources it draws on’ (Kohler-Riessman, 1993: 1–2). To use narrative analysis to depict TAs is therefore not far-fetched. In order for anybody to explain what an attraction is, they have to tell a story about it, and by analysing the different narrated components that comprise it, a holistic understanding of the attraction, and of the narrators involved, can be gained. I will present terminology developed in narrative analysis that will be utilised in this book in Part 2 and I lay out how my use of narrative analysis will complement my phenomenological approach presented in Part 3.

What makes a phenomenological study relevant and reliable? The phenomenological movement is an easy target for accusations that it is unscientific in nature – at least for individuals without deeper understanding of the philosophy’s methodologies. This is because of its diversity of approaches: its reliance on interpretations, on understandings of feelings, and of its ungraspable way of reaching conclusions (Suvantola, 2002). Naturally, one problem is that when there is little general understanding of the movement, then just about any research that claims to be phenomenological or that uses phenomenological terminology might be taken as representative of the methodology, even though a more rigid analysis of it would prove otherwise.

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Critics might be referring to specific pieces of research that in no way advance the general understanding of subjective experiences – which phenomenological studies should – and therefore distance themselves from the movement as a whole. Dermot Moran believed that critiques of phenomenology have appeared from: positivism, with the argument that it is too ‘reliant on intuition’ and that it promotes ‘pseudo-metaphysics’; Marxism, which saw the movement as an ‘apotheosis of bourgeois individualism’; structuralism, which repudiated it for ‘maintaining a naive trust in the evidence of consciousness’; and poststructuralism, through Derrida’s deconstruction, for assuming that it was possible to uncover the ‘full presence of the meaning in an intentional act’ by ‘emphasising the displacement of meaning’ (Moran, 2000: 21). So with all the criticism that the methodology receives, why would I choose it as one of the methodologies here, and how can I suggest that it holds a certain level of relevance and reliability for other studies to build upon? David Seamon claimed that phenomenology offers a way between ‘left and right’ – positivism on the one hand and poststructuralism and deconstruction on the other (Seamon, 2002). He explains that phenomenology, unlike positivist studies, rejects the mind/body dualism that suggests that researchers have to distance their own subjective selves from their objects of study. As tourism is a highly embodied practice that demands all senses are utilised, it does not make sense to simply ‘gaze’ at the practice from the outside and draw conclusions based on an assumption of what the practice meant to the participant. However, phenomenology still investigates a reality ‘out there’ and aims at understanding how individuals create meanings through their contact with that reality; it thus criticises the poststructuralist assumption that a final meaning cannot be assigned to an experience. Jaakko Suvantola explains that ‘texts can be seen as layers of meanings’ in hermeneutic studies as well as in post­structuralism, but texts can equally be read ‘as expressions of lived experiences’ in a phenomenological sense. ‘Therefore the politics and power of representation can be equally meaningful aspects of enquiry in both humanistic and post-structural study’ (Suvantola, 2002: 10). My way of acknowledging that my interpretations are only one perspective in a polysemic context is to combine my usage of hermeneutic and linguistic phenomenology. I will thus propose the meaning of my experiences within the context of an attraction’s constructed nature. Seamon cites Polkinghorne (1983: 46) when he presents ‘four qualities to help readers judge the trustworthiness of phenomenological interpretation: vividness, accuracy, richness, and elegance’ (Seamon, 2002, original emphasis). These qualities are very different from the regular positivist discussions

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of reliability but as Tazim Jamal and Keith Hollinshead suggest, antifoundational ways of undertaking qualitative research demand a different approach to judge ‘validity’ (Jamal & Hollinshead, 2001: 76). Thus, a phenomenological study could be judged to be valuable and valid if it describes vividly a phenomenon that the reader can appreciate as being realistic. It has to be determined as accurate by readers recalling similar experiences for which the phenomenon can act as a metaphor. The text has to be rich in that it is written in an explicit way that allows the reader to get a feeling for the atmosphere in which the phenomenon took place. Finally, the description has to be elegant by presenting the phenomenon in a graceful manner that almost resembles poetry in the manner of its construction. Max van Manen claims that phenomenology can be regarded as ‘scientific in a broad sense, since it is a systematic, explicit, self-critical, and inter­subjective study of its subject matter, our lived experience’ (van Manen, 1990: 11, emphasis added). By this he suggests that there is a set methodo­logical structure by which the method is used. Phenomenology is explicit because it attempts to describe and explain the experiences overtly, rather than leaving them unspoken, like metaphors in, for example, poems. The phenomenologist is constantly aware of issues of subjectivity in the set-up of the research, as bracketing (explained on p. 166) aims to highlight the prejudices held (Moran, 2000: 278). This self-critical attitude might even make phenomenological studies more reliable than positivist studies, where prejudices are hidden away behind a cloak of objectivity (Jamal & ­Hollinshead, 2001: 73). The studies are, finally, intersubjective in that ‘there is a difference between having gone through an experience and thus knowing it, and understanding the experience; the latter does not always follow from the former. Understanding the experience requires that its components and their meanings are recognised’ (Suvantola, 2002: 11). Without readers’ involvement in the subject matter through their own experiences of similar phenomena, the description simply stands as a subjective account without any metaphorical power to explain. The texts therefore need, according to Peter Willis, ‘to tread a fine line which somehow brings together the objective and subjective dimensions of the lived experience’ (Willis, 2001: 4).

Validities Paula Saukko, in discussing the problems of assessing validity in cultural studies, suggests that the aim should rather be to discuss validities, as there are always multiple ways of doing research and reaching logical conclusions,

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even though these valid conclusions are totally contradictory to one another. Each conclusion drawn is a residue of the ‘partial and political views on reality’ that we carry as researchers. She continues: ‘instead of considering this an outrage, scholarship suggesting multiple validities asks us to be more critically aware of what drives our research’ (Saukko, 2003: 18). Equally, if we adopt the notion of validities, we are less likely to end up in debates about the ‘real truth’, as we acknowledge that the polysemic structure of life will never produce simply one notion of truth, and that our understanding of meaning and truth might be totally different from that of the very next person studying exactly the same phenomenon. The adoption of the idea of validities can seem to leave researchers in an overly relativist position. Saukko, though, gets beyond this by suggesting that: one can delineate three broadly different methodological approaches that each subscribe to a different notion of validity. The first, hermeneutic methodological approach obeys what I would term a ‘dialogic’ validity, which means that it evaluates research in terms of how well it manages to capture the lived realities of others.… The second, poststructuralist methodological approach subscribes to what I would term ‘deconstructive’ validity and it assesses the value of research in terms of how well it unravels problematic social discourses that mediate the way in which we perceive reality and other people.… The third, realist or contextualist methodological approach inheres to a contextualist validity, which evaluates research in terms of how well it understands the social, economic and political content and connections of the phenomenon it is studying. (Saukko, 2003: 19) Building on this framework, I suggest that the validities of my hermeneutic phenomenological approach could be understood in terms of the vividness, accuracy, richness and elegance of my descriptions of the tourist experiences in my case studies (Seamon, 2002). The descriptions can be investigated in terms of how systematic, explicit, self-critical and intersubjective they are in relating to the whole phenomena (van Manen, 1990). The linguistic phenomenological approach is additionally judged on how well I utilise deconstructive tools to examine the political assumptions inherent in the presentation of the attraction (Suvantola, 2002:11). Finally, the validities of my analysis of TAs as narratives will be based upon how well I can show that attractions are not self-evident objects, but rather discursively produced reified realities that take their shape from the hegemonic way society embeds consensus views in everyday practice.

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Structure of the Book The book is divided into three parts (see Figure 2). Part 1 is simply called Tourist Attractions and is where I analyse how and why TAs are studied in a particular way currently, and where I introduce alternatives to current methodologies and interpretations. Chapter 1, Defining TAs, covers topics such as why I prefer the term ‘tourist attraction’ to ‘visitor attraction’ (the latter is the standard term in some countries). I discuss the different categories and typologies of TAs used in the tourism literature. This leads to an examination of definitions of TAs currently in use and their benefits and downfalls. The TA system set out by Leiper is examined, followed by a poststructural adaptation of that system. The final section of the chapter then outlines my new definition of TAs.

Figure 2  Structure of the book

Prologue xxiii

Chapter 2, Managing TAs, starts by introducing the TA management paradox. This leads to sections examining how quadruple bottom-line thinking impacts TA management. Success factors and examples of failure in TA management are the following topics. The chapter concludes with an introduction of my second methodology to examine and manage TAs – phenomenology – where I argue the importance of managing singular experiences. The third chapter is titled Maintaining TAs, not in a reactive sense of fixing what is wrong, but rather proactively by staying competitive, by being ahead of other TAs. The chapter starts with an examination of the importance of marketing, and a suggestion that marketing is about creating a coherent narrative for the entity in question. I thereafter discuss how TAs should be planned and designed in order to be sustainable. Societal and contextual challenges are considered in the following section, which scrutinises factors changing the way the sector operates. I briefly discuss the possibility of introducing a quality assurance system for TAs, and also look at benchmarking options, but conclude in both cases that the difficulty is to find comparison in a field where uniqueness is the essence. The final section of the chapter suggests that tourism and TAs are tied up in commercialism, and rather than seeing this as a downfall, revenue is examined as a necessary part of the attraction. Chapter 4, Reading TAs, the first chapter in Part 2, examines TA markers/texts and how different sorts of text can be incorporated in the reading of a TA. I then present my two major case studies, firstly about national fictions – a heritage TA narrative – and secondly a postmodern TA narrative. I show how the narrative structure can be used to ‘syn­thesise’ places and how this is related to TAs. The latter part of the chapter introduces the first piece of terminology from narrative analysis to read TAs – diegesis. Chapter 5, Forming TAs, continues Part 2 by looking at tourists’ preand on-travel narrative consumption, and introduces more terminology from narrative analysis – diachronic, synchronic and anachronic dimensions of narratives and narrative voice – all helping to form the TA for visiting tourists. The chapter concludes with examples from the two cases that illustrate how the theories function. Chapter 6, Forging TAs, the final chapter in Part 2, suggests that certain narrative techniques forge the narratives of TA. It examines how hegemonic messages are common in heritage TAs. The narrative analysis terminology of focalisation is explained and I also show how TAs are re­ inforcing the (imagi)nation. Narrative tempo, a final piece of terminology used in relation to the analysis of TAs, is discussed and it is applied to the case studies to show how a touristic terra nullius is created.

xxiv Prologue

Part 3 of the book looks at how TAs are constructed in tourists’ minds. The first chapter, Chapter 7, Experiencing TAs, begins by explaining how the TAs in the two case studies can be experienced. This is followed by an explanation of phenomenology and some theories that need to be explained to understand how the cases are analysed – the phenomenological triad: Cartesian dualism, and hermeneutic and linguistic phenomenology. I then explain the meaning I attached to my visit at Thunderbolt’s grave in Uralla, and when I arrived at the Big Banana. The final part of the chapter discusses how phenomenology has been used so far in leisure and tourism studies. Chapter 8, Performing TAs, starts by examining how tourist identities have been studied and links that to authentic performances, or object-bound, existential and performative authenticity. The chapter then switches between my experiencing and performing the role of being a tourist at Uralla. Chapter 9, Remembering TAs, the final chapter, examines the importance of memories, where narratives, performances and experiences intersect. I briefly discuss how tourists narrate their identities both in the present tense but more importantly in a past tense for future consumption. The case of the Big Banana is examined through the taking of photographs and by considering the souvenirs in the gift shop. The Epilogue is linked back to this Prologue and attempts to explain how the ‘new ways of seeing things’ aim at complementing rather than substituting the ‘old ways’. The Epilogue also draws some conclusions from the study – what the reader can take away from the book as a whole.

1 Defining TAs

In order to lay the foundations for a new way of understanding attractions, an initial step that needs to be taken is to look at the existing ways that tourist attractions (TAs) are defined and divided into conceptual categories. I will investigate the benefits of dividing attractions into smaller, more manageable categories, but will also scrutinise the philosophical trap of reifica­tions that management theory so often relies on. A range of alternative definitions that are in use in the tourism literature will be investigated here and I will propose a definition for the purpose of this book. As I mentioned in the Prologue, it is common for research on TAs to mention how little attractions have been studied, and how few authors have problematised the concept of attractions. This is a fact that authors comment on in books about attractions (Fyall et al., 2008), chapters on attractions in textbooks (e.g. Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006; Robinson et al., 2013), as well as in articles (e.g. Lovelock, 2004). Peter and Helen Dewhurst state: ‘the size, significance and diverse nature of the visitor attraction sector of the tourism industry make it both a complex and fascinating area of study, but also one where few broad generalisations are appropriate. Indeed, it could well be this latter point that has served to deter commentators from focusing on visitor attractions as a topic for research investigation’ (Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006: 290). Then again, one could ask why attention should be placed on this element of tourism industries – it is just one element in a bundle of industries ranging from travel agents and transport operators to accommodation, food and beverage outlets, as well as retail businesses, just to mention the most common (Leiper, 1995). Each of the different business components is important for most tourism to take place, and so are the environments that tourism occurs in, be they ecological, economical, geographical, political, social, cultural or virtual. Tourism as a whole is made up of the aforementioned elements, which should be 3

4  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

analysed and managed separately; that is why Neil Leiper referred to tourism industries, in the plural (see Hall & Page, 2010): to call it one industry is not helpful when trying to analyse and improve the final outcome – a successful holiday experience for tourists. As Fyall et al. state: ‘attractions represent a complex sector of the tourism industry [sic] and are genuinely not very well understood’ (Fyall et al., 2008: xvii). Thus, coming back to the importance of attractions, without them there would be no point in tourism (Ioannides & Timothy, 2010), though without tourism there would be no point in attractions (Lew, 1987). There would be no reason to travel to distant (or near) places, and none of the other industries would survive without the interrelation between tourism and attractions. It is therefore essential that we study and try to understand attractions better. That is, what TAs really are. Now, I can imagine that some readers would protest at this stage, ‘don’t overestimate the importance of your topic’, or something similar. There are still lots of things that make tourism worthwhile: visiting friends and relatives (VFR), attending events, being a volunteer in a developing country, studying in a foreign country or doing business away from home and having some leisure time on the side, for instance. I agree, each of these is a reason to travel and be a tourist but, –and this is where the importance of defining attractions comes to its fore – what are they really? Are we talking about tourist attractions or tourist attractors? Am I an attraction when my parents travel across the world to see me in Australia? Is the university that I am working at an attraction for the numerous foreign students who decide to do their degrees with us rather than in their home countries? Are the wildlife parks that my colleague travels to in order to work as a volunteer orang-utan carer an attraction? In my opinion, the answer is ‘yes’ to all of the aforementioned questions – but this is also where it is important to define tourist attractions. If just about anything, anybody and everything can be a TA, then it would be impossible to study it, manage it and improve it – correct, but that depends on how we define attractions, and how we construe them in our minds. As I mentioned in the Prologue, the word attraction (to designate the attracting entity) is simplistic and thus not without disadvantages (Leiper, 2004). The words for ‘tourist attractions’ are equally problematic in other languages; the words in many Germanic languages translate literally as ‘something worth seeing’: Swedish, sevärdighet; German Sehenswürdichkeit; Dutch Bezienswaardigheit. All of these words are informative as they literally state two main elements: the attracting entity can be seen and somebody has determined it is worth seeing. In many non-Germanic languages as well, the equivalent term denotes something that can be seen: in Finnish

Defining TAs  5

nähtävyys (something to see) and in Mandarin Chinese ‘jingdien’ (scenic spots) (Nyíri, 2006). But while it is common sense to think of entities that in an almost magnetic fashion attract tourists to them, or to think of entities that are worthy of being seen, these words simultaneously close out alternative attractions that cannot be seen, or that are controversial to different stakeholder groups, and potentially not ‘worthy’ at all to some. This is acknowledged by Richard Prentice when he states: ‘“attraction” is meant in no other way than to describe a site, theme or area which attracts visitors.… It should not be taken to imply that these sites and the like are otherwise thought to be attractive’ (Prentice, 1993: 39). I will return to the problem associated with the word ‘attraction’ towards the end of this chapter, where I discuss the TA system, but firstly let me explain why I refer to TAs rather than visitor attractions, and thereafter introduce how attractions are categorised and defined in the literature.

Tourist Attractions or Visitor Attractions? I have decided to refer to attractions as tourist attractions (TA) rather than visitor attractions (VA). The reason for this choice is that the term tourist attraction is a global signifier. The term has clear connotations and it is descriptive enough to lead readers to an understanding of what is in question. It is, however, quite common, especially in the UK, to refer to visitor attractions in order to incorporate day-trip visitors who enjoy the attraction as well as travellers from further away (Swarbrooke, 2002). This is congruent with the definition of tourists (McCabe, 2009) proposed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO): people on an overnight journey at least 50 km away from their usual place of residence, while other types of visitors would be called same-day visitors or daytrippers (see Figure 3). A reason why the UK, as a relatively small and densely populated country, uses VA might be the fact that day-trippers outnumber tourists staying overnight by a ratio of 11:1, at least in areas where attractions keep such statistics (Robbins & Dickinson, 2008: 112). Anna Leask states, indeed: ‘The term VA is used in preference to tourist attraction, as this emphasises the role of the day visitor market in the successful operation of attractions, rather than simply focussing on the overnight tourist’ (Leask, 2010: 155). The fact that Leask needs to specify that she refers to VAs is quite illu­ strative, because much general tourism research still happily uses the term TA. A reason could be that Leask refers to a specific set of TAs which are specifically attracting a certain day-tripper demographic, though this is

6  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

Figure 3  UNWTO’s classification of travellers. Source: McCabe (2009: 27)

unlikely, as she builds her research and conclusions broadly, on diverse categories of TAs. The downfall, however, with the term ‘visitor attraction’ is that it is simply an attempt to be specific and ‘scientific’ about some issues, while allowing for other irrationalities to stay unquestioned. If ‘visitor’ is a more inclusive term than ‘tourist’, why then is the metaphor attraction retained? An attraction is metaphorically attracting people somewhere, but not in actual terms (Leiper, 1995). An attraction is a reified noun, derived from the verb ‘to attract’. The point here is that management literature commonly reifies social entities as things (e.g. to organise – organisation; to manage – management; or to visit – visitor), without realising the logic trap behind that. Davis Brown highlights that no entities – including TAs – simply come to exist; rather, they are ‘brought into existence’ (Brown, 1996: 43). By deconstructing this often taken-forgranted view of an abstract entity – an attraction – we can appreciate that it is, in reality, only a reified noun. A tourist attraction is only an entity, or a noun, as far as language users accept it as such. The way that reification has taken place is through a range of narrative strategies, which need to be considered separately in order to highlight that they still only describe an abstraction or an action, not an object. This is also one of the aims I have in utilising narrative analysis in this book. The deconstruction of the

Defining TAs  7

narrated elements that construct tourist attractions as reified nouns allows alternative interpretations and understandings to emerge. But let us return to why I am using ‘TA’ rather than ‘VA’ in this book. If someone happens to live close to an iconic TA, such as the Great Wall of China, Walt Disney World in Florida, USA, or the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, and visits it for recreation purposes, they are then, according to the UNWTO definition, ‘visitors’, or day-trippers, rather than ‘tourists’. This is because they do not fulfil the definition of what a tourist is (away from home overnight and at a certain distance from home) and the term ‘visitor attraction’ shows its relevance. However, the word ‘tourist’ carries also with it unfortunate connotations of mass tourism, with associated low-class, cheap and frivolous amusements (Leiper, 2004). In the words of Scott McCabe, research into ‘the overwhelming pejorative use of the word tourist … [would enhance our] understanding in how tourists construct their activities and those of others as social practice’ (McCabe, 2009: 26). Leiper suggested that common-sense understandings of the different words ‘tourist’, ‘tourism’ and ‘travel’ and their underlying meanings are not enough to have a strong basis from which to study tourism academically. For example, he traces the etymology of the word ‘travel’ from the French word travail, originally meaning torture, later labour and now travel. Until the 19th century, travelling was typically torturous, in physical and mental senses. So ‘travel’ suggests labour whereas ‘tourism’ suggests a form of leisure, in which respect they are opposites (Leiper, 1995: 12). ‘It is possible, therefore, to define being a tourist in terms of what it is not: travel which is “forced” in that there is a lack of choice’ (McCabe, 2009: 30). Through these hermeneutic etymological descriptions it is possible to highlight why there is an underlying status difference reflecting how a person taking a journey is described. But the difference in meanings of the words ‘tourist’ and ‘traveller’ can also be traced on a different axis, which separates high art/culture and low (popular) art/culture. In his provocative text, Brian Wheeller argues: ‘it is not too hard then to (simplistically and erroneously?) align high art/culture with travel and the traveller and, conversely, low art/culture with tourism and the (mass) tourist. Both unbridgeable, the traveller/tourist divide is as deep and wide as the high culture/low culture chasm’ (Wheeller, 2009: 194). High Art institutions such as the opera, ballet, galleries and museums are often also considered tourist attractions, but, again, especially in the UK, call themselves visitor attractions. Would tourists not be interested in museums? What then about theme parks? The term commonly used in the USA is ‘tourist attraction’; indeed, the specialist industry magazine on theme parks is called Tourist Attractions and Parks (Emerson, 2010).

8  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

The well known divide between people calling themselves travellers rather than tourists is commonly known as ‘tourist angst’ (Redfoot, 1984), and I suggest that this same angst is also here in action. By referring to TAs as VAs, all stakeholders involved – management, tourists and others – can imagine that they are part of something more ‘worthy’ than what the despised tourist would be interested in. I will not allow this traveller/tourist dichotomy to be an issue. My perception is that people who travel for recreational purposes are tourists, regardless of the mode they travel by, the arrangements through which their journey is planned and booked, the accommodation they use or the type of attractions they visit. There are many types of tourists, and numerous niche descriptions have been created (and similarly many to distinguish the ‘mass tourist’ from other types of tourist) but, in the end, they are all tourists and the attractions they are motivated to visit are therefore tourist attractions. Additionally, I am sure everybody has experienced being a ‘tourist in their own backyard’ at some stage, such as when showing visiting friends around the local region, even if neither the distance they travelled nor the time stayed meets the UNWTO definition’s criteria. The familiar places that one might see every day in one’s daily commute take on a new meaning when experiencing them ‘through the eyes of a tourist’. The Germanic expression for attractions, ‘something worth seeing’, is potentially better, but it is not without its own problems. The fact is that local pubs, shops and markets, which generally have simply utilitarian purposes for local residents, may be well ‘worth seeing’ and act as equally important attractions as some physical objects in the area for tourists. Pat Yale suggests that an attraction is ‘something that is likely to persuade someone to travel away from their home. This generally excludes local sport centres, shops and entertainment facilities’ (Yale, 2004: 2). However, texts related to attractions are consumed or created by all guests, regardless of whether they come from close by or far away – it is based on individual interpretations. Finally, it is an unnecessary complication in English to change a known concept in order to be ‘more inclusive’, or maybe less inclusive, when this new nomer is not as applicable in other languages. The word ‘tourist’, or derivations thereof, works well in many other non-Latin-based languages, such as Swedish, Finnish and Indonesian, whereas ‘visitor’ loses any association with tourism. This is the reason why there is no need to divide TAs and VAs. The definition towards the end of this chapter will explain this in more detail. Ultimately, students at universities study ‘tourism’, not ‘visitation’ and there are courses in ‘tourist management’, not ‘visitor management’ – to call the attractions that tourists are motivated to travel to anything but ‘tourist attractions’ is therefore impractical.

Defining TAs  9

Tourist Attraction Categories and Typologies It is common to come across typologies and classifications of attractions that aim to divide different kinds of attractions into smaller, more manageable entities. Alan Lew suggests that ‘no single agreed-upon typology of attractions exists to conduct an inventory, in part because most places have their own distinctive qualities’ (Lew, 2000: 73). On the basis of an earlier article (Lew, 1987), he goes on to suggest that there are three basic types of attraction inventory: nominal or ideographic, cognitive, and organisational. The most basic definitions, which follow Lew’s nominal/ ideographic inventory, simply divide attractions into natural on the one side and human-made on the other (Tourism Western Australia, 2006); however, the fallacy of this simplification is quite evident by now. Building on this simple division, but with some refinement, authors have suggested attraction typologies with three or four parts, as shown in Table 1. Ideographic categories define and specify TAs according to different specific attributes, such as castles, churches and cathedrals (Lew, 1987). Further divisions of attractions into smaller entities can be found within niche tourist sectors such as heritage attractions (see, for example, Ioannides & Timothy, 2010; Prentice, 1993). Tourism New South Wales, in its accounting booklet for attraction businesses, clearly distances itself from the suggestion that events can be regarded as attractions, generally because the accounting principles of something continuously operating compared with something that is temporally restricted are too varied (Deloitte, 1999: 6). However, it is evident from Table 1 that the types of attractions incorporated are rather similar. The typology that most closely follows the division between natural and human-made attractions is the last one listed in the table, by David Weaver and Laura Lawton. In their typology, both subsections are then further divided into ‘sites’ and ‘events’. This is an interesting structure which allows for a fluent categorisation of attractions in a matrix, but the potential downfall is, as the authors acknowledge, ‘the fact that many if not most attractions are category hybrids’ that contain elements of other sections (Weaver & Lawton, 2010: 115). The two other types of inventory Lew refers to are cognitive and organisational. ‘Cognitive’ refers to attraction categories based on the type of benefits sought and Lew places them broadly on a spectrum between ‘safe’ and ‘risky’ (Lew, 1987: 560), primarily determined by how constructed or ‘authentic’ the TAs are. ‘Organisational’ (or structural) characteristics refers to factors such as whether the TA is an ‘isolated or clustered, urban or rural, low or high capacity, and seasonal or year-round attraction’ (Lew, 2000: 74). In his original article Lew outlined how the different categories he suggested

Nature-related facilities Cultural/educational facilities

Natural

Natural

Environmental

Natural

Natural sites

Deloitte (1999: 6)

Swarbrooke (2002: 5)

Botha (2005: 104–106)

Dewhurst and Dewhurst (2006: 289)

Ioannides and Timothy (2010: 72)

Weaver and Lawton (2010: 115)

Natural events

Cultural

Historico-cultural

Human-made – serves another purpose

Human-made for other purpose

Cultural sites

Entertainment oriented

Entertainment

Human-made, designed and built for visitors

Cultural events

Other (visiting friends or relatives, retail, events, business)

Miscellaneous other

Primary and secondary

Human-made for tourism Events

Amusement and recreation parks

Technological environment

Natural environment

Leiper (1995: 145)

Built environment

Physical resources (land, Socio-cultural resources Capital goods (resources Labour water, etc.) converted through human effort)

Dietvorst and Ashworth (1995: 4–5) Socio-cultural environment

Nominal inventories

Reference

Table 1  Attraction typologies: Nominal inventories

10  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

Points

Primary attraction

Wall (1997: 241–242)

Leiper (2004)

Authenticity

Ownership

Core and supporting products

Weaver and Lawton (2010: 132–136)

Ownership

Leask (2008: 4)

Nodal – linear

Ownership

Botha (2005: 106)

Primary and secondary

Yale (2004: 2–3)

Ownership

Swarbrooke (2002: 5)

Pricing

Spatial Orientation configuration

International Admission –national – charge–free local

Locals versus visitors

Catchment area

Visitor numbers

Scarcity

Man-made– natural

Natural/built

Location (rural, coastal, urban)

Carrying capacity

Size

Size

Escape – E-attraction

Tertiary attraction

Areas

Longer-stay attraction

Secondary attraction

Lines

Catchment area

Tour-circuit attraction

Gunn (1988)

Botti et al. (2008: Discovery – D-attraction 595)

Attraction categories/classifications

References

Table 2  Attraction categories/classifications

Accessibility

Site – event

Education

Target market

Market

Indoor – outdoor

Season

Benefits sought

Defining TAs  11

12  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

could be combined and used to analyse and improve TA research. Classifications of attractions by other authors are slightly more varied, though with some common elements, as can be seen from Table 2. Apart from the categorisations by Clare Gunn, Geoff Wall, Neil Leiper and Laurent Botti et al. (2008) listed in Table 1, similar features are found in most instances. Authors create categories that allow management to conceptually divide different attractions based on elements that can be measured, limited and acted upon; these are what Lew (1987, 2000) refers to as organisational features. Leask points out that definitions and categorisations of TAs are not so much aimed at understanding them, but are, rather, for management purposes. In order to manage TAs, stakeholders need to understand what they include and what is outside their scope. Managers need to be able to compare equivalent attractions to one another (Leask, 2008). She suggests that categories are, as with the act of managing anything, aimed at creating data that are manageable, meaningful and useable. This is both to keep the TA sustainable in the future, but also for marketing purposes. In an attempt to show how the different categories stand in interaction to one another, Leask presented the diagram reproduced in Figure 4.

Figure 4  Classification of visitor attractions. Source: from Leask (2008: 4). With permission from Taylor & Francis Books UK

Defining TAs  13

The complexity of issues that need to be taken in consideration is well portrayed in the diagram, as it combines the different categories into one attraction entity, where each of the categories stands in a certain relationship to the others. Each of the dimensions requires different actions in order to be dealt with properly and efficiently. Yale’s (2004) categories on the one hand and Weaver and Lawton’s (2010) on the other are continuums where each category contains a sliding scale between two extremes, rather than being a list of elements that the categories represent (see Figure 5, taken from Weaver & Lawton). The benefit of these continua is that they show the need to manage and maintain different features for planning and funding purposes. Different decisions are involved depending on where on the continuum an attraction is in terms of ownership structures, fees charged and target markets, and other aspects. These matters will be discussed in more detail in the following two chapters of the book, on managing and maintaining TAs. Leiper’s and Botti et al.’s categories are, however, aimed more at under­ standing the attractions rather than directly managing them – even though their categories do have indirect management consequences. Botti et al. (2008) propose in their method of classifying attractions that attractions consist of clusters of attracting features, in which various needs can be satisfied, with the decisive factor of ‘time spent at the attraction’ being the

Figure 5  Tourist attraction attributes. Source: Weaver and Lawton (2010) Tourism Management (4th edn) (p. 133). With permission from Wiley

14  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

measure of its performance. This perspective seems to be a combination of proposals by Gunn (1988), who divided attractions between longer-stay and shorter-stay attractions that are parts of circuits tourists travel, as well as Wall (1997), who categorised attractions according to their geographical spread. Leiper, who referred to attractions as nuclei, discussed further below, notes: ‘analysing the nuclei in any given place … into primary/secondary/ tertiary classifications can help describe and explain behaviour patterns of individual tourists and, by extension, a collection of tourists. This in turn may be useful in a range of marketing, planning and other managerial issues’ (Leiper, 1995: 146). Thus, with these categories in mind, it is now important to start examining how different authors and organisations define TAs.

Definitions of TAs An underlying feature of many definitions of TAs is that the definitions are created for management purposes, and in order to manage something there needs to be a consensus of what is being managed. The problem I have with this is that it becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog – the reason for the definition should not presuppose the meaning of it. If the structure of a TA is substantially different from any suitable definition, then it should be evident that the definition should be changed, and after it has been changed there is then a need to develop management strategies that allow for the entity to be managed and maintained in a suitable way, in light of the definition. Dewhurst and Dewhurst (2006: 287) correctly state that definitions of TAs ‘lack consensus’. The problems Yale (2004: 1–2) has found with regular attraction definitions are: • • • •

not all attractions are designated; not all attractions are permanent; certain aspects of attractions cannot always be controlled or managed; what constitutes an attraction is not always evident – sports, shopping and entertainment are equally attractors, but not in the same way as ‘attractions’.

Acknowledging these restrictions, and especially underscoring the final point Yale is making, of something being an attraction ‘but not in the same way’, I have below compiled a table with different definitions of tourist attractions (Table 3). The common elements of many of the definitions presented in Table 3 are that they refer to objects, spaces, places or features of manageable entities. I have specifically left out many definitions that are not furthering

Defining TAs  15

this argument because they simply replicate the same common attributes, without much difference. Broad definitions, such as the one by Inskeep (1991), are criticised for not allowing for enough clarity and thus not being useful for management (Swarbrooke, 2002). But narrower definitions of attractions too, such as the one by VisitBritain (2006), are criticised for being restricted, outdated and not nationally relevant – though the advantage of that definition is mentioned, namely ‘its capacity to narrow the focus to managed sites whilst accommodating a wide range of attraction products’ (Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006: 288). I agree that definitions that are too broad are not helpful – if anything goes, nothing is gained. However, Leask, to an extent mirroring Terry Stevens (2000: 61) nearly a decade before her, points out that ‘[t]he everchanging, dynamic market context in which visitor attractions operate thus makes a succinct definition both elusive and, it can be argued, increasingly irrelevant’ (Leask, 2008: 9). I do not agree with this, claiming that definitions are irrelevant or too broad restricts the discussion of what TAs really are. The complexity and wide range of features that can be attractive to tourists can still be summed up in succinct models, such as Leiper’s (1995) tourist attraction system, which I will discuss in more detail in the final section of this chapter. The final definition in Table 3, by Carina Sjöholm (2010), is closer to what I believe could be a way forward for TA research.

Tourist attraction precincts/clusters/complexes – A bridge to experiences A feature that many authors highlight is that TAs seldom ‘stand on their own’: they are generally part of a larger conglomeration of attractions. This is partly covered by Leiper’s definition of primary, secondary and tertiary nuclei. Primary nuclei are iconic attractions that tourists travel long distances to visit, whereas secondary nuclei act as elements in the region of the primary attraction that are known to the tourist before the journey, but are not influential enough to warrant the journey on their own. Tertiary nuclei are attractions that tourists discover while visiting a destination, or on the way to or from it. They are elements that were not known to the tourist before the trip (Leiper, 1995: 146). This is similarly part of Wall’s ideas, where he divides TAs into points, lines and areas (Wall, 1997). In terms of precincts or a conglomeration of attractions, it might be that the individual parts are not attractive enough to motivate a tourist to travel, ‘but in combination a synergistic effect operates – the place is deemed sufficiently attractive to spend leisure time’ (Leiper, 1995: 148). Other authors have also discussed ‘attraction precincts’ – see Table 4.

16  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

Table 3  Definitions of TAs Reference

TA definitions (direct quotations from the literature)

Walsh-Heron and Stevens (1990: 2)

A visitor attraction is a feature in an area that is a place, venue, or focus of activity and does the following: • Sets out to attract visitors (day visitors from resident or tourist population) and is managed accordingly. • Provides a fun and pleasurable experience and an enjoyably way for customers to spend their leisure time. • Is developed to realize this potential. • Is managed as an attraction, providing satisfaction to its customers. • Provides an appropriate level of facilities and services to meet and cater to the demands, needs, and interests of its visitors. • May or may not charge admission for entry.

Inskeep (1991), in Dewhurst and Dewhurst (2006: 288)

In the broadest sense visitor attractions may be defined as anything that serves to attract visitors, including a locality’s climate and scenic beauty, as well as distinctive cultural patterns, the friendliness of local residents, special events and retail outlets.

Leiper (1995: 143)

A tourist attraction is a system comprising three elements: a tourist or human element, a nucleus or central element, and a marker or informative element. A tourist attraction comes into existence when the three elements are connected.

Sears (1998: 3)

[P]laces people go to visit. It also demands a body of images and descriptions of those places – a mythology of unusual things to see – to excite people’s imaginations and induce them to travel.

Ravenscroft et al. (1998: v)

Tourist sites and attractions are not utopian in the strict sense … as they are constructed not as whole worlds, but as compensatory spaces. As Foucault puts it, in terms which describe the experience of many tourist attractions: ‘the heterotopia has the power of juxtaposing in a single place different spaces and locations that are incompatible with each other’ (1986: 14).

Deloitte (1999)

A tourist attraction is a place of interest which offers domestic or international tourists, as well as residents, on a seasonal or year round scheduled basis, organised entertainment, leisure activities and/or education. It does not include traditional sporting, theatrical or film performances, or special events with a limited period of operation.

Defining TAs  17

Swarbrooke (2002: 4–5)

In general terms, attractions tend to be single units, individual sites or clearly defined small-scale geographical areas that are accessible and motivate large numbers of people to travel some distance from their home, usually in their leisure time, to visit them for a short, limited period. This definition clearly excludes uncontrollable and unmanageable phenomena that are sometimes described as attractions, such as climate. Therefore, this definition implies that attractions are entities that are capable of being delimited and managed.

Botha (2005: 103)

Attractions are those occurrences or creations (such as scenery, climate, hot water springs, exceptional flora or fauna, buildings or other architectural work, scenes of historic importance, works of art, places of enjoyment and entertainment, etc.) or happenings (such as festivals, meetings, sport competitions, etc.) in the natural or human-made environments, that motivate people to travel.

VisitBritain (2006: An attraction where it is feasible to charge admission for the sole 13), in Leask (2008: purpose of sightseeing. The attraction must be a permanently 8) established excursion destination, a primary purpose of which is to allow access for entertainment, interest or education; rather than being primarily a retail outlet or a venue of sporting, theatrical, or film performances. It must be open to the public, without prior booking, for published periods each year, and should be capable of attracting day visitors or tourists as well as local residents. In addition, the attraction must be a single business, under a single management so that it is capable of answering the economic questions on revenue, employment etc. Weaver and Lawton Specific and generic features of a destination that attract tourists; (2010: 148) some, but not all, attractions are part of the tourism industry. Sjöholm (2010: 161) A tourist attraction is a social construction, and in this process there are many factors involved: it is a matter of not only practical and economic considerations, but also the expectations of the visitors. The visitors are influenced by diverse kinds of former experiences of the actual place.

18  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

Table 4  Attraction precincts References

Tourism clusters, complexes or precincts (direct quotations from the literature)

Gunn (1988: 51–52) When attractions are grouped into larger complexes they thrive better than smaller, isolated ones…. A major single complex is more efficiently engineered and controlled than many smaller attractions widely dispersed. Jansen-Verbeke and van der Wiel (1995: 139)

In the analysis of the tourist-attraction system and its spatial implications the concept of clustering and networks has been introduced. A cluster is understood as a spatial concentration of different and complementary product elements of tourism, recreation and supporting amenities which attract specific groups of urban users.

Dietvorst (1995: 165)

The various elements of a tourist-recreation product are combined according to knowledge, images, preferences and actual opportunities. To the visitor the amenities appear to be related to each other and are required to be near each other; the whole is more attractive than each separate amenity. These group-specific combinations of spatially related attractions and facilities are called complexes. The tourist-recreation complex is a spatially differentiated whole and it has different spatial scales.

Leiper (1995: 147–148)

Certain nuclei are so special for particular tourists … that they can stand alone…. However, for most tourism these days, clustered nuclei are more important than any unique feature…. Tourist precinct is a useful term for designating a small zone in a town or city where tourists congregate, usually because of clustered attractions achieving synergism rather than one dominant feature.

By opening up the discussion from categorising and defining spaces, places, objects and events as TAs to precincts and clusters as attractions, the question of what actually attracts becomes more relevant. One author who hardly discusses TAs at all in his influential Australian tourism textbook is Michael Hall (2007), even though he otherwise follows similar paths that Leiper does when discussing tourism systems and the partial industrialisation of tourism. What Hall replaces TAs with is ‘the Experience’, which is made up of four products: the service product, the tourism business product, the destination product and the tourist trip product (Hall, 2007: 29, 33). This is a theme I will discuss more in Part 3 of this book, ‘Constructing TAs’. What Hall is highlighting here is, however, of importance to the next section because he acknowledges that attractions are different things for different tourists. Tourists might be attracted for similar reasons to the

Defining TAs  19

same place, but the attraction they experience is seldom the same: they have individual experiences of the TA and it is made up of the environment and context that surround it. A model that earlier aimed at conceptualising the complex relationship between tourists, the time and space they inhabit and the different contexts that together form TAs is Adri Dietvorst and Gregory Ashworth’s model of tourism transformations (see Figure 6). The model shows the ‘continuing transformation of the original tourism-recreation resource [attraction/ nucleus] … by activities and interventions by producers and consumers

Figure 6  Model of tourism transformations. Source: G. Ashworth and A.A.G.J. Dietvorst (eds) (1995) Tourism and Spatial Transformations – Implications for Policy. Reproduced with permission from CAB International, Wallingford, UK.

20  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

of many types, wittingly or not, for a variety of objectives. It embraces material practices as well as the role of image production and interpretation’ (Dietvorst & Ashworth, 1995: 2). The complexity of the model is due to its inclusiveness – it shows how TAs are diverse assemblies of understandings based on personal interpretations tourists have, individual messages the stakeholders of the supply side are enhancing or producing, the context the experience takes place in, and the assembly of all the components into singular experiences. The authors suggest that TAs evolve in the way they do in modern society is due to the general acceleration of society, the shift from the ‘Gutenberg generation’ to the ‘MTV generation’ – something that sounds rather dated now, some 20 years later, but a current change of name to the ‘Facebook generation’ will probably sound as outdated in another 20 years’ time. The underlying premises are, however, the same: information is created in ever faster ways. Books, such as the one I am now writing, may in the future seldom be read in a physical format but rather as an electronic document found through a keyword search. Dietvorst and Ashworth state: the former [generation was] educated with printed word and with logical, sequential thinking, the latter prefers crossing and fragmented stories … no linear logic, no consistency, no separation between private and public, between commerce and arts, between illusion and reality. No longer is the transformation a genuine resource into a tourism-recreation product just a matter of material transformation, but increasingly also a symbolic transformation, in which the image takes precedence over the material product … and the illusion is made up of a collection of visual and aural images. (Dietvorst & Ashworth, 1995: 2–4) In order to use similar ideas to the ones Dietvorst and Ashworth presented in their model, but reduce some of the complexity, I will now turn to Leiper’s TA system, and from there to a poststructural adaptation of it.

The TA system Leiper (1995), in an attempt to analyse TAs as scientific entities, developed a structuralist model based on Dean MacCannell’s (1976) semiotic framework for destination sightseeing. This is still one of the most used theoretical frameworks for TA research because of its structural clarity (Olsson, 2010; Wall Reinius, 2009). MacCannell defined a TA as ‘an empirical relationship between a tourist, a sight and a marker – a piece of

Defining TAs  21

information about a sight’ (MacCannell, 1976: 41). This theory was revolutionary as it removed the inherent ‘attracting power’ from the attraction and gave that power to the tourist, who was now said to be part of the ‘tourist attraction system’. By removing the power of attraction from the sight itself, markers present in the traveller-generating regions, the transit routes and the tourist-destination regions now became a determined connection between the tourist and the attraction. Leiper, building on Gunn (1988), had, however, a different view on what the attraction itself was, and instead of using MacCannell’s word ‘sight’ opted to use Gunn’s term ‘nucleus’ to denote the boundaries that mark the central component of an attraction (Leiper, 1995: 142). It is evident, when reading Leiper’s arguments leading up to the presentation of his model, that he was frustrated with definitions of attractions that too simplistically concentrated on just the attraction, with assumptions about the ‘magnetism’ of attractions, which ‘pull’ travellers to them. Leiper regarded these ideas as nonsensical statements that considered attractions to be ‘metaphysical mysteries’, and highlighted the need to examine attractions from an informed scientific viewpoint. He went as far as claiming: In the literal sense, the only thing that really attracts humans is the Earth; when we fall or jump, gravity causes us to go down. In all other contexts – such as when we are tourists – we direct our attention toward a place, and event or another person, and possibly move towards these phenomena if we are motivated and if there are no constraints.… Tourists are never attracted by anything – except when they fall over or take a bungy jump – but are motivated to move towards or give attention to a wide range of places, sights, activities and events. (Leiper, 2005: 22, emphasis added) In the model, he suggested that attractions have three necessary elements: ‘a tourist or a human element, a nucleus or a central element, and a marker or informative element’ (Leiper, 1995: 143, original emphasis). Leiper specified that the nucleus can be an object, but does not have to be one; it can rather be a place, a precinct, an event, or even an atmosphere. ‘[A]­ttractions can occur almost anywhere’ he suggested (1995: 145, emphasis added). Leiper divided markers into generating markers, which tourists come across while in their home environment; transit markers, which tourists come across while travelling to a destination; and contiguous markers, which are found at the destination (more about these in Chapter 4, ‘Reading TAs’). Greg Richards (2002) explored cultural tourists’ behaviour and motiva­tions, and used Leiper’s TA system. Over 6000 visitors to cultural attractions in Europe and Australia were surveyed and several important

22  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

factors in relation to this book were uncovered in the process. The variables Richards examined in order to test Leiper’s system were, most importantly, the markers tourists had used to make their decision to visit certain attractions, and whether the decision to visit those attractions had been made before setting out on the journey or while travelling. Certain demographic variables were collected, in order to specify how tourist groups – from locales that were different distances from the attractions studied – used markers, and also how groups of different ages and income and education levels used markers differently. Richards (2002) points out two weaknesses with Leiper ’s TA system. Firstly, the structuralist approach emphasises the set ‘reality’ of each element in the system. This point is important to note from a post­ structuralist perspective as neither nucleus nor marker can be regarded as anything but fluid entities that are constructed through their contexts, rather than actual objects that are discovered in their context. Richards builds on John Urry (1990) in an attempt to explain how the generating marker can be expected to contribute to the dominant view of an attraction – the tourist gaze. Richards, however, adds to this MacCannell’s criticism of Urry, that tourists ‘can penetrate, change, and develop the attraction system’ (MacCannell, 2001: 31) and thus create an experience that is an alternative to the dominant gaze. The second weakness, according to Richards, is that Leiper ’s system disregards the meanings that tourists attach to attractions. Richards claims: ‘[b]y studying attraction tourists [sic] more closely, one may gain more insights into how their practices are shaped by the system, and how in turn the attraction system is reproduced through those practices’ (Richards, 2002: 1061). While a primary attraction – a must-see sight or an icon – has a motivational force to entice tourists to visit it, or has an influence on the formation of national identity for the local population, it would simultaneously be so overwhelmingly full of different texts that a narrative analysis of it would only illuminate a minuscule part. Rather, I focus in this book on smaller attrac­ tions that, according to Richards’ (2002) research, are visited by tourists from nearby areas on day trips or by people on longer journeys from farther away as parts of touring circuits. The choice of a case that is related to what has been called ‘heritage tourism’ also follows Richards’ research, as ‘those going to a history museum might be expected to have more interest in local history and culture than those visiting art collections, for whom the motivation might be expected to be related to the abstract “universal” culture represented by the high arts’ (Richards, 2002: 1052). My aim is to investigate meanings of TAs, and this is best done by focusing initially on smaller entities, with less ‘global’ interpretations, and thus meanings.

Defining TAs  23

A poststructural adaptation of the TA system A way of using the principles of Leiper’s TA system, but overcoming the weaknesses pointed out by Richards, is to view the system from a poststructural narrative perspective, in which the attraction is seen as a narrative. The elements from Leiper’s system – the tourist, the marker and the nucleus – are adapted by adding one more element. Rather than assuming that the markers and the nucleus are objective ‘realities’ that mean the same to everybody, they are investigated as subjective clues that make up the final picture. Annette Pritchard and Nigel Morgan claim that ‘[s]pace and place are complex concepts. They are cultural constructions subject to change and negotiation’ (Pritchard & Morgan, 2000b: 899). This approach follows Chris Rojek’s suggestion of viewing attractions as social constructions linked to what he calls ‘collage tourism’, where representations and fabrications are part of the constant indexing and dragging that form the postmodern media society of which tourism is a part (Rojek, 1997). I have decided to quote Rojek extensively on this, as he describes the approach of seeing attractions as social constructions in an economical and transparent way: Metaphorical, allegorical and false information remains a resource in the pattern of tourist culture as an object of reverie, dreaming and speculation. In the social construction of sights this information can be no less important than factual material in processes of indexing. It should not be assumed that either the factual or the fictional have priority in framing the sight. Rather, sight framing involves the interpenetration of factual and fictional elements to support tourist orientations. One should add that indexing operates on conscious and unconscious levels. (Rojek, 1997: 53) Rojek’s explanation highlights the detail that fiction, as much as fact, has an impact on how attractions are perceived: neither should be seen as more important than the other. This notion is important for the redefinition of attractions as narratives. A description of an attraction is not only a factual analysis, but is equally a part of a larger combination of texts that together form the attraction as an abstract concept in the reader’s mind. An author who has developed similar thoughts is Richard Voase, who states: ‘Meaning resides not in externalities but is defined in the mind of the reader at the point of reading; an insight afforded by the analytical paradigm known as post-structuralism. Outside of an encounter between a reader and a text, there is no meaning’ (Voase, 2008: 152). In order to investigate these fluid entities the vocabulary of narrative analysis will therefore substitute Leiper’s ‘marker’ and ‘nucleus’, and a

24  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

tourist attraction is thus defined as being constituted of a tourist, texts, stories, and a fabula. Note that the first and last elements of the definition are in singular form, while the two middle elements – texts and stories, which replace Leiper’s (1995) ‘marker’ – are in plural form. This is to point out that each tourist can construct an individual fabula from a range of different information sources. Mieke Bal (1997) divides narratives into three parts: the text, the story, and the fabula. The first part – text – comprises only the tangible elements of narratives that readers come across, such as written texts, pictures, movies, sounds, structures or other entities that present themselves to the world in a manner that gives the reader specific information. The two other parts are abstract constructs that become evident only through analysis. An author who has combined narratives and the understanding of place is Nicholas Entrikin, who refers to Ricoeur’s discussion of the significance of plots in narratives as they draw together separate entities into comprehensible wholes. The suggestion Entrikin makes here is to treat texts surrounding places similarly to the way Ricoeur treats written texts, where the different attributes of place are ‘emplotted’ onto an understandable whole (Entrikin, 1991: 25). ‘Emplotment’ also takes into consideration the focalisation entailed in different narratives; different authors of place emplot the details in different ways and thus end up with different outcomes. The difference from a positivist description of a TA is that none of these emplotted places claims preference – each is an acceptable version in its own right. One of the goals … is to interpret the meaning of places. The geographer becomes a translator, translating the story of places in such a way that the subjective and objective realities that compose our understanding of place remain interconnected. The geographer as narrator translates his or her stories into a new form and, with interests somewhat different from those of the participant in a place or region, abstracts from the experience of a group. (Entrikin, 1991: 58) This is one of the points I will bring into the study of TAs – an interpretation of their meaning. By incorporating Entrikin’s notion of the narrative structure of place and Bal’s narrative terminology into the study of TAs, it will be easier to see the different texts that refer to a joint story and that combine to form a fabula which acts as the memory of the narrative. A way of visually representing how tourist attractions function as narratives can be seen in Figure 7. The tourist and the fluid fabula created by the tourist are in singular form because each tourist has only one fabula at any one time. The texts about attractions that the tourist comes across

Defining TAs  25

Tourist

Fabula

Texts

Stories

Figure 7  Tourist attractions as narratives. Source: the author

while travelling and the stories those texts are referring to are in plural form, as these are unlimited. At smaller and less well known TAs there will be fewer texts, while at larger and better-known attractions there will be many more. The lines between the tourist, the texts, the stories, and the fabula are full arrows, to demonstrate the constant nature of these links. The line between the tourist and the fabula is a dotted arrow to indicate that a fabula is simply a fluid memory, and it might change for every new text the tourist comes across. In order to understand how a TA fabula is constructed, it is necessary to assemble the pieces of text that can form ‘a’ fabula. While it is true that a range of different fabulae can be assembled, depending on the parts included, each one is reality to the individual who assembled that fabula. When I now take on the task of assembling TAs as narratives, I am fully aware of the fact that ‘my’ fabula is only one possibility among countless others. I am also aware of the fact that ‘my’ fabula is not static; when somebody tells me about a feature in the TA that I did not know about before, that feature will alter my understanding of the attraction and ‘my’ fabula. I therefore suggest that tourist attractions as narratives can be understood as theoretical snapshots at a specific time and, just like other snapshots, inform their audience about a feature at a certain moment. This is well explained in a chapter analysing Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland that rose to TA prominence through its role in Dan Brown’s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code. ‘Rosslyn Chapel is more than just the physical site itself, as tourists will create their own imaginary spaces from, for example, books, newspapers, web pages and films. Thus media, imaginary and physical spaces are interwoven in an ongoing negotiation process, which will continue as new media products are added to people’s previously held experiences as well as new physical visits to tourist sites’ (Månsson, 2010: 180).

26  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

The reason I call TA narratives ‘theoretical snapshots’ is that attractions are not two-dimensional like photographs, but rather multidimensional, incorporating all texts that the tourist has perceived up until that time. However, what makes the analogy with a snapshot valuable is that it encapsulates possible biases, explains why a certain focus highlights specific features, and emphasises features that stakeholders close to the attraction might not be aware of, as they might have a more static understanding of the attraction. The point has been made that meanings do not subsist in the objects and displays which the visitor encounters. Rather, meanings are authored in the mind of the visitor.… The desired outcome is to make sense of the encounter by attempting to incorporate the informational message into the trajectory of one of the personal narratives for which the subject is the bearer. (Voase, 2008: 156-7). My intention is to follow the singular elements of the TA system, starting from a tourist’s initial experiences, when visiting different destinations and collecting material from them, to the final product – the abstract entity that makes up the fabula that was constructed in the process. While Leiper acknowledges that ‘markers’ are constituted from a mixture of different information sources, ranging from mass media through to conversations with friends to brochures produced by tourist entrepreneurs (Leiper, 1995: 152), he never directly analyses the power these messages can have. By dividing his term ‘marker’ into two separate elements – ‘text’ and ‘story’ – this power becomes more evident. Text is the tangible element that will be analysed, while the story is an abstract construct that the texts have formed by presenting the fabula in a certain fashion (Bal, 1997).

Poststructural Narrative Analysis Narrative analysis was under the threat of being viewed as an irrelevant relic from the time when structuralism was popular; however, the development that ‘saved’ it was the adaptation of the theory by researchers who utilised deconstruction as a way of analysing texts. By studying texts as constructed entities, filled with information about the assumptions of the texts’ producers, rich data can be gained that would explain why certain assumptions were held in society. ‘In order to be explanatory, the analysis of plot – understood as the organizing line of a narrative – should be able to take account of intentionality’ (Landa & Onega, 1996: 251). What

Defining TAs  27

poststructuralism added to narrative analysis was the dimension that the actual objects of study were not so much the narratives in themselves, but rather the meta-narratives that they referred to (Currie, 1998: 5). One researcher who took advantage of the continuing popularity of narrative analysis and updated her usage of the method was the Dutch narratologist Mieke Bal. Bal’s first version of her influential book Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, published in English in 1985, followed the structuralist theory put forward by Genette. This approach considered the narrative’s ‘core’ – or essential base structure – to be a starting point for investigations, and Bal named that core of the narrative the fabula. The fabula could be presented in several different versions and ways, thus creating a variety of separate stories. All of those stories were finally perceived by readers, viewers or audiences as a range of texts (Bal, 1997: xv). In the second edition of her book Bal ‘turned around’ the order of analysis of narratives, claiming that it was impossible to have an abstraction as a starting point. She explained: A narrative text is a text in which an agent relates (‘tells’) a story in a particular medium, such as language, imagery, sound, buildings, or a combination thereof. A story is a fabula that is presented in a certain manner. A fabula is a series of logically and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by actors.… The assertion that a narrative text is one in which a story is related implies that the text is not identical to the story…. That does not mean that these layers ‘exist’ independently of one another. The only material which we have for our investigation is the text before us. And even this statement is not correctly put; the readers have only the book, paper and ink, or the strokes of paint on a canvas, the light in a dark movie theatre, and they must use this material to establish the structure of the text. That a text can be divided into three layers is a theoretical supposition.… Only the text layer, embodied in the sign system of language, visual images, or any other, is directly accessible. (Bal, 1997: 5–6) The new approach starts, therefore, from texts, essentially the only tangible element of the narratives that the analyst can discuss. It moves on from there to analyse the different versions offered in the different stories, which can be regarded as aspects of the texts. The stories finally suggest different fabulae, depending on what texts had been used in the analysis. In Bal’s words: ‘It is by way of the text that the reader has access to the story, of which the fabula is, so to speak, a memorial trace that remains with the reader after completion of the reading’ (Bal, 1997: xv). This change of heart rendered

28  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

her open to criticism by narratologists who claimed that the new approach risked relativism, thus nullifying the original basis for narratology, that is, to make the study of narratives scientific and trustworthy (Felluga, 2003). It is, however, this poststructural narrative analysis that I aim to make use of in the forthcoming case studies. I have collected texts that a tourist may come across when visiting attractions. I analyse stories told in the texts collected, and suggest understandings formed through them. My conclusions from the case studies will thereafter be suggestions of the fabula that might be constructed in the tourist’s mind from the different stories. Bal reminds us that neither the story nor the fabula ever ‘exists’ in a tangible form – they are only constructed in analytical studies. Narratives can, however, be found in most life experiences, not only in literature, where the term was originally used for analysis. John Fiske claims that ‘narrative and language are two of the main cultural processes shared by all societies’ (Fiske, 1987: 128). Marcel Danesi goes so far as to claim ‘that human consciousness itself has a narrative structure’; the background to this claim is the realisation that ‘stories of all kinds give coherence and continuity to the thoughts and experiences that people find meaningful’ (Danesi, 1999: 113). This is similar to Dennis Mumby’s position, when he refers to ‘social actors as homo narrans’ – a view he traces back to René Descartes, by highlighting the dualism inherent in social action, between the actors themselves, and their explanation for their actions (Mumby, 1993: 1). Each event in the world that people are in the midst of is, according to Mumby, a ‘socially symbolic act’ that both carries a specific meaning (depending on the social context it is set in) and ‘plays a role in the construction’ of that same context (Mumby, 1993). Mumby borrows this reflection from Fredric Jameson’s powerful book The Political Unconscious, which outlines how all texts in society have a political dimension that can be uncovered by ‘rewriting’ their ‘unconscious’ dimensions (Jameson, 1989). He explains: Interpretation proper – what we call ‘strong’ rewriting … always presupposes, if not a conception of the unconscious itself, then at least some mechanism of mystification or repression in terms of which it would make sense to seek a latent meaning behind a manifest one…. If everything were transparent, then no ideology would be possible, and no domination either: evidently that is not our case. (Jameson, 1989: 60–61) This thought is then further elaborated by pointing out that certain social contexts are more heavily determined than others by powerful social groups. Power then produces meta-narratives in order to create a social context where established power is sustained. Jameson’s text, as well as Benedict Anderson’s

Defining TAs  29

Imagined Communities (1991) and Homi Bhabha’s Nation and Narration (1990), are examples of books that analyse hidden narratives and narrative structures in society, and that contribute to the way individuals learn to narrate their own identities. The underlying message in all of these books is that the Gramscian hegemonic (Joll, 1977) messages that are produced in the media and in other popular-culture sources convince individuals about the way they should understand themselves as parts of a particular society or nation. Peter Ehrenhaus sums up this proposition in arguing that: The value of the concept narrative is therefore its convenience as a shorthand notation for the multiplicity of intersecting fragments that the critic circumscribes in constituting a working text – a story grounded in the social formations through which individuals, as members of an interpretive community, understand the world they inhabit and reproduce that world through their discursive participation and actions. (Ehrenhaus, 1993: 80) This brings to mind Arjun Appadurai’s criticisms of academic engagement when he claims that ‘There is a disturbing tendency … to divorce the study of discursive forms from the study of other institutional forms, and the study of literary discourses from the mundane discourses of bureaucracies, armies, private corporations, and nonstate social organizations’ (Appadurai, 1996: 159). Hall notes, similarly, that power is a concept that has received scant attention in tourism research, something he suggests ‘may reflect a wider apolitical and often uncritical discourse that dominates much of tourism studies, which is grounded in an inherent managerialism and economism that understands the study of tourism as preparing students for employment in the tourism industry and tourism research as being “for” such industry’ (Hall, 2010: 199). What I aim to do in this book is, therefore, to propose that tourist attractions can be studied as narratives and through that redefinition show how the texts and stories surrounding attractions are laden with socially symbolic meanings. By consciously applying a critical reading of those texts, an under­standing will be formed that illuminates why certain fabulae in society gain a stronger acceptance than others, and why TAs should be viewed as ‘tools of political domination’ rather than neutral leisure entities.

Polysemic readings of narratives The value of using definitions in texts is, according to Bal, that they function like dictionaries ‘so that one understands what another means’

30  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

(Bal, 1997: 5). As self-evident as this might sound, what Bal means is that the reading of any text is always a subjective activity, where the reader becomes a co-author of the text. A text could be seen as a proposal, or proposals, of meaning that later are negotiated between the authors and the readers. The more explicit the authors are in describing how they suggest texts be understood, the easier it will be to discuss the text within a mutual framework. Although a text can be read and understood in a specific way, it must always be remembered that the signs of the text ‘perform double duty in social interaction – both denoting and connoting – their interpretation is filled with ambiguity’ (Gottdiener, 2001: 9). While each reader of a text, and each interpreter of a sign, has a specific understanding of the text depending on their own social experiences, Mark Gottdiener reminds us that the discourse interpreted by the reader might have been ‘unintended by its producer, who may have come from another social context. For these reasons, the meanings attached to signs are always polysemic, that is, there are always several equally valid ways of interpreting any sign’ (Gottdiener, 2001: 10, emphasis added). All interpretive work should thus be read as suggestions of meaning rather than verified ‘truths’. Text is used here with a broad definition. According to Chris Barker, text can be seen as ‘anything that generates meaning through signifying practices’ (Barker, 2000: 393). It is common in cultural studies to talk about text as an analytical entity that contains different media: text, reading, and writing are therefore used as uniting concepts in this book when analysing the production and interpretation of pictures, combinations of pictures and written text, and also just the written sections of the texts studied. Arthur Berger comments: ‘Text is an abstract and general term that can be very useful, especially when one is dealing with theoretical matters’ (Berger, 1997: 1). I use Barker’s explanation of text in this book when I discuss written texts, photographs, cartoons or any other meaning-generating source, as a single abstract term will make the flow of the argument better, rather than defining and explaining each form of text as a separate entity. Danesi specifies that ‘the terms message and text are not synonymous. A message refers to what one wishes to communicate; a text refers to how the message is constructed’ (Danesi, 1999: 46, original emphasis). The different texts that I analyse are: the juxtapositions of words, pictures, maps and figures in tourist brochures; information signs at the attractions; the physical environment around the attractions; paintings of the events; internet sites; spoken accounts; and, finally, articles in newspapers regarding the attractions. Positivist studies are generally concerned with grand narratives or, in other words, explanatory narratives that are seen as descriptions of generally

Defining TAs  31

applicable forms of ‘truth’. Statistics is a common way of verifying grand narratives, but typically in this approach generalities based on probabilities are presented as objectively correct in all cases while in fact they are proven to be correct only in most cases. Works in cultural studies mostly reject the validity of grand narratives and instead use different forms of discourse analysis to uncover power structures (Barker, 2000: 88–89). Barker claimed that postmodern thinkers view knowledge as a ‘language-game’, where no one piece of information stands for everybody’s viewpoints, but one should rather view each piece of information as one potential knowledge among other ‘local, plural and heterogenous knowledges’ (Barker, 2002: 147). Part 2 of this book, ‘Deconstructing TAs’ (Chapters 4–6), will highlight theoretical concepts in use in poststructural narrative analysis and examine pieces of text about two TA cases to illustrate how the theory can be used, and where evidence of manipulation of the fabula can be found. An analysis is undertaken simultaneously with the description in an attempt to show the stories that the texts ‘tell’. The stories presented are collated to show how a specific fabula is constructed in the reader’s mind. That the fabula is an abstract construct that builds on an actual attraction can be seen as unnecessarily complicated. Rojek, however, reminds us that ‘meanings are typically negotiated in terms of the relation of representations to other representations. External reality is, so to speak, reduced to an incidental importance. Representations are more immediate and accessible than reality’ (Rojek, 1997: 60).

Conclusion My aim in this chapter has been to explain how TAs are generally under­ stood and construed in tourism research. The initial part of the chapter discussed why I have decided to refer to tourist attractions rather than visitor attractions, highlighting the fact that despite the claimed advantages of inclusivity that the VA concept has, it simultaneously complicates the analysis of TAs by making a working concept abstract. It presumes that tourism is undertaken in a similar day-tripper fashion all over the world, and it might be an indicator of some tourist angst among its proponents. I discussed thereafter how TAs have been placed in different typologies and categories in order to render them manageable, but seldom in order to learn to understand what they are. A similar trend was found in the different definitions used for TAs, and my suggestion was that the reason for a definition should not presuppose its meaning if the definition thereby closes out some attractions.

32  Part 1 Tourist Attractions

The latter part of the chapter presented Leiper’s TA system, and I built on it with the help of poststructuralist narrative analysis terminology. The discussion showed that TAs are socially constructed, based on texts consumed before, during and after tourists have experienced them, and I proposed that they could beneficially be regarded as narratives. The alternative definition I presented was therefore that a tourist attraction is constituted by a tourist, texts, stories, and a fabula. The reason for this alternative definition is to deconstruct and analyse what TAs mean in society and show how power structures can be illuminated through such an examination.

2 Managing TAs

I mentioned before that little has been written about what TAs actually are and what they mean – this is not to say that little has been written about TAs generally. There is substantial material investigating the management of TAs (e.g. Fyall et al., 2008; Swarbrooke, 2002; Walsh-Heron & Stevens, 1990) and numerous chapters in general tourism management books focus on the management of TAs (e.g. Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006; Weaver & Lawton, 2010), as do many journal articles, reports and industry forecasts. This material constitutes useful contributions for practitioners, researchers and students aiming to manage commercial, as well as not-for-profit, attractions successfully. Issues such as development, feasibility studies, management methods, marketing and human resource issues are logically and thoroughly discussed, and it is therefore with certain trepidation that I address ‘management’ in this chapter. It is naturally a fact that management per se is a reified noun and thus constitutes nothing more than the abstract understandings of the field of what managers do – they manage. Therefore, I am not intending to contribute a new overarching manage­ ment theory to replace previous work: that kind of ‘grand narrative’ approach would serve only to aggrandise myself. Instead, my initial aim in this chapter is to discuss the overarching contradiction in TA management, namely to offer TAs to tourists for their consumption, but at the same time to try to minimise the negative effects that consumption brings – something I will call the tourist attraction management paradox. Following on from this I will investigate how quadruple bottom-line thinking affects TAs. The focus will here shift from the operational and economic considerations of managing attractions to the ecological, socio-cultural, ethical and political dimensions of maintaining sustainable attractions. The section looks at ways TAs can be harmonised within their locations in order to offer different stakeholders satisfying results. 33

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I have thereafter collated relevant findings from previous research into what managers do when they manage successful, and not so successful, TAs. By highlighting factors leading to success or failure I will show that tourist experiences are inherently individual and that management of these individual expectations might need new and innovative methods to analyse experiences to understand what type of meanings tourists attach to the TAs. The final section therefore introduces phenomenology as an ­analytical tool to understand meanings tourists attach to TAs, insights which would assist in managing attractions successfully.

The TA Management Paradox John Swarbrooke (2002), in his meticulous book on the development and management of visitor attractions, advances the view that TA ‘products’ in most cases are services, and that they can thus be defined, and in many cases treated, as ‘product/service mixes’. Swarbrooke therefore, throughout his book, uses many theories borrowed from the services literature, and specifically service marketing. This is, in my opinion, a useful method of conceptualising TAs, if the aim is to illustrate for stakeholders who might be new to service theory the differences and difficulties that lie in successfully managing largely intangible experiences compared with product-based businesses. The fact is that many entities that have come to rely on tourism visitation for their survival have in the past had different agendas (Yale, 2004). Rather than museums solely serving the interest of historians and researchers interested in studying development and change, museum managers need to educate lay visitors, among them tourists, about the findings and exhibits the museum holds. Naturally, this has always been one of the agendas, but the modern trend of having to ‘earn the museum’s keep’ through revenueearning activities (Seaton, 2009) means that managers have had to learn from other types of attractions and retail businesses how to do this successfully. Similarly, religious buildings, precincts and routes have for centuries attracted not only people of the faith but also more general tourists (Shackley, 2008). The challenge these managers have today is twofold. Firstly, society is progressively becoming more secular, and less income is thus generated through customary means such as donations, collections or taxes. Secondly, more tourists are travelling and visitation levels are therefore higher, leading to additional pressure (Yale, 2004). This means that people find themselves in management roles of entities, such as museums, cathedrals or national parks, that now have to serve two

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very diverse agendas – to sustain and to promote, and to retain and to share. I call this the tourist attraction management paradox. This is naturally one of the returning challenges in tourism generally – travellers ‘destroy’ the experience they travel to have. The Director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre, Francesco Bandarin, states: ‘Tourism … is a double-edged sword, which on the one hand confers economic benefits through the sale of tickets and visitor spending… but on the other hand, places stress on the fabric of destinations and the communities who live in them’ (Bandarin, 2005: v). Travellers to natural areas travel to see unique examples of innate creation, undisturbed nature, marvels of height, length, volume, magnitude or simply sensory fulfilment (sounds, smells or sights). But by imposing themselves on the experience, the experience is already altered. The positive impacts of natural tourism, such as revenue to promote sustainability and alternative means of living for impoverished locals, always go hand in hand with the negatives, such as degradation of water, earth and air, trampling of sensitive specimens, not to mention the transport and infrastructure required by tourists to enjoy the experience. Brian Wheeller said that no ecotourism attraction is as sustainable as Blackpool, Torremolinos or Miami Beach because they are already developed and ‘destroyed’ beyond help. Any more tourists to such places will not destroy any nature – whereas every single ecotourist who steps off a path in a national park wreaks more havoc than hundreds of tourists in developed regions (Wheeller, 2002). While the notion is tongue-in-cheek, it rings very true. The same is, perhaps surprisingly, the case for other types of attractions. While TAs based on cultural or social traditions help those traditions survive, they simultaneously lead to acculturation, loss of distinctness of regions and boundaries between modified and maintained samples of life (Theodossopoulos, 2010). Tourism is subsequently accused of keeping people ‘hostage’ in their traditional environments in order to maintain the attraction, and not allowing the region to participate in modern society (Ashworth & Van der Aa, 2002; Butcher, 2009; Harrison, 2005; Joy, 2010). Another accusation is that it displaces people socially in attempts to renew tourist areas (Bendix, 2002; Strang, 2010). Equally, TAs based on historical events, periods or architecture receive appreciation and needed income from visitors (Macleod, 2010), but have to balance that with the need for restoration due to overuse and even full rebuilds of original features (Prentice, 1993). All of the examples above relate to TAs that were not originally designed for their touristic purpose, though, as Gunn notes: ‘Every attraction today is created … even the most compelling places do not become true attractions until they are provided with access, lookout points, parking areas,

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interpretation programs.… Our ability to alter the environment is so facile today that choosing not to change a natural feature is itself an act of creation’ (Gunn, 1988: 48). But creation carries with it its opposite – destruction of something else, as Dietvorst and Ashworth state: ‘An old town, a barren agriculturally valueless region or a backward stagnating culture can become a tourist-historic city, a scenic landscape or a distinct saleable cultural entity. Tourism has shaped resources where none existed before. The capacity of tourism to both create and destroy the resources it uses is a dichotomy’ (Dietvorst & Ashworth, 1995: 9). Swarbrooke similarly reminds us that all types of tourist activity at TAs carry with them an impact – either on the attracting feature if it is not purpose built, or by the attraction on the surrounding environment if the attraction is purpose built (Swarbrooke, 2002). Table 5 (compiled from several sources) provides a summary of the positive and negative impacts TAs have on their environments, as well as potential management responses. It is clear that many of these positive and negative impacts of TAs will be seen broadly across the different categories of TA and a distinction between them can at times seem inconsistent, though the intention I have in presenting this is to recognise that TAs have specific attributes and these attributes need to be treated and managed in somewhat different ways. An area that many authors refer to in terms of negative impacts from tourism is the ‘loss of authenticity’. The reason I have not included this in Table 5 is that I am of the opinion that ‘authenticity’, as a convenient descriptor for ‘original’ cultures, objects or traditions, is too simplistic to be useful (I discuss different interpretations of authenticity in Chapter 8, ‘Performing TAs’). The reason I have included acculturation in Table 5 is that the process of cultural change is an inherent feature of society – no culture stays totally unchanged. Tourism and contact between cultures, just like natural environments, bring changes in the perceptions of ‘toured’ people – less so in tourists (Bruner, 1991). This is considered a negative impact because the distinct culture that tourists travel to experience might be the feature that disappears through the contact with tourists, which is yet another example of the TA management paradox. The question to ask, however, is whether that cultural change is solely a negative feature from the perspective of the ‘toured’ people. Thus, the paradox inherent in TAs needs to be acknowledged in order to be managed properly. A factor that is not included at all in Table 5 are the impacts on TAs from external factors. The reason for this exclusion is that it is not part of the tourism management paradox but more a general management challenge that needs to be acknowledged when attempting to maintain the attraction.

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Table 5  TA impacts on environments Type of TA

Positive impacts

Negative impacts

Management action

TA impacts in natural environments

Conservation and protection of flora and fauna; education; awareness of symbiotic relationships; development strategy

Erosion; trampling; souvenir taking; wildlife killed by design or by accident; air and water polluted; lack of clarity

Restricted access; site hardening; interpretation

TA impacts in cultural, social or historical environments

Pride and recognition of local distinctness; preservation of music, art, handicrafts, traditions and language; income and investment generation in otherwise ‘non-productive’ regions; multiplier effect on community; subsidised community services; regeneration of dilapidated areas

Wear and tear; overcrowding; erosion; accidental damage; litter; graffiti; traffic congestion; vandalism; acculturation; commodification and trivialisation; loss of power over own lives; injustices hidden; low-skill, poorly paid jobs; loss of home and livelihood in regenerated neighbourhoods

Empowerment; community ‘buyin’; distinction of staged environment; de-marketing; capacity raising; event creation for capacity flexibility; varied interpretation

TA impacts in political and ethical environments

Uniqueness marketable, thus leading to power for holders of that uniqueness; voice given to minorities

Differences eradicated – homogenised safe consumption offered; unpleasant and controversial issues memorialised

Political and commercial processes separated; polysemic voices allowed for

TA impacts in purposebuilt tourist environments and from events

Generation of change, income, investment and jobs through employment, taxes and infrastructure construction; regeneration; supporting services and products; act as ‘flagship’ for destination branding

Inappropriate and unsightly facilities; traffic congestion, transport issues and need for car parks; pollution of land, air and water; creation of gentrified neutral ‘nonexperiences’; owned by outside stakeholders without local interest; opportunity cost for alternative projects; seasonality

Community consultation; public–private planning partnerships; yield management – price discrimination; queue management

Adapted from: Dewhurst and Dewhurst (2006); Garrod (2008); Leask (2008); Seaton (2009); Sommer and Carrier (2010); Swarbrooke (2002); Van der Aa et al. (2005); Wight (2009); Xie and Wall (2008); Yale (2004)

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Yale lists the following external forces that can have detrimental impacts on TAs: farming, weathering, pollution, building work, and military manoeuvres (Yale, 2004: 6–11). It is clear when reading this list that other stakeholders in society can, on purpose or not, have a large influence over the development of TAs. Some actions unrelated to tourism may lead to the discovery of elements that become TAs in the future, but those same actions might naturally destroy those TA elements in order to carry on their original purposes unhindered. Building on this paradox I will now discuss a related feature of TA management, namely the quadruple bottom line.

Quadruple Bottom Line – Infrastructure and Local Distinctiveness A ‘quadruple bottom line’ refers to a way of viewing any one operation’s ‘profitability’ through different lenses. ‘Bottom line’ is an expression borrowed from accounting practices, where revenue minus expenses equals the ultimate profit, or loss, for a business. The bottom line of an income statement therefore indicates the success or failure of a company. Later environmental considerations added an ecological bottom line to the equation, showing how profitable and how environmentally conscious an operation is. This was termed the double bottom line. A third bottom line was added by also highlighting the social or cultural impacts decisions have. A quadruple bottom line is an extension of this by also taking in account the political or ethical impact stemming from activities. As discussed in the TA manage­ment paradox section above, old mechanisms that simply measured economic viability cannot be used any longer, due to the p ­ otentially negative effects blinkered revenue accumulation can have on the natural environment it takes place in, and due to the effects it has on the local community and its culture (Sommer & Carrier, 2010). However, the debate about whether ethical tourism, in all its guises, is necessarily beneficial to all stakeholders is showing no signs of diminishing. For example, Jim Butcher, from an economic development perspective, argues that ecotourism and other ethical forms of tourism force native people to live in poverty, by ‘capping development at a level that maintains a localised “harmony” between people and nature. Such a notion, at a stroke, rules out development on any transformative scale, as experienced by economically developed countries’ (Butcher, 2009: 255). Butcher’s argument is, however, rebutted by Mick Smith, who argues that ethics is not a strict set of blinkered guidelines but rather a way for people to personally decide how to live their lives, and how to act towards other people and society in

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general. ‘To reject ethics as simply a form of social repression is like refusing to speak or think on the basis that language too is just a social imposition, a form of constraining indoctrination’ (Smith, 2009: 270). The focus of the present volume is on ecological, socio-cultural and political dimensions of maintaining sustainable attractions, in other words how TAs can act as responsible corporate citizens, rather than on considerations of operational and economic factors related to the management of TAs (which I will discuss below and in the following chapter). A holistic concern for society is what much of the remainder of the book will analyse – not so much the natural environment, but the ethical, social, cultural and political dimensions of tourism. The success of TAs is, as I will outline in the next section, ultimately based on location and accessibility. An excellent attraction that follows all the guidelines for being a successful TA is of very limited value if tourists cannot visit it within a reasonable timeframe or cannot access it without undue trouble. Equally, an attraction that does not solve the TA management paradox in an appropriate way will soon erode its own capacity to attract tourists and, at the same time, will create an increasingly hostile host community, left to live in a region ‘raped’ of its natural and cultural richness and beauty. I will initially discuss the types of infrastructure needed for TAs to be provided to tourists, and after that discuss transport considerations. I then argue that TA experiences can be substantially enhanced, and therefore tourist satisfaction increased, by providing a better locally integrated TA ‘package’. Bruce Prideaux (2008) divides infrastructure into two separate com­ ponents: physical infrastructure (which I term resident infrastructure) and tourism product infrastructure. The first category includes infrastructure needed to maintain transport, communication, water, sewage, health, law and education. Each of these elements are necessary for long-term residents to generally carry out their lives in their community, but are equally bene­ficial to tourists who come only for a short time. The latter category covers accommodation providers, food and beverage outlets, shopping oppor­tunities, recreation, entertainment, festivals and actual attractions (Prideaux, 2008). Within the latter category, many of the elements are still beneficial for the local community, but not as necessary for daily functions in society. It could, however, be suggested that the tourism product infrastructure is to some extent enhancing life within the local community and that improvements in both types of infrastructure benefit both locals and tourists. That is often a line taken by tourism boosters who are attempting to gain popular support from communities for developments and investments that ultimately will advantage themselves the most (Sommer & Carrier, 2010).

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The construction of extensive infrastructure to serve tourists is, as outlined in the previous section, already a balance between benefits and drawbacks. Having lots of tourists visiting a region means, for example, that transport links will be improved, with locals benefiting too, but the associated wear and tear, as well as the congestion that follows, create both direct and indirect externalities that the local community is affected by. According to Derek Robbins and Janet Dickinson (2008), the factors influencing the type of transport (modal share) that tourists use to get to attractions are based on three attributes: • the location of the attraction – the further away a TA is from a metropolitan area, or even a regional centre, the less tourists can generally use public transport; • the profile of the visitors – depending on the demographics of the tourists attracted to the TA, such as the ratio of international tourists to domestic tourists, a preference can again be noted for the use of private or public transport; • the size of the attraction – primary attractions are more commonly served by a multitude of transport options than are secondary and tertiary attractions, which are more dependent on tourists’ initiative to visit them. Each of these considerations needs to be recognised in order to provide a balanced and sustainable ‘bottom line’.

Local produce an ingredient of TAs distinctiveness It is surprising and quite annoying how often one comes across examples of TAs and service producers who do not seem to appreciate the value local produce adds to their offerings. The point of travelling to one destination instead of another is in many cases specific TAs – they represent something unique, something that cannot be experienced elsewhere. Because TAs are intangible and they, as a whole, are created by all the texts that are related to them, services and products offered to tourists at them are, in effect, also texts. It is, therefore, imperative for TAs to plan and include all texts in the combined narrative the attraction is. If the attraction is a national park or a wildlife park with clear environmentally friendly policies, why are the t-shirts on sale made of synthetic fibres produced on the other side of the world? If a TA commemorates a historic event in a locality, why are the postcards and mementos on sale simply portraying generic scenes in the destination? I’m sure that most tourists have had similar questions in their

Managing TAs  41

travel ‘careers’, and these questions lie at the core of the popular media that refer to ‘tacky’ souvenir shops, which is a topic I will discuss in Chapter 9, ‘Remembering TAs’. The support for local produce has several ingredients. It is better for the environment, as the produce does not have to be transported long distances before it is sold or consumed; it enhances the locality’s multiplier effect – locally produced services and products employ local people, who can maintain traditional methods of producing cultural artefacts (Blundell, 1993) and the tourism dollar is thus more widely shared in the destination; and, above all, local produce enhances any TA’s distinctiveness (Timothy, 2005). If I decide to travel to a distant country to experience something unique that I cannot experience anywhere else, why would I then want to consume produce that has travelled as far, if not farther, than I have? I know that this discussion is close to questions about ‘object authen­ticity’ (Olsen, 2002), but that is not the point I’m making here. What I am arguing is that, among the texts creating any one TA, management and other stakeholders need to appreciate that apparent economic rationality in choosing specific items and services, such as food and beverages or souvenirs for sale, or employing local people, might not just affect the social, cultural and ecological environment, it might in itself determine the integrity of the TA as a well created narrative. Let me therefore move on to what it is that makes TAs successful entities, and what managers need to be aware of, based on examples of failure.

Success Factors – Good Practice A key feature for all TAs is that they need to satisfy the tourists visiting them enough either to create repeat visitation, or at least to create positive word of mouth (Leask, 2008) if repeat visitation is not possible. Prideaux convincingly states: ‘Success lies beyond preservation of the past and its celebration. Success has much more to do with the decidedly un-nostalgic issues of marketing, pulling power, viability, sustainability and informed management’ (Prideaux, 2008: 81). These are among the themes that I will discuss in more detail. A successful attraction needs to have something that is unique, if not on a global scale, at least on a national or regional scale – depending on the tourist market it appeals to (Swarbrooke, 2002). This unique factor can be a novelty, such as a new built environment (Nyíri, 2006), or be related to trends in society, such as the urge to act in an ecologically conscious way (Lovelock, 2004). Bill Martin and Sandra Mason

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additionally list as TA success factors the need for performance standards to be set, and for the management to be prepared for changes in tourist expectations (Martin & Mason, 1993). A feature that is a rather evident success factor – considering that TAs are constrained by both time and space – is the attraction’s accessibility and more generally its location (Leiper, 2005; Prideaux, 2008). If an attraction is too far away from tourist-generating regions to be reached within a timeframe tourists would find acceptable for the motivational power the attraction holds, or is too hard to access for visiting tourists in its location, then it does not matter how well the other success factors discussed below are managed. Stephen Wanhill presented four elements that all successful TAs must have: entertainment; education; aesthetics, and escapism (Wanhill, 2008b). These can be seen as overarching features all continuing attractions have to various degrees, and whereas all attractions do not provide all features in equal amounts, it can be suggested that they provide a useful ‘formula’ for attraction managers to keep in mind when developing and maintaining the TA. Swarbrooke (2002) reminds also that successful attractions are aware of their competitors, and this is an important point when thinking about the main objectives for different TAs. Very different kinds of attraction may in fact satisfy the same types of needs tourists have, whereas seemingly very similar TAs might satisfy very different needs, and it is based on this that it is important for managers to understand what their main success factors are. Several authors (e.g. Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006; Edensor, 2002) suggest that education and entertainment commonly are offered in a mixture which they refer to as ‘edutainment’. This is to signify that the techniques used to educate tourists at attractions in many cases are entertaining in their own right – and that it is not always easy to make a clear distinction between the two. Edutainment is at times used in a derogatory way, as if education is ‘tarnished’ by being too accessible and enjoyable. This is definitely not my opinion: education should be entertaining, at least to some degree. I will for reasons of clarity discuss the four factors separately, though. Successful TAs are often those that manage to integrate and incorporate the different factors seamlessly. Entertainment does not just mean an irreverent search for joy – though certainly that can be one aspect tourists aim for – but as also aspects such as distraction or diversion. Tourism by necessity takes place in time and space – a tourist is, to use Dietvorst’s word, ‘indivisible’, and ‘time spent somewhere cannot be elsewhere’ (Dietvorst, 1995: 169). That time needs to be planned, as there is a finite amount of it each day – and each activity has a duration. Because of this, tourists rationalise the use of their time by choosing activities that they presume will fulfil their, or their travel parties’,

Managing TAs  43

needs – ‘it is the individual’s own definition of what constitutes enjoyment for them personally that creates the range of motivators’ (Swarbrooke, 2002: 70). Therefore, different needs lead to different types of activities that satisfy tourists in ways they might not even themselves be fully aware of. As any one space has a finite ‘packing capacity’ (Dietvorst, 1995), different attractions fulfil different entertainment needs. Depending on the needs any one tourist is trying to fulfil, they will judge success based on the in­ tangible experience they had, and on tangible elements, such as amenities (e.g. parking, visitor centres, signage, shops, and refreshments) provided at the attraction (Yale, 2004). However, time diversions in their own right are not enough to create successful TAs; individuals in a Weberian society of work ethics (Smith, 2009) may feel guilty about time consumption if there is no productive element incorporated – this is provided by education. Education, similarly, may refer not just to formal training or schooling, but also to wider fields of guidance and information. The act of learning is seen to better a person; by learning new information, people attending a tourist attraction are not idle, but can feel that they are productive in their leisure pursuits. Numerous researchers have found strong links between the quality of guidance and interpretation at sites and tourists’ satisfaction with their experiences (Crouch & Lübbren, 2003; Moscardo & Ballantyne, 2008; Prentice, 1993; Schouten, 1995). This is an important aspect from the perspective of defining TAs as narratives – people are not simply women and men who are thinking – Homo sapiens – but rather are women and men who are telling stories – Homo narrans (Berger, 1997) – and in order for people to make sense of their TA experiences they need to construct stories based on what they learn (Chronis, 2012; Rickly-Boyd, 2009; Tivers & Rakić, 2012). Evidence of this are all the travel stories created, pictures taken at attractions, souvenirs purchased at a location. Each is connected to a story, and without any linking information provided at the attraction, empty of meaning and thus dissatisfying. ‘Adventures become stories in which the teller owns the experience: the story is their property, an abstract currency of social exchange’ (Bell & Lyall, 2002: 33). In the words of Voase: ‘Evidence suggests that an interpretive approach which enables the visitor to add to and extend the narratives by which they make sense of themselves and the world around them is likely to enhance the experience, and hence make that person more likely to visit the attraction’ (Voase, 2008: 162).Yet, a purely didactic experience would not attract many tourists; it also needs to be enjoyable from a different dimension – aesthetics. Aesthetics is, just like the previous success factors, a highly individual concept – the clichéd phrase ‘beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’ has some resonance here, but only from a simplistic perspective.

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With the exception of de Botton’s popular writing on The Art of Travel (2003), beauty has attracted scant attention indeed. This is curious. For tourism has become a significant creator of forms in the contemporary world. At a micro level, tourism creates souvenirs and representations…. At a macro level it scapes parts of the world into seasides, ski resorts and whole tourism cities. (Tribe, 2009: 3) What people consider beautiful has changed over time. The clothing fashion industry is a simple example of an area where fast changes influence large numbers of people’s perception of aesthetics. Architecture is another, more enduring, example where changes in society leave tangible reminders of different perceptions of aesthetics. The study of what humans consider beautiful has a history of over 2000 years, starting from Vitruvius’s De ­architectura, published some years prior to the birth of Christ, which describes how the human eye always seeks harmony and proportions (Eriksson, 2010). In the field of tourism, much research has shown how literature and the visual arts have had an impact on what people consider beautiful and ‘worth seeing’ (Nyíri, 2006; Sears, 1998), for example in terms of the changes in people’s perceptions of mountainous regions (Kirchenblatt-Gimblett, 1998) or seaside destinations (Urry, 1990) or nature in general (Todd, 2009). Architectural aesthetics and the beauty of cityscapes for tourists have also been discussed (Maitland & Smith, 2009). So, even though people have their individual perceptions of what they consider beautiful, some features can be generalised over time. John Tribe summarises aesthetics into three aspects: a subjective experience, such as emotional wellbeing ‘or harmony with nature’; evaluation and appreciation of an external object; and art in its attempts to free ‘us from the conventional limitations of words and language’ through poetics, visual art and musical representations (Tribe, 2009: 11). To the aspect of aesthetics belong also notions of order and neatness, which are features many well managed TAs, for example theme parks, hold in high regard (Klugman, 1995; Martin & Mason, 1993). However, many very successful attractions would hardly be considered aesthetically pleasing by anybody. Sites of dark tourism, as an example, referring to acts of death and destruction (Sharpley & Stone, 2009), are not aesthetic in the word’s common use, as something pleasing. However, the atmosphere they hold is congruent with the experiences tourists seek at the sites. It is additionally common to read in popular media about the contradiction between a beautiful surrounding and a dark tourism attraction, as if horrendous events would not take place, or would not be possible, in beautiful regions. The aesthetic appeal of dark tourism builds on a different feature, and this is the final success factor: escapism.

Managing TAs  45

Escapism has long been noted as a motivating factor in tourism (Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987), but how this is ‘materialised’ in TAs has come under less scrutiny. Researchers have accepted that tourism fulfils tourists’ differing needs, and the defining element in tourism, in comparison with other leisure pursuits, is that those needs include an escape from tourists’ regular environments (Jafari, 1989). As stated earlier, the reason for tourism to take place is to visit some type of TAs, and by logic it can then be stated that it is the chosen attraction that is facilitating the escape that tourists seek. Attractions ‘are constructed … as compensatory spaces’ (Ravenscroft et al., 1998: v). One model of how TAs could be seen as vehicles for escapism or as compensatory spaces is based on Jaap Lengkeek’s concept of ‘counter­ structure’. The model in his argument is made up of three elements: the actual counterstructure – the touristic reality that individual tourists aim for, depending on what they want to get away from; the experience – which is ‘structured by different actors and the everyday here-and-now world of the host community; and the doxa – ‘a thematization or typification of this life-world, in which certain notions become relevant and others not … the right appreciation … the proper behaviour … the right clothes … the true knowledge of attractions…. The doxa defines any state of affairs as the state of affairs (Lengkeek, 1995: 29, original emphasis ). This means that tourists escape from their regular environment into TA experiences ‘armed’ with notions of what to look for, feel and do – in itself reasonably self-evident. But it means that ‘escape’ is thus not an unstructured yearning for difference, but rather a hermeneutic comparison of preconceived notions of what the experience and the attraction should be like. The satisfaction of the escape element in a TA is when the pre-perceived ‘other’ has been ‘achieved’. The challenge in both analysing and managing TAs based on the four success factors described above has thus two determining factors. Firstly, each individual tourist visiting a TA is coming to the attraction with different needs, different perceptions of aesthetics and different preconceived ideas of what the TA should be like – based on what they are getting away from. Anybody offering an entity to tourists for consumption as a tourist attraction can only create a suitable scene for the tourist performances to take place in. Secondly, as if the first would not be difficult enough, each experience that all the tourists have, will, just like services, be different. It is impossible to fully standardise the experience. It is co-produced by all the actors participating in the experience – the tourists themselves, local people, staff, travel companions and other tourists. And, because it is time and space dependent, it is perishable and has to be consumed at a certain place and point in time (Swarbrooke, 2002). Therefore, management methods that simply focus on the attraction’s physical properties and classify or define attractions based

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on regular management principles will not achieve their full potential. As Tim Smit notes, indirectly referring to the narrative structure of successful attractions: ‘The real champions for growth … have all transformed themselves into relevant, personal organizations that have strengthened their storytelling ability beyond recognition over the last few years’ (Smit, 2008: xiv). But, well told stories and opportunities for tourist performance are naturally not all that makes a TA successful; many elements co-contribute to the success, and one of the best ways of determining success is by looking at failure, because cases of TAs that have run into trouble or even had to discontinue may have common features to be wary of.

White Elephants – Or How Not to Plan and Manage TAs It is rather easy to find examples in tourism literature about ‘successful’ TAs. A simple database search using the search phrase ‘tourist attraction’ delivers a large number of articles with names in the style ‘X as tourist attractions’, where X can stand for any one variable that the authors have a special interest in. Few of these articles, though, analyse the reasons for success in very much detail; they tend instead to focus on the fact that a specific interest seem to motivate people to visit a particular location. It is much harder to find articles describing unsuccessful TAs, probably because these would need deeper analysis of success factors and a longitudinal approach. One of the few is Leiper’s ‘Big success, big mistake at Big Banana’ (1997) which is referred to in many books about TAs, and was also later made into a chapter in Leiper’s tourism management textbook (2004). An interesting feature of this case is that the TA being analysed still existed at the present time of writing, nearly 20 years after the initial case was published, and so ‘failure’ in this case did not mean that the core element of the attraction soon disappeared (it is, indeed, one of my main cases here); rather, that the investments surrounding the attraction failed. Leiper describes how the operators of the attraction were not aware of the distinction between primary and secondary attractions and therefore miscalculated the number of people who would be interested in visiting the Big Banana and surrounding services as a stand-alone feature (a primary attraction), instead of as a stop-over element in tourists’ transit to a final destination (a secondary or even tertiary attraction). Steven Richards and Keith Wilkes (2008) have studied business failure more generally and based on that, and a few tourism cases, created a list of reasons why TAs fail. These include: over-optimistic visitor projections; poorly planned content and objectives for the TA; location of the TA; lack of

Managing TAs  47

project management experience; and undercapitalisation. Although many of these reasons seem to be fairly obvious, it is surprising how commonly they appear in unsuccessful attractions. The first reason, inflated visitor projections, is an unfortunately common feature of boosterism, which is driven by interest groups that boost tourism numbers in order to advance their own agenda. Examples of this are projects where consulting companies are responsible for both the feasibility study and the action plan for the investment (Baker, 2000; Ward, 2004). The feasibility study is in these cases about creating not so much a realistic picture of actual visitation numbers but more of a projection that will ensure that the project will go ahead. This has even been made into an episode of the animated American TV series The Simpsons, ‘Marge vs the monorail’, in which the people in Springfield, the town where most of the episodes take place, decide to spend an unsuspected collective financial windfall on building a monorail to attract tourists to the town, instead of spending it on improving the town’s faltering public infrastructure (Moore, 1993). Other reasons such as undercapitalisation and lack of project management expertise are readily explained by general management theory and can be successfully averted by better understanding of the field. To illustrate the importance of proper financial awareness and need for capital investment initially and on an ongoing basis, several authors discuss the necessity for theme parks to reinvest up to 15% of their yearly turnover on new rides in order to ensure repeat visitation (Braun & Soskin, 2008; Wanhill, 2008a). The lack of project management skills can again lead to irrational decisions being made, with large investments even having a negative impact on the actual experience (Richards & Wilkes, 2008). Considering this from the perspective of TAs, where stakeholders are not normally in service management roles, highlights why awareness of general management theories are necessary to avoid enterprises failing. Having described what research has found to be the most important factors for successful TAs and also looked at reasons for failure, where awareness of management theories would be helpful to avert disappointments, I now finally turn to the reasons for failure that are most closely connected to the idea of defining attractions as narratives, namely TAs with poorly planned content and objectives. These factors are interrelated and need to be planned, designed and managed in unison, with the latter factor needing the initial focus at any time of change. If the four elements of TA success, to provide experiences that entertain, educate, are aesthetic and allow for escape, are seen as potential objectives, then the content needs to be created in a way that leads tourist experiences to that objective. The

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communication of all of these objectives depends on the texts that are formed by the TA stakeholders. Again, the texts are more than the promotional and interpretive material but will include, for example, the servicescape, made up of colours, sounds and smells that the TA is situated in (and emotional responses to these), as well as staff behaviour and roles played. It could be suggested that this makes TAs into McDisneyfied (Ritzer & Liska, 1997) commercial leisure products, but the point here is beyond that – any of the four objectives can be the main element and the content of the texts will therefore be totally different at each attraction. If the TA, as an example, is a natural feature, say a national park, and the core purpose is conservation and sustainability, then the objective for the park as a TA could be to provide tourists with an escape from the surrounding built environment. This would mean that texts facilitating that objective would need to be held in focus. Segmentation exercises would initially show what kinds of tourist are attracted to the TA, and what those tourists are escaping from. The counterstructure of the TA needs be planned based not only on the tourists’ regular environment but also on the other success factors, including education, entertainment and aesthetics, linking in with escape. Now, this is again not to be confused with pure promotions; the point here is to provide satisfying experiences for tourists at the TA, while maintaining the purpose of the entity to exist in the first place. This will be discussed in the following chapter, where I will turn my attention to TA maintenance through marketing, planning and design, TA challenges and benchmarking. I suggested above that each tourist will be satisfied and dissatisfied with an experience for very personal reasons. Tourists come from different backgrounds and have different demographics (age, sex, ethnicity, nationality, education, employment) and this needs to be represented in a TA’s marketing concept. To successfully manage the multitude of expectations and to offer tourists TAs that are satisfying, managers tend to generalise the tourist market segment arriving at the TA; they seek to validate their decisions by showing numbers, graphs built on statistics and major surveys. All of this is important and has its place, I do not deny that, but what these methods ultimately do is homogenise the experiences and expectations so that they represent what ‘most’ tourists want. I stated above that each tourist is an individual, and each individual has singular experiences. Therefore, in order to be aware of what individual tourists understand as their meaning of the TA experience, new methods are needed to investigate TAs. By knowing what meaning tourists attach to their individuals experiences, managers can more efficiently alter their product offering by referring to the success factors and objectives stated for their TA. ‘The potential of this approach [hermeneutic

Managing TAs  49

phenomenology] is vast and comprises a large spectrum of possible research subjects from tourists, hosts, workers, and students, to members of local communities’ (Pernecky & Jamal, 2010: 1071). However, it be impractical for each tourist visiting the TA to say what meanings they attached to their experience; it would be too time-consuming for most attractions to collect the data and analyse it, and too time-consuming for the tourists as well. But select tourists could be asked to offer their in-depth stories about the TA, and through them an assortment of alternative meanings could be shown as metaphors for how tourists experience the attraction.

Managing Individual Tourist Experiences My first encounter with ‘Thunderbolt’ was on a Christmas holiday that I spent driving from Sydney to Queensland in eastern Australia. While driving on the tablelands that make up the area called New England, approximately 550 km north of Sydney – and about 100 km west of the coastline, I suddenly saw three things that at the time did not have any meaning to me. The first was a sign on the left-hand side of the road simply stating ‘Thunderbolts rock’ (Figure 8). The second was a large stone boulder

Figure 8  Thunderbolts rock – sign and rock. Source: The author

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on the right-hand side of the road, covered in colourful graffiti. The final thing was opposite the boulder, again on the left-hand side of the road, a sign wishing me welcome to New England, and in smaller text underneath ‘Uralla’, ‘Thunderbolt Country’. The only thing that really stuck in my mind was the graffiti-covered boulder, as I had recently written an article about tourist sites and graffiti (Edelheim, 2002) and I wondered why that special boulder was so popular to tag (Rahn, 2002: 4). As I was entering the township of Uralla, there was another sign on the left-hand side of the road welcoming the travellers to ‘Uralla – Historic Thunderbolt Country’. Not long after that was yet another sign, this time on the right-hand side of the road, pointing to ‘Thunderbolt’s grave’. Passing the town’s tourist office a little later I saw a statue of a man riding a horse, but did not stop at that time to discover anything more about the story. Three weeks later, on my way south again, I happened to come to Uralla when the sun was setting and, reluctant to continue driving in darkness, I found one of the town’s camping grounds and set up my tent for the night. This time I did go to the tourist office; it was closed for the evening, but I picked up a brochure that was available outside about the town’s TAs. I learnt from the brochure that the town traced its history back to 1834 – even though I later learned that the town’s name was derived from the Indigenous word meaning meeting place and thus referred to a history much older than the printed non-Aboriginal account I came across. The brochure stated that Uralla had ‘originally’ been an outback sheep station, and that the shire nowadays had approximately 5900 inhabitants. The town’s shops and hospitality enterprises were using the area’s (in)famous person to the full extent: according to the Uralla Visitor Information Centre there was a ‘Bushranger Motor Inn’, ‘Thunderbolt Inn’, ‘Thunderbolt Fuels’, ‘Thunder­ bolt Country Kitchen’, ‘Thunderbolt Gallery’ and the road that crosses the town was even named ‘Thunderbolt’s Way’. The image I gained of the town, as a first-time visitor, was that the person must have been, and still is, a local hero who had helped the region in a way that would make him a symbol of the area. I did some more research when I returned home from my journey and found, to my surprise, that Thunderbolt was a criminal, a horse thief who had escaped from prison, held up travellers and eluded the police for six and a half years until finally being shot by Constable Walker some kilometres south of Uralla in 1870. The question that was bothering me, and I wanted to find an answer to, was: ‘Why does a town celebrate a criminal as a hero, naming hotels, roads and galleries after him and at the same time not naming one place in the whole town after the police officer who finally caught him?’

Managing TAs  51

The assumption I made was that the experience and the meaning of the bushranger must be somehow extraordinary. Katrina Schlunke suggested that tourist sites need to be simultaneously ‘opened and closed’ (Schlunke, 2005: 34). With this she means that in order for places to become interesting to tourists as attractions, the places need to be presented and the visitors must be given some information so that they can self-narrate different scenarios about the sites – in other words, opened. But the meanings cannot be infinite; the visitors need certain parameters in order not to be confused, so the places are closed. An example of how this two-sided approach works in Uralla is the fact that the Thunder­bolt story has survived some 150 years and still attracts visitors. The original narrative – the bushranger, his escapades, his partners in crime and life – are all known to an extent, but even though official sources end his life in Uralla, alternative texts see his life and legend continuing elsewhere (as I will describe in the deconstructive part of the book) and visitors are thus given the opportunity to imagine for themselves alternative narrative closures. Phenomenology is a way for me, as a researcher, to experience the attractions I am analysing from the angle of a tourist. While a simple personal description of an attraction would hardly yield any new knowledge about TAs for a larger audience, a well performed description from a phenomenologist might function as a metaphor through which other attractions can be described and understood (Armstrong, 2004: 251). I claim that tourism researchers who use different quantitative methodologies are ignoring the actual being of tourism. Tourism is a lived and embodied experience that can never be the same for everybody, not even for the same person at different times. Regardless of how well staged or arranged any attraction is, it always comes down to human beings experiencing it in their personal ways, at a particular time, yielding a specific phenomenon. It could even be said that each tourist functions as an unconscious phenomenologist when experiencing attractions: the tourist acknowledges both noematic and noetic features (Shapiro, 1985: 12) and the ex­perience is therefore perceived as a product of the dialectic between the two. Tourists are attempting to get ‘beyond’ the attraction to understand the meaning of it. Researchers have coined a term for this phenomenon: tourist angst (Redfoot, 1984). Tourist angst can be described as the dissatisfaction tourists have with ‘merely’ experiencing staged attractions and an urge to learn how the attraction is to be perceived ‘in reality’. This angst is a typical product of positivist thinking, where it is assumed that everything has a true core that can be found if the ‘researcher digs deep enough into the matter’ – in a way based on Plato’s ideal forms (Casey, 1976). I argue, on the other hand, in line with Alison McIntosh and Richard Prentice, that ‘attractions are in

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essence experiential products facilitating feelings, emotions, imagination and knowledge; quite literally constructions for experience’ (McIntosh & Prentice, 1999: 607), of which there is no core to be uncovered or understood – there is only an experience. I felt that tourism research in many respects lacked a solid base to build upon, and I wanted to critically analyse it and the meaning of tourism from ‘outside’ that tradition, utilising methodologies generally not employed in tourism studies. I set out to construct that solid base, at least for myself, to build upon. Motivation came from a slogan for phenomenology: ‘Meanings inspired only by remote, confused, inauthentic intuitions – if by any in­ tuitions at all – are not enough: we must go back to the “things themselves”’ (‘Wir wollen auf die “Sachen selbst” zurückgehen’) (Husserl, 2001 [1913]: 88). This slogan, which functions as a play on words in German, simultaneously meaning ‘going back to things’ (rather than thoughts) and ‘Let’s get down to business’ (Kersten, 1989: 5), was part of the introduction to Husserl’s Logical Investigations. Husserl wanted to get back to the experiences and investigate them on their own, and he wanted to get down to business and start his philosophical investigations without presuppositions from other philosophical traditions. I therefore chose phenomenology as one of my method­ologies because I wanted to investigate tourist experiences on their own, without the presuppositions originating in earlier tourism studies. Jamal and Hollinshead highlight the strong positivist emphasis in current tourism studies and the common misconceptions held about qualitative research methodologies. They suggest, for example, that positivist research – written from a disengaged third-person perspective – seems to overlook the anti-foundational approach of the hermeneutic tradition, which requires ‘an interpretive relationship between the seer and that which is seen, for example, by the tourist gaze and as experienced by the tourist self ’ (Jamal & Hollinshead, 2001: 69). Martin Heidegger explained that the basic condition for human beings to construct the meaning of their experiences is to be interpretive beings who can understand their surroundings within the parameters of previously gained information (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]: 62). In order for me to explain specific tourist experiences, I must therefore be personally involved in the phenomenon – and the writing of that data in a disengaged third-person voice would thus be a hypocritical attempt to make the account sound more scientific than it is. Another researcher who argues for the use of a ‘situated voice’ in tourism studies is David Botterill, who states that he wants ‘to participate in and celebrate’ the situated voice in research (Botterill, 2006: 1399). Constructivist understandings of objectivity similarly stress that objectivity is a notion among a group of ‘experts’ in an area, who together define

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an ontological ‘truth’ based on an understanding constructed within that group. This relativist perspective has as its outcome that nothing can be deemed objective on a universal scale, but rather only objective in relation to a predetermined notion of reality (Cohen, 2004). By using instead an immediate conscious framework – which is overtly and outspokenly subjective – my study can be approached from several dimensions without the problems of gathering questionnaires, conducting interviews, filming tourist behaviour, studying statistics, or any other methodologies – all of which rely on disengaged ‘objective’ research. While all of those approaches have their own strengths, they do not, at the same time, lack weaknesses in reliability. I do not in any way claim that I have found the only right way to do a study, or that my findings may or may not in places be totally misunderstood, but on the other hand neither do I see any other methodology as infallible. The multiple ways of forming questionnaires, the multiple ways of understanding and answering questionnaires, the problem of language barriers in interviews, and the possibility of behaviour modifications in interviews or participant observations (Ryan, 2000) are all examples of unintended biases that might lead objective studies astray. Peter Willis gives the following argument for the usage of phenomenology in research: It is not uncommon for researchers to seek validation of a hypothesis derived from a particular theoretical approach by doing fieldwork in search of evidence to substantiate it. This quest for what one has decided to look for can cloud the researcher’s gaze so that significant elements of the human activity being researched can be overlooked. The phenomenological stance seeks to approach events and activities with an investigative mind deliberately open, consciously trying to ‘bracket out’ assumptions and remain attentive to what is present. (Willis, 2001: 1) By consciously taking on an approach that rejects presuppositions regarding any phenomenon’s causal nature, I am in this research aiming to lay bare constitutive elements of TAs as they are presented to the viewer and simultaneously perceived. The original description of the phenomenon is naturally subjective in that it vividly describes one phenomenon. The goal is, however, to reflect on the phenomenon and thereby ‘generate some echoes in others, particularly those with similar experiences’ (Willis, 2001: 3). My aim is to describe TAs from the perspective of one tourist, myself, and to uncover what elements of the experience (Erlebnis) at that attraction constituted the experience (Erfahrung) in exactly the way it was experienced (erlebt) by me. Or, in other words, I will try to investigate what made the

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phenomenon mean what it did to me by interpreting the existentials found at the attraction (van Manen, 2002), and without which it would not have been the same phenomenon. I naturally acknowledge that I, as a Caucasian man, am writing a text from my own subjective white, middle-class, male position, but counter this by also examining this awareness of mine in its own right when producing my texts. I also suggest that the methodology I am investigating here, and the method I am describing, is a suitable contribution for any researcher in future studies to utilise in investigations aimed at questioning hegemonic epistemologies in tourism. Stanton Garner, while examining the application of phenomenology to performance in contemporary drama, could as easily be discussing tourist experiences. He points out that an experience taking place ‘within’ an individual’s ‘body resists the epistemological model of a corporeal object yielding its meanings to a decorporealized observer’ (Garner, 1994: 50). In other words, the traditional way of doing tourism studies, which is mostly distanced from the object, does not allow the interpreter to suggest internalised meanings of the experience, but rather just presents external, and disembodied, guesses at that same meaning. ‘The field of Tourism Studies is yet to embrace varied epistemologies (such as constructionism) and methodologies (e.g. hermeneutic phenomenology) in making sense of the dynamic characteristics of everything touristic’ (Pernecky, 2010: 9).

Phenomenological Aims – My Methodology The general framework for phenomenological studies is the phenomenological triad (retrospection, bracketing, and essential themes), described in detail in Chapter 7. I want to outline here how I aim to employ these concepts in my study. I have, following Seamon (2002), decided to write my phenomenological accounts as first-person descriptions. By doing this I aim to illuminate a range of incidents from the perspective of my own experiences of being a tourist and from them draw out the meanings of the phenomena. The meanings I aim to distinguish are not related to the motivations I have for visiting certain attractions, nor am I interested in the meanings of the motivations somebody else has for establishing the attractions. My understanding is that research into motivations is more interested in learning about the individual stakeholders than about understanding the meanings people associate with the attractions themselves. My aim is to understand the types of meanings inherent in TAs that have an impact on how I, as a tourist at those attractions, come to

Managing TAs  55

ex­perience them in the way I do. Judgements and perceptions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction are ultimately linked to some underlying factors residing intrinsically in the experience and, rather than trust a priori expectations, or draw causal conclusions based on presuppositions, I want to investigate empirically what those meanings are. These meanings are presented as nothing but my subjective accounts. No further generalisation is suggested for what the meanings might be for other tourists. The result is, rather, as stated earlier, meant to act as metaphors through which other experiences can be seen. Seamon once criticised a first-person account for not being reliable because it was written by ‘an outsider’ who described the meaning of landscapes visited. I want to clarify, therefore, from the beginning that my accounts are purposefully done as an outsider. My intention is not to gain an understanding of the meaning of experiences that a local person would have of that attraction, but rather to gain an understanding of what meaning I, as a tourist, draw from the attractions I visited. This distinction is important, as it raises one of the crucial points of this book – an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ never have the same experience of a TA because the assumptions they build upon are inherently different. Therefore, by explaining what an outsider experiences at an attraction I hope to illuminate that subjective position for managers in charge of TAs so that they might have a chance to see ‘their’ attraction through somebody else’s eyes and, in turn, learn about the meanings created. My aim is to use a combination of hermeneutic and linguistic phenomenology, as I have found, in my reading of earlier studies, the explanatory form of hermeneutic phenomenology enlightening because it adds an awareness of the historicity of the phenomena investigated. I have not, however, been satisfied with the way some studies stop at the stage where certain meanings are reached without adding to that a linguistic interpretation of potential associated meanings. I will not, however, carry on that investigation in its potential eternal ‘differance’, but rather add to the interpretation of themes an additional layer of linguistic explanation. In this I follow Jamal and Hollinshead’s suggestion ‘that this enterprise of hermeneutics, “the understanding of understanding”, does not need to be reified into a para-science as epistemology once was’ (Jamal & Hollinshead, 2001: 69). But hermeneutics on its own relies too much on idealist assumptions of ultimate meanings of authors and that is why I want to add the linguistic dimension to my approach. This might be regarded as a contradictory aim, as Saukko, for example, argues that it is not possible to bring together ‘a phenomenological or hermeneutic desire to “understand” the creative lived world of another person

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or a group of people, and the distanced, critical structuralist interest in “analyzing” linguistic tropes, which guide people’s perceptions and understanding’ (Saukko, 2003: 13). It will be a difficult balance for me to maintain, but my ‘backup’ is that, in addition to my phenomenological accounts, is the narrative analysis of my case studies. I will thus potentially err more to the understanding of the meaning side in the phenomenological part, and the critical analysis in the narrative part. Built into the notion that I experience an attraction as a hermeneutic phenomenologist who tries to interpret the meaning of the experience is an additional dimension: that I, as a linguistic phenomenologist, aim to see beyond the experience and deconstruct the way the attraction is presented to me, with its inherent political meanings. Van Manen (1990: 64–65) gives six suggestions for how a phenomenologist should go about generating descriptions of lived experiences: (1) To describe an experience as it is lived. This experience should avoid ‘causal explanations, generalizations, or abstract interpretations’. (2) To describe ‘the experience from the inside, as it were; almost like a state of mind: the feelings, the mood, the emotions’. (3) To ‘focus on a particular example or incident of the object of experience’. (4) To ‘try to focus on an example of the experience which stands out for its vividness, or as it was the first time’. (5) To ‘attend to how the body feels’. (6) To ‘avoid trying to beautify your account with fancy phrases or flowery terminology’. The general tenor of these suggestions leads again to the concepts of retrospection and bracketing. When a phenomenologist describes an ex­ perience, it should be a living account that aims to recreate the phenomenon under investigation in a way that is as close to the lived moment as possible. By consciously suspending all presuppositions from the account and by being true to the nature of events as they occurred, a rich description is created. The fact that individuals experience phenomena with their whole body and with all their senses, rather than just with their visual sense, is important, as this aspect takes the description beyond a simplistic portrayal of the TA and closer to the atmosphere that made the phenomenon into what it was. Willis reminds us also that ‘an “experienced” thing … is placed before the mind for naming, [it] is, as it were a result of a mixture of sensory experiences, emotional responses, memories, prejudices and the like’ (Willis, 2001: 1). This leads back to the hermeneutic circle and to Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s findings (see Moran, 2000) that no experience would make sense without a certain pre-understanding of the context it is presented in.

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Prejudices that I have formed from visits to other TAs, as well as memories from other contexts that potentially are not at all related to tourism, will inform how I experience each attraction. I must, therefore, be conscious of these prejudices when I outline the meanings I attach to the experiences described. The descriptions must avoid being too long and must not reiterate details with no relevance to the general make-up of the experience, yet they must still include seemingly minor points that formed the final account. Van Manen reminds us that after describing an experience the phenomenologist has to discern the essential themes from the incidental ones, as: Not all meanings that we may encounter in reflecting on a certain phenomenon or lived experience are unique to that phenomenon or experience. And even the themes that would appear to be essential meanings are often historically and culturally determined or shaped. (van Manen, 1990: 106) What I therefore have to do is, firstly, describe my experiences of the phenomenon using a classical approach and a rich text, trying to portray what experiencing a TA is like; and secondly, I have to read and reread my own accounts in order to uncover the meanings that shaped important elements of those descriptions. To be critical of my own experiences is naturally difficult, as the experience in the first place is a mental dialogue between my surroundings and myself and, later on, a mental dialogue between my own text and myself. In doing this I will refer back to the four fundamental lifeworld themes or existentials that van Manen (2002) outlined, which were lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality) and lived human relation (relationality). Each of the four lifeworld themes can be understood as elements included in any experience that the phenomen­ ologist must be consciously aware of. I must, naturally, differentiate between, on the one hand, simply doing a travel account and, on the other hand, over-theorising the account such that it does not give the reader any new insights at all. The best way to understand a phenomenological account is by seeing it as a metaphor for other accounts, so that I can bring to readers’ minds similar accounts that they have experienced and through my investigations suggest what made those experiences meaningful (Willis, 2001). As phenomenologists remind us, the reason for choosing phenomenology is not to provide verifiable results in a positivist sense, but to add a viewpoint of the issue under investi­ gation (Suvantola, 1999: 12). The research output in quantitative studies produces statistics and models, but none of them describes the subjective experience of the individuals taking part in the phenomenon (Masberg &

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Silverman, 1996). Van Manen quotes Marcel (1949 and 1950) in noting that general research methods aim to solve problems and that those studies are ‘complete’ when that has happened. Phenomenology is asking for ‘meaning and significance’. However, such problems cannot be solved; they can only ‘be better or more deeply understood’ and thus form the basis for ‘more thoughtful’ action (Van Manen, 1990: 23).

Conclusion I opened this chapter by referring to the paradox of TA management. The features tourists are attracted by are always in danger of being diminished or even destroyed by the actual visit. Environments become worn, damaged and in need of management restrictions. Cultures change, people evolve and traditions become performances done on demand rather than carrying their original meaning. These are natural impacts of contact with tourists, so managers need to balance the positive impacts tourism has on TAs with the impacts that threaten to destroy those same TAs. My following theme in the chapter was to link the TA management paradox to a quadruple bottomline thinking where economic and ecological objectives are combined with socio-cultural and ethical/political objectives. I then established what factors made a TA successful, and also what common factors can be found in unsuccessful TAs. The research showed that the managers of successful attractions know how to entertain and educate tourists in aesthetically pleasing environments that fulfil tourists’ need for escape. Additionally, it was shown that location, access and general management skills such as experience in operations, finance and human resources are necessary to operate successful TAs. Major features of un­ successful TAs have been gross overestimation of initial visitor numbers and a lack of objectives and rationale to attract visitors. The next section in this chapter changed tact quite considerably by underlining that tourist experiences are singular in nature, and that many methods of collating data about TAs generalise those experiences beyond recognition. I introduced, as an alternative, phenomenology, which can illustrate the experiences individual tourists have and, rather than trying to tailor all experiences around each person, I suggest that the use of rich descrip­tions of experiences can act as metaphors that illustrate the meanings tourists attach to the TA and thereby guide managers in altering or refining their attractions. Having described how the paradox of managing TAs is a constant challenge for TA managers, and what makes successful and unsuccessful

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TAs, I will move on in the next chapter to how an attraction should be maintained. Maintenance is often associated with physical actions that replicate and preserve what already exists or that corrects something that has deteriorated, but I want to give this word a more proactive sense, namely how to strategically sustain a TA in a changing environment. It might initially seem to be simply an act of doing what has always been done but trying to learn from mistakes to do it better – but I will show that it is far more inclusive than that. The old saying ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, will here be replaced with words often attributed to former US President John F. Kennedy: ‘the right time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining’. Maintenance is most efficient when it is done proactively long before anything has deteriorated. Proper maintenance is analytical and can foresee future demands and expectations, and thus maintain and, if necessary, alter the environment to suit those future needs. I will do this by discussing how TAs should be designed and planned and additionally how they can ensure their quality, benchmark their activities and improve their revenue-making capacity. I will also discuss the importance of marketing, and the need to understand marketing as a much broader concept than just sales and promotions, but rather as a tool to create a coherent narrative of the TA for tourists to experience.

3 Maintaining TAs

I will in this last chapter in Part 1 discuss the maintenance of TAs. As I alluded to at the end of the previous chapter, I will use the word ‘maintain’ in a liberal way, to refer more to acts that are done proactively, anticipating future needs, than those done reactively, to improve what has already d ­ eteriorated. The chapter will start by presenting the importance of marketing for the construction and maintenance of coherent TA narratives for tourists to experience. I will thereafter explain how different authors suggest TAs be planned and designed, and after that investigate challenges that TAs might encounter. Perera et al. (2009: 89) quote Flanagan and Norman (1993) as stating: ‘an identified risk is no longer a risk, but a management problem’. In a similar fashion, by being aware of challenges to TAs, it becomes easier to respond proactively to them and maintain a successful attraction. The chapter goes on to introduce some of the suggested ways of offering relevant and sustainable TAs to tourists, namely by following quality assurance frameworks. Quality assurance is offered in some regions as a way both for managers to have clear guidelines to follow, but also for operators to promote to external stakeholders their commitment to quality experiences. The trust people put in quality assurance depends on the perceived integrity of the assurer, but also on the overall congruence between people’s expectations and their experiences from other TAs that are quality assured by the same assurer. A related, but separate, way for TA managers to improve their practices in order to enhance the tourist experience is by comparing their operations to those offering similar or superior experiences at other TAs – in other words, benchmarking. The chapter will present typical areas that can be benchmarked, but suggests at the same time that the extreme heterogeneity of the TA sector means that general benchmarking seems to be of limited use, whereas case-by-case comparisons might help managers improve TAs. 60

Maintaining TAs  61

Having looked at general challenges all TAs face, and proposed ways of preparing for challenges by improving the operations at TAs by comparing them with suitable examples. I will lastly investigate ways of enhancing the revenue-earning capacity of TAs. This section proposes initially that it is not as controversial in tourism as in general leisure activities to adapt commercial practices, because tourism is at its core a business practice, while leisure has a more ambivalent relation to revenue (Spracklen, 2009). The section presents some of the ways different authors on the subject have suggested that a TA’s long-term viability can be enhanced by offering tourists services that can be charged for. I will critically evaluate whether commercialisation is a necessary evil in maintaining TAs, whether it is simply an answer to a leisure demand that has evolved in society, or whether it is an integral element of satisfying tourists at attractions.

Fulfilling Tourists’ Expectations – The Power of Marketing ‘Marketing’ is probably one of the most misused and misunderstood words related to management theory. When I taught an undergraduate marketing extension course I met with, on an ongoing, face-to-face basis, the popular interpretations of marketing – generally a miscomprehension that equates marketing to promotions and pushy sales. My first lecture each semester, therefore, aimed to show how all proper marketing starts from the recognition of individuals’ needs, wants and demands, and then continues through to creating suitable services/products, or in this case TAs, to satisfy those demands (see Figure 9). This then leads to decisions relating to what individuals expect in terms of how to satisfy their needs or the quality they expect of the service or product. The determination of the value individuals place on the solution to their needs leads then to transactions, where an exchange of some sort is made, which is generally a monetary payment for the service or product. A continuous relationship can be established where customers have ongoing needs and the service or product offered can continue to satisfy them. Alternatively, other individuals with similar needs are determined and a market is created in which new needs, wants and demands are found and solutions to them are established (Kotler et al., 2003). Authors have tried to express this process in different ways. Philip Kotler et al., for example, state that ‘Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others’ (Kotler

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Figure 9  Core marketing concepts of TAs. Adapted from Kotler, P., Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (1999) Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (2nd edition) ©1999. Printed and electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey

et al., 2003: 13). John Walsh-Heron and Terry Stevens add that ‘marketing is much broader than selling, promoting or publicizing.… Marketing is the process of organizing and directing a product to a market’ (Walsh-Heron & Stevens, 1990: 79). While these definitions are helpful, it is obvious that they are primarily related to products and not services. The challenge for TAs might be, however, that the service or product in many cases exists initially, and that markets need to be found for the existing entity (Lewis et al., 1995). This is indeed the case as long as a traditional definition of TAs is held, where the attraction is considered to be a constant entity, maybe even an object. However, if the TA is regarded as a narrative, it becomes clear that the stories presented in the texts constructing the attraction can be altered, extended or focalised to satisfy needs. After having turned this initial part of marketing miscomprehension around and allowing students to see that marketing may be a powerful means to help individuals in consumer societies to find solutions to their needs, the following step is then to explain the elements of the marketing mix. The marketing mix was traditionally presented as having four elements – the 4Ps: product, place, promotion and price (Kotler et al., 2003). Later, service-focused research highlighted that ‘product’ is a problematic

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concept and added to the initial mix people, partnership, programming, passion, purpose, performance, potential, pass-along, position, practice and profit, meaning that a total of up to 15Ps might be included (Boyd, 2008). The purpose behind the marketing mix, regardless of how many of the elements are incorporated, is to illustrate to stakeholders involved in marketing the multiple dimensions that have to be considered when exchanges between individuals’ needs, on the one hand, and organisations’ solutions, on the other, take place. The way a TA is designed and branded or what features are included, to name some dimensions, is simply the first element of how the TA service or product is presented. The decisions as to whether a TA will charge entry fees or not, and how much, if such a fee is charged, or whether to offer discounts, and other price-related dimensions, all contribute to constructing a perception of the service or product on offer. These considerations, together with numerous others, related to staffing, distribution channels, community linkages and more, jointly construct the TA service or product in tourists’ minds. One could argue that the role of marketing in an organisation is to create a consistent story that mutually becomes the service or product the consumer wants to experience. Indeed, Ravenscroft et al. suggest: ‘Destination resorts increasingly combine distinct physical forms with associated product narratives which suggest both similarity with, and distinction from, competing destinations.… The marketing of such spaces can often involve a form of narrativisation; the attaching of a familiar story to an unfamiliar space in order to render it less alien’ (Ravenscroft et al., 1998: xi). Different forms of promotions, which are often the first things my students think of when they think about marketing, are only the final overt communicative dimension of the mix. If the other dimensions have not been carefully considered and the market not been well researched to find out what the needs are, then promotional efforts become inconsequential, or even counterproductive. People who come across promotional messages may be motivated to learn more about a service or product on offer, but if the experience is not fulfilling (i.e. the story is not convincing) then the expectations the promotion creates will not have been fulfilled and then the organisation needs to deal with dissatisfied customers and the ensuing negative word of mouth. To sum up the preceding discussion, the following definition is therefore offered: Marketing is the holistic creation of a coherent narrative that constitutes a tourist attraction. Promotion is the overt communication of that narrative to external stakeholders. Having a background in critical theory means, however, that my presentation of marketing to my undergraduate students does not remain purely descriptive and imbued in a positive light. I underscore the fact that well used marketing has the potential to serve good causes, but in a society

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where most basic needs are fulfilled for the majority of the population, marketing is increasingly used to create largely unnecessary wants and demands (Adorno, 1991), which in many cases simply serve to propagate a consumer society with increased gaps between people with or without discretionary income. Similarly, marketing of TAs can in many cases be seen as the creation and promotion of luxury items for individuals with too much spare time and money. While I acknowledge that this is a potential interpretation, my response to that is that a well marketed TA has the potential to satisfy its targeted market well enough to eliminate the need for a multitude of alternative experiences. ‘The ability of the tourism industry to convert a potential site, place or event into an attraction is the essence of the industry’s unique ability to create tourism resources to which visitors must travel, rather than a product that can be transported to customers for consumption’ (Prideaux, 2008: 80). Thus, the power to create TAs lies not simply in some predetermined set of attributes that the attraction has to have, and the reasons for success are not necessarily tied to infrastructural investments. Just like products of high quality that are better designed, and tend to last longer, good-quality TAs may be simple but well designed and thus ensure a lasting satisfaction that creates sustainability of the business environment. This in turn allows managers to maintain and develop the TA so that it is ecologically more sustainable; it also allows longer-lasting attractions to create linkages with the local community, thus creating social, cultural and even political sustainability.

Planning and designing of TAs It might seem convoluted not to start my chapters on TA management and maintenance with planning and design considerations, as they are self-evidently foundational concepts. This would indeed be the case if the attraction were regarded as an object or an event primarily, but as I have earlier highlighted, the physical dimensions of the TA are merely a stage on which tourists perform their individual tourist experiences, and the attraction is the fabula that they have created from the surrounding texts. Thus, in order to physically design and plan an attraction, it is necessary to first highlight the factors that need to be managed in a TA so that stakeholders are aware of what to aim for. In regions where traditional means of money making, such as primary production or manufacturing, are in decline, it is common to see tourism as an easy alternative to revitalise the area and to create employment (Strang,

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2010). Tourism New South Wales states in its manual for TAs: ‘attractions … appeal to local residents and visitors alike for entertainment, leisure and educational activity…. [They assist in] adding character or interpreting the history of an area and generating day traffic in their own right. Attractions provide an important stimulus for drawing visitors to a region and influencing the length of stay’ (Deloitte, 1999: 6). For a location without an existing tourist flow but considering tourism as a means of generating income and investments, one of the first deliberations that naturally has to be made is: ‘Why would tourists want to visit this place?’ Parochial pride in the home region aside, it becomes clear that tourists are attracted to unique experiences, examples of which are not always easy to distinguish. A place with pleasant climate and beaches with soft sand and safe surf to swim in is inviting if it is somehow out of the ordinary for the tourist – but it is only moderately attractive if it is located in a country like Australia, where most people live within 50 kilometres of such a place. Similarly, a ruined castle with a long history is intriguing and may act as an attraction, unless the surrounding area, or the touristgenerating region, has many comparable ruins. The motivation for people from other regions and countries who live in a different environment from what the destination offers is naturally there, but geographical theories such as ‘distance decay’ explain why an attraction in most cases cannot rely purely on tourists from far away to stay viable and successful. Thus, the need for something unique to be discovered and exploited remains valid – a common step that follows is to consider purpose-built attractions, and this is where feasibility studies, undertaken by objective parties, are necessary (Prideaux, 2008). The considerations above are generic and typical in environments where TAs are understood as the manageable objects many of the definitions in Chapter 1 presented. The acts of managing, and the structures for management, constrict the opportunities communities have to view their own attraction resources openly. As I said before, the reason for the definition should not presuppose the meaning of it. By emphasising such factors such as visitation, structure, ownership and opening hours, mental barriers are created that limit the options people think about when trying to create their unique attraction. If the idea of attractions as narratives and ex­periences is instead built-in, then it becomes easier to think of potential ‘stories’ the community could share with others. Narratives should here naturally not be read just as fictional or historic accounts of something; geographical features, events or festivals, selected individuals, forgotten traditions, or special hobbies, and so on, can all be presented as coherent narratives. Once the narratives have been identified, then it is possible to

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go through the factors needed to successfully manage TAs, and after this to start to think about the necessary operational and organisational aspects connected to attractions. Swarbrooke (2002) lists 10 objectives for TA design:   (1) profit and income generation (I will discuss this in more detail below);   (2) economy of operations (managing costs);   (3) flexibility (new features or markets, seasonality);   (4) safety and security needs;   (5) all-weather operations (if relevant);  (6) user-friendliness (signs, access, maps, services, clear routes, queue management, easy exits);   (7) special needs (movement, hearing, vision, parents with children);  (8) aesthetics;   (9) environmental concerns; (10) external stakeholders (planners, funders and customers). This is a useful checklist for communities or organisations considering new TAs, as it is a comprehensive record of operational aspects that need to be taken into consideration in the execution of the attraction. If the TA is expected to bring in revenue (directly or indirectly) from tourists then it will be necessary to take into account the factors of success discussed in the previous chapter, as well as the operational design objectives Swarbrooke refers to above, as a rough blueprint to follow. But design is of no value if the planning does not account for the challenges to the TA because of the dynamic environment it will be located within, which is now discussed.

Challenges for TAs Dewhurst and Dewhurst (2006) have described different challenges that TAs in ‘mature markets’ have to deal with, while Leask (2010) has summed up key challenges for TAs generally. I will here build on Dewhurst and D ­ ewhurst’s framework and offer insights from other researchers showing that these challenges might exist in all types of markets, and that an awareness of these challenges is essential for managers to continue maintaining their TAs in a sustainable way.

Shifting patterns of demand It is essentially a truism that the only constant anybody can count on, at any time, is that changes will take place. Nothing stays exactly the

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same, and the inherited assumptions of what has worked in the past will not always guide anybody as to what will work in the future. John Sears (1998), in his very insightful book about how TAs developed in the 1800s in the USA, follows closely the societal changes that led some attractions to take prominence at different points in time. Historical descriptions like his can inform researchers about events that have transpired and how they had an impact on national identity construction generally, in his case in the USA. However, future changes in TA demand are naturally harder to foresee, though some can be attributed to common factors that in combination allow managers to develop responses to these changes, and these are set out below.

Structural changes in the population The change in demand of experiences offered by TAs can broadly be attributed to macro changes on a global scale. For instance, people live generally longer and stay healthier. This means that specific attractions for active older people can be developed to take advantage of the change, but also that potential alterations may need to be done to existing attractions in order to service a population who are perhaps more likely have problems with their mobility or sensory organs. Ramps, banisters, larger signs and hearing loops might be required at some TAs, and considering legal changes referring to people with movement disabilities (discussed further below), these improvements will in the future serve a broader sector of society. Ady Milman (2001) states, however, based on his research into TA managers’ impressions of the future, that the ‘senior market’ will not affect the industry in any tangible way. This impression might be based on the type of TAs the managers Milman surveyed were in charge of, or more broadly based on assumptions about older people as consumers of leisure experiences. Another structural change in society comes from transcultural movements brought about by globalisation and increased immigration. It is no longer possible to assume that all tourists to an attraction come from the same ethnic background, even if the TA serves a limited geographical area. People belonging to different ethnic groups and stemming from different cultural backgrounds spend their leisure time in different ways. For example, the Eurocentric assumptions about people’s wishes for individuality and ‘authentic’ experiences are challenged by insights into tourists from Confucian backgrounds, who tend to prefer TAs where spectacle is of essence (Lee et al., 2013; Nyíri, 2006). Attractions serving culturally diverse markets need to investigate what the different tourist groups they attract actually find to be the motivating attributes, but this factor should not be

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overemphasised either – large-scale migration has occurred for generations already and cultural shifts are largely erased after two to three generations in a different environment. A final structural change in demand comes from the fact that people start families later and have, as a rule, fewer children than before, if indeed they decide to have children at all. This is a very important change, which, overall, makes earlier ‘life-cycle’ predictions obsolete because spending patterns at different ages varies so much, depending on when, how and if individuals decide to start families (Swarbrooke, 2002). TAs that depend on a set family structure or outdated presumptions about consumption patterns will be in trouble over time as their generalised offerings will satisfy less and less of their increasingly diverse market.

Rising consumer expectations The second shifting pattern of demand is related to the increasing famili­ arity and sophistication that consumers of tourist experiences hold with regard to TAs on offer (Deloitte, 1999). People travel more and are better informed, through media exposure and the internet, about alternatives and will therefore also demand that the TAs they visit provide them with a quality experience (quality and the potential use of quality assurance are discussed below). Additionally, tourists expect that the TAs they visit will ensure ease of access, by having convenient parking facilities (Yale, 2004), room for larger vehicles to turn around (Leiper, 2005) and appropriate public transport options (Robbins & Dickinson, 2008); they also expect them to provide value for money (Josiam et al., 2004).

Changing leisure patterns The final shifting demand pattern comes from changes in leisure consumption. This is evident from factors such as the drive towards ‘bite-size leisure’, exemplified by multiple short-break holidays instead of the longer holidays common in the past (Garrod et al., 2007). These shorter breaks have been acknowledged by destinations that have moved away from promoting the destination to long-distance travellers and instead focus on short breaks for people in closer proximity (Litvin & Alderson, 2003). However, a closer study of that same market has shown that repeat visitors pose a specific challenge to TAs, as tourists on their first visit to a destination tend to go to more attractions than do repeat visitors (Litvin, 2007). Another changing leisure pattern is attributed to the suggestion of the American futurologist Faith Popcorn that people are enticed by ‘cocooning’

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(Milman, 2001), which means they decide to stay at home and create leisure activities within the safe limits of their chosen environment. These activities are driven by the development of information technology (IT), such as high-speed internet connections, and the development of more affordable audio-visual (AV) technology that allows people to create home-­ entertainment environments (considered further in the next section, below). A related change comes from the gradual shift from producer societies to consumer societies, where primary production more often takes place in poor countries and former farming areas in rich countries take on a new leisure meaning (Strang, 2010).

Increasing competition Apart from changes taking place in the demand for TAs, there are simul­taneously changes in the supply of activities that compete for people’s attention. The attractions sector often grows ‘organically’, when entre­ preneurs establish TA ventures in previously untouched areas (Sears, 1998). Successful attractions attract other businesses, which try to take advantage of the stream of tourists created, either by creating copies of the original attraction or by establishing alternative diversions close to the initial attraction (Wanhill, 2008b). It is important for anybody wanting to establish whether a specific TA is successful or not to define ‘success’ precisely, and what the comparison is with. Measurements such as the number of tourists visiting the attraction, or their average spend at the attraction, may be almost irrelevant if financial objectives are not foremost on the attraction’s agenda (Leask, 2010), but therein lies the challenge when trying to prepare for changes brought about by supply factors – simplistic measurements like visitation might show a decrease, but that is not necessarily negative. There are two separate supplies that compete for tourists’ attention: a growing attractions sector and a growing leisure economy.

Growing attractions sector The TA sector is growing, due to several trends. Firstly, as mentioned above, entrepreneurs have always existed in the tourism industries and the establishment of small private TAs is an ongoing phenomenon worldwide. Secondly, with the acknowledgement of the importance of TAs for their job-creating and investment-inducing features comes greater public sector investments. Some of these publicly funded TAs can act as an impetus for tourists to visit a specific destination, but several authors have also pointed out the dangers attached to public funding of commercial enterprises (e.g.

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Prideaux, 2008; Richards & Wilkes, 2008; Stevens, 2000), including overoptimistic estimations of impacts and lack of service sector management experience (Lennon, 2004). Much publicised examples of failed attractions in the UK (Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006) and the USA (Milman, 2001) have come about because of the public funding of TAs. Another drawback of publicly funded attractions is that the competing attractions then operate under different financial expectations, thus introducing price inconsistencies to the market (Leask, 2010). Finally, the attractions sector is also growing due to companies’ attempts to diversify their income streams (Wanhill, 2008a). This diversification is divided between, on the one hand, companies investing money in tourism enterprises as an alternative distribution channel, such as the AnheuserBusch brewing company operating the SeaWorld group of theme parks, and, on the other hand, companies adding tourist facilities to their operations. Industrial tourism, as an example of the latter category, is a sector that has been around for a long time already. MacCannell (1976) relates this to modernity and modern people’s alienation from physical work, which he suggests motivates people to see work being performed. Sears (1998) discusses similarly how tourists, as early as the late 1800s, were attracted to coalmines, for example, to watch children at work sorting coal, as evidence of modernisation. Later research has combined industrial tourism with commodities and the extension of brand loyalty, by allowing consumers of a brand into production facilities (Miller, 1994). Regardless of whether it is indeed alienation in our modern time or brand loyalty that is the motivational drive for this interest, industries have long acted as TAs, and some businesses are nowadays earning revenue not only by producing products but also by showing curious tourists how those products are produced (Stevens, 2000). Examples from the alcohol industries are Heineken and Guinness beer breweries, both among the most popular attractions in Amsterdam and Dublin, respectively, as well as whisky distilleries in Scotland and wineries around the world are popular. Pierre Benckendorff and Philip Pearce did not include these types of attractions in their analysis of the TA sector, stating as their reason that these businesses are not primarily attractions, but rather producers that earn their main revenue from other activities (Benckendorff & Pearce, 2003). While this naturally is true and necessary from a management perspective where similar businesses are compared, as was the intention in their study, it again shows the limitations with some definitions. The attractions of certain regions are their industry clusters and these, just like any other attraction, are causing the sector to grow – thus increasing the overall supply of TAs.

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Another sector that is growing, and also increasing TA attendance, is the broader leisure economy.

Growing leisure economy Technological innovations underpin this growth, such as the enhanced offering of IT and AV technologies discussed above in relation to ‘cocooning’. The ever-increasing offers of technological innovations allow consumers to experience interactivity and social relations in virtual environments while within the confines of their own homes, or at their places of work and study. The need to travel to see places or to meet others can be substituted, to an extent, by virtual connections, such as social networking sites, interactive game worlds or virtual worlds where personalised avatars can travel (Linaa Jensen, 2010). While I do not want to suggest that this will by any means replace all actual travel or personal interactions, this set of growing leisure activities is undoubtedly increasing the supply of time diversions that compete with TAs. Leisure pursuits and hobbies have proliferated. Downtown shopping districts and factory outlet malls and sports activities such as indoor skiing, water sports and golf are examples of leisure pursuits that give consumers an option to stay close to their homes during time off and thus reduce the need for travel. The associated leisure facilities, not traditionally perceived as TAs, have been extended to the tourism field when destinations promote special sales periods in their shops or when people travel around the world to surf at famous and challenging beaches or to play at scenic and prestigi­ ous golf courses. It might seem that I am contradicting myself here in saying that a golf course, as an example, is an ‘alternative’ to TAs, when I earlier stated that anything that people are motivated to travel to is an attraction. However, this is actually to underline that my definition of TAs would incorporate these activities into the definition of attractions. I refer above to what ‘traditionally’ has been perceived as TAs – but it was on purpose I included descriptive adjectives to the words ‘beaches’ and ‘golf courses’ above, to show that these are also narrated entities that people incorporate into their motivation to travel to certain places. A line between leisure and tourism has always been hard to draw and an expanding leisure sector means, in many cases, also an expanding tourism sector. Essentially, what acts as a recreational pursuit for the local population might simultaneously act as a tourist activity for a visiting population, though the main point is that the expansion of supply means increasingly stronger competition for remaining demand.

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The final increase in leisure supply comes from government deregulation of air traffic, as well as freer provision of venues serving alcohol and supplying gambling opportunities. Deregulation of air traffic, with the resulting increase in low-cost carriers, sounds as if it would be a precursor to more tourism and thus more activities at attractions. This is, to an extent, the case, but it simultaneously means that each tourist’s geographical ‘footprint’ has expanded, by increasing the distances that can be travelled. The easier it is for people to arrive to a destination, the easier it simultaneously becomes for residents and people from nearby communities to leave the area, thus ending up in a more competitive market. Again, rather than being direct competitors for the same type of needs and demands that TAs satisfy, these leisure activities act as substitutes for TAs. By deregulating these sectors the choice people have over where to spend their spare time and how to use their discretionary income has yet again increased and the competition for the remaining time and money is stronger.

Government legislation Beyond the implications of the decreasing and changing demand and increasing supply come challenges created by changes to local, national and international legislation. Tourism industries have traditionally been regarded as providing low-skill and low-salary employment. This has even been one of the reasons for governments to embrace tourism as a develop­ ment opportunity. Tourism has been regarded as an easy substitute for more capital-intensive industries with regard to required training of staff and construction of infrastructure. Whereas this can be argued to be an old-fashioned view from within the industries, it is still a predominant view in society at large. This is, however, slowly changing with more laws protecting employees, customers and general community stakeholders. Among staff pressures are minimum salary expectations and different kinds of health and holiday allowances. Because tourism industries are highly seasonal in most parts of the world, employers try to divert many of these pressures by having a small core group of permanent employees, and then to meet peak demand with the help of casual or part-time staff – who are not entitled to the same benefits as the permanent staff. While this may solve some financial challenges and legal expectations, it simultaneously means that the industries are plagued by high staff turnover and a constant need for investment in hiring and training new staff. Legal pressures on TAs coming from tourists are, for example, disability laws that require attractions to make the facilities accessible to all population groups, especially if the TA is receiving any type of public funding or

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grants. As mentioned above, in the discussion about changes in demand, the population is ageing and people remain mobile and active for a longer part of their lives. Furthermore, people with different disabilities are also more integrated in society and rightly expect equivalent opportunities to ex­ perience TAs as people without disabilities. Operators with foresight can see this as an opportunity to broaden the markets attracted to the TA, as well as beneficial ways of improving the public perception of the entity through publicly promoting its credentials. It is, in any case, a challenge that needs to be considered whenever TAs are planned, refurbished or built. Rather large capital investments may be needed to provide people with disabilities satis­ factory access to hear, feel, see and move around attractions, and if these groups are not specifically targeted as explicit segments in promotional activities then they might make up only a small portion of the overall number of visitors. This may be one area where wider recognition of the importance of focusing on attractions’ narrated components to produce satisfied visitors is particularly useful. The point does not have to be to provide equal access and experiences to all, but rather equitable access and experiences. Inno­ vative examples of how to provide equitable tourist ex­periences come from museums that are providing tours of darkened museum halls and exhibits led by visually impaired guides. This not only follows disability laws of providing access, but it uses a perceived challenge rather to its advantage and creates a new tourism resource for its general market.

Multiple expectations of different stakeholders Building, to an extent, on the previous point, and especially on the fact that governments are now required by law to include a multitude of stakeholders in planning decisions related to TAs, comes this final challenge for TAs, namely to achieve a healthy quadruple bottom line – defined as beneficial economic, ecological, ethical and socio-cultural outcomes. As I have stated many times before, TAs are challenging to manage because they are so heterogeneous. Actions that work perfectly at one TA might not be at all suitable at another TA because of differences in ownership structure, accessibility, generating markets or objectives of the attraction, to name but a few. When these challenges are combined with the fact that all attractions are acting within larger societal contexts, where they have to consider alternative viewpoints and priorities, it becomes clear that the challenges facing all attractions are indeed complex: The disparate range of such stakeholder groupings and the very real potential for them to hold conflicting views makes the attraction

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operators’ task of securing their support or at least consent for their activities and developments, an extremely challenging one. However, failure to achieve this brings with it the potential for bad publicity, conflict and even business failure. (Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006: 294) Leask (2010) has created a valuable diagram that might allow managers of attractions to see useful ways of balancing the conflicting needs they are in charge of in an appropriate way (Figure 10). Figure 10 goes a long way towards creating a common understanding of what is needed to maintain successful attractions. Because of the major challenges mentioned above, and also the TA management paradox discussed in the previous chapter, it becomes clear that individual attractions need to start by determining the factors that will shape the management approach they need to take at their TA. Following this they need to find appropriate measures to evaluate the effectiveness of their current management objectives. Finally, when the determining factors and measures of effectiveness are in place, it becomes possible to select the management tools that will further enhance their current and future operations.

Figure 10  Model of factors in the effective management of visitor attractions. Source: Leask (2010: 159). Copyright Elsevier, reproduced with permission

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Among the management tools presented in Figure 10 are the sharing of best practice and benchmarking. Best practice, benchmarking and quality assurance are all common management tools in other industries and the adoption of these measures for TAs may initially seem like a logical enhancement of the industry. However, for entities such as TAs ,which are, by necessity, individual, in order to keep their appeal for tourists, it might seem almost impossible to set up any comparative measures on a larger scale. This is also a common conclusion in research that compares different kinds of attractions within one destination (Benckendorff, 2006; Benckendorff & Pearce, 2003; Garrod et al., 2002) or that compares attractions at different destinations (Fyall & Leask, 2002; Garrod et al., 2007; Leask & Fyall, 2006). Whereas the researchers highlight different examples of best practice for individual attractions, they all conclude that general comparisons between larger numbers of attractions are not beneficial because of all the differences between them. Thus, Leask’s diagram (Figure 10) may be a helpful tool for communities, operators, planners and consultants aiming to enhance TAs. It gives them a framework of resources to draw on, but it is not so descriptive as to close out alternative ways of interpreting TAs. Resources held by communities can be developed into attractions, and later maintained appropriately within the chosen ‘path’. I will below discuss some of these comparative methods in more detail.

Quality Assurance and Benchmarking in the TA Sector As I alluded to above, quality assurance and benchmarking in the TA sector are fraught with difficulties, but this is not to say that they do not exist in some instances already. One example of a general internationally recognised quality assurance scheme is the ISO system, where, for example, ISO9001 measures general quality management, ISO14001 measures en­ viron­mental management and quality, and ISO26001 social responsibility. The challenge with any of these general quality assurance systems is that they are directed primarily at companies and entities producing products, not services, and even though the process of quality assurance is tailored to each company’s specific situation they are still too generic to appropriately measure what quality actually means at a TA. Swarbrooke defines TA quality by asking whether the TA experience satisfies the customer – if the answer is affirmative, then it can be suggested that quality has been achieved (Swarbrooke, 2002: 315); but this does not allow for any extensive comparisons or generalisations.

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The underlying rationale for quality assurance frameworks to be offered is for managers to have clear guidelines to follow, knowing the procedures of best practice, and having a clear path planned for the future. This is intended to lower operating costs and, simultaneously, produce products that create value for consumers’ money. However, Benckendorff (2006) suggests that a minority of management at small and medium-sized TAs do any planning, and strategic quality assurance is thus out of the reach of these entities. An additional benefit of being quality assured is that operators can promote to external stakeholders their commitment to quality products, services or – in the case of TAs – experiences. As with all promises producers give consumers, the trust people put in quality assurance depends, on the one hand, on the perceived integrity of the assurer, but, on the other hand, and probably even more important for private consumers, on the overall congruence between their expectations and their experiences at other TAs that also are quality assured by the same assurer. A system of TA quality assurance called the Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Service (VAQAS) was created in the UK and is administered by VisitBritain (Yale, 2004: 1–39). The quality assurance the VAQAS refers to is that registered TAs provide tourists with an experience that fulfils the National Code of Practice for Visitor Attractions. The experience is assessed yearly, from before the visit ‘right through to the retail, catering and toilet facilities. Afterwards the attraction owner is offered one-to-one feedback which can help them identify areas in need of improvement’ (Yale, 2004: 1–39). Swarbrooke (2002), however, points out difficulties in TA quality assurance due to problems of standardisation and changes in customers’ expectations and perceptions over time. This harks back to my criticism in the first chapter of definitions of TAs that see attractions as serving a purpose and thus restrictively include and exclude different attractions, and also to Leask’s criticism of simplistic comparisons (Leask, 2010). A quality assurance system built on Leask’s ‘factors of effective TA management’ (Figure 10) would have a better chance of incorporating the complexity involved in the TA sector. But, until such a system is created, another way for TAs to find better ways of managing the entity is by benchmarking aspects of the operation with suitable comparative TAs. Swarbrooke (2002) suggests that useful benchmarking needs to be voluntary and external to the organisations participating in the exercise. The reason for this is that only businesses that can see the benefit of comparing highly sensitive data about their business with potential competitors would contribute genuine information. If the value of the exercise is not evident to the user, then it would be impossible to extract data that might reveal areas of success, or weakness, to others. This links to the second factor,

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namely that benchmarking might need to be conducted by a neutral and reliable external source. Some organisations specialise in benchmarking activities and can tailor the data collected in the exercise to suit the specific needs of the parties. This requires an intimate knowledge of the industry the organisations act in and factors that would generally demonstrate poor or good operations. This causes, according to Pearce and Benckendorff, another dilemma: because it is hard to get individual TAs to cooperate in benchmarking studies voluntarily, data might need to be collected through ‘mystery shoppers, former employee interviews or cross-firm recruitment’ (Pearce & Benckendorff, 2006: 50). Internal benchmarking is naturally possible for larger entities that operate several TAs, but smaller TAs may need to buy data to compare their practices to. Pearce and Benckendorff highlight three major factors that make benchmarking in the TA sector difficult: the diversity of TAs, and the related problem of comparing equal entities; the low level of planning conducted for small attractions, as planning is a prerequisite for the recording of necessary data for benchmarking; and the lack of reliable high-quality data, due to different definitions of attractions in different regions and to private operators’ reluctance to share sensitive business information (Pearce & Benckendorff, 2006: 32). Pearce and Benckendorff used 12 basic benchmarking factors in their study, broadly divided into visitor factors, financial factors, employment factors and the age of the attraction (Pearce & Benckendorff, 2006: 40). Tourism New South Wales suggest seven performance indicators for TAs, all of which are related to financial factors: visitor statistics; revenue; expenditure; productivity; profitability; liquidity; and financial stability ratios (Deloitte, 1999: 7). Susanne Becken and David Simmons investigated energy consumption and highlighted that TAs might need to compare energy use throughout the tourist experience, starting with marketing and transport through to after-experience services, with overall visitor numbers in order to be able to compare individual consumption to other operators, with the aim of enhancing overall efficiency. Another consideration is the limitation of the most common benchmarking approach: importance–performance analysis has been used in numerous scenarios in recognising factors that are important to tourists, but that are not up to a desired standard (Prebensen, 2012). While useful in the management of commercial settings, such an approach is limited in leisure settings where TAs are heterogeneous and experiential, and pre-experience expectations may not be easily formed (Crilley et al., 2011). The point here is not so much what factors to use, but rather to find appropriate measurements of success at individual attractions. It is only when these are established that it is possible to determine suitable benchmarking

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factors. This leads me to the following theme of TA maintenance, namely revenue creation. Of course, it is not the aim of all TAs simply to maximise profits; nonetheless, it is still part of many attractions’ ethos to fund conservation efforts, for example, with the revenues from their operation.

Revenue creation As I discussed in the previous chapter, in the section on the TA management paradox, tourists destroy the aspects they are attracted to, and in order for attractions to maintain what made them into TAs in the first place they need to fund ongoing upkeep and management. This has been highlighted by some authors: The tourist attraction offers a paradigm for an understanding of the commodification of leisure; as more and more sites introduce entrance charges and come to rely on retailing outlets to subsidise their funding, so these have increasingly become the key elements in economics of leisure. Sites of national and historical significance, educational activities and ‘heritage’ sites have all had to learn and to borrow from forms of commercial leisure, to become ‘experiences’ which offer theming and commodities. (Ravenscroft et al., 1998: v) While this is a correct sentiment, it is naturally taken from the field of leisure, which has to balance the demands of free-of-charge activities in people’s daily lives with commodified leisure which offers activities to people for a charge. This is less problematic with tourism because it is anyway a partly industrialised business sector (Hall & Page, 2010); where individuals are able to partake in non-commercial activities, these are minimal. Most tourism is commercial and thus commodified leisure by definition; people pay for ex­periences away from their home environment during times when they are not working. ‘Focused on leisure and pleasure, tourism epitomises consumption. Indeed, it is the apogee of affluence: both a reward for successful commercial enterprise and a commercial enterprise in itself ’ (Strang, 2010: 40). That a TA needs to think about ways of creating revenue is therefore not so much an afterthought, or it should at least not be, but rather it should be among the initial considerations when a new attraction is planned. The initial consideration whether the TA should charge an entrance fee or not depends on the attraction, and on the rationale for the TA to be established in the first place. The national museums and sites of ‘historical

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significance’ referred to by Ravenscroft et al. above might be intended to educate people and to conserve important aspects of the nation’s history for the common good, or they might be covert attempts to justify powerful groups staying in power (Edensor, 2002; Kirchenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). By not charging an entrance fee, economic rationale suggests that more people would be attracted to the site and more people would thus be ‘in­doctrin­ ated’ by the narrative created at the site. It appears, however, that TAs are understood in similar ways to other commodities where value and quality are seen as synonyms for one another. A TA that charges a high entrance fee must, by that rationale, be high quality, whereas a free TA must be poor quality. That this is not the case will be readily evident for anybody con­sider­ ing it properly. John Lennon, quoting Martin (2001), has found that while lower admission fees at museums may increase the number of visitors, this causes congestion and thus dissatisfaction (Lennon, 2004). The rationale for lowering entrance fees, or for not charging any at all, may therefore be questioned. Nevertheless, publicly funded TAs are to a large extent also now charging entrance fees, probably not to create a perceived value, even if that is the outcome, but rather to compensate for some of the operating costs of the entity. Other considerations with regard to entrance fees are differentiated prices for children and adults, students and pensioners, groups and families, locals and tourists, to name a few. But beyond entrance fees lie many other ways of increasing a TA’s revenue. Swarbrooke (2002) suggests there are four primary areas of visitor expenditure: (1) Shops of different types are commonly found adjacent to TAs. Some attractions are created in order to enhance shops’ turnover (Barcan, 1996); others are created to satisfy a common demand after the attraction has become popular (Marling, 1984). Some TA operators manage the shops themselves; others outsource this function, and may instead charge rent for the space. As I said above, tourism is consumption, but because it is an intangible type of consumption the opportunity to purchase tangible evidence of the experience (beyond maybe a suntan) is important. Revenue should not be seen as the only rationale for the provision of shopping opportunities, however: it may in fact be a major contributing factor to tourists’ general satisfaction with the attraction (this is discussed in Chapter 9, ‘Remembering TAs’). A product category that often is in great demand at shops are guidebooks. They can be utilitarian sheets that simply give tourists a basic interpretation of the attraction, or beautifully illustrated books that are purchased after the tourist experience, as a souvenir.

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(2) Catering outlets such as snack kiosks, fast-food outlets or full service restaur­ants are also important revenue earners at TAs. It is a biological fact that tourists get hungry at some point, and as TAs are time and space bound it is likely that either of the factors forces tourists to eat at some stage of their experience. Research has found that the more expensive the entrance fee is to a TA, the longer tourists spend time there, thus further enhancing the chances for food or drink sales. Naturally, small TAs where tourists spend less time, or that are adjacent to specialised food and beverage outlets, may not need to offer any food, but as catering outlets can substantially improve revenue they commonly become an integral part of the TA. Themed catering outlets can be attractions in their own right, but they may likewise be contributing factors to the overall TA offering, by creating a layer of texts that supports the reason for a tourist to attend the attraction in the first place. (3) Guided tours not only enhance the TA experience by giving tourists increased insights but are also major revenue earners. Because of TAs’ narrative structure, tourists need to be given information that enhances their understanding of the attraction. Guided tours and different kinds of mechanical interpretation, such as guidebooks, are therefore excellent ways of offering multiple versions of texts surrounding attractions, while simultaneously adding to the TA’s revenue. Building on this same revenue-generating theme, Yale (2004) suggests ways for religious attractions to enhance their profitability by charging tourists to attend special exhibitions – for the use of cameras, for candles to light, or by suggesting specific donations. (4) Corporate use is the only aspect of Swarbrooke’s primary ways of earning revenue at TAs that does not integrally enhance the majority of tourists’ personal experience at the attraction, but it can become another layer of texts creating and promoting the TA. Examples of revenue earned from corporate use include hiring out rooms, arranging themed dinners and acting as ‘sets’ for product launches and/or for commercials. Each of these uses may involve only one corporation’s employees at the TA, but can also create further interest by publicising the setting in popular media. A final corporate use which quite evidently creates additional tourist interest, and even new layers of tourist texts that might alter the meaning of the attraction for tourists, is when TAs are used as film sets. This is a topic I will return to in Chapters 5 and 6, where I discuss the forming and forging of TAs. Swarbrooke (1992) goes on to mention, in addition to the primary sources, five other revenue sources:

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(5) Rents and tenancies can be earned, for example from shops servicing tourists if these have been outsourced to external operators. A TA can also lease facilities for accommodation – especially in heritage and historic settings that were not originally built for tourist purposes, but rather for dwelling. (6) Franchises and concessions can generate revenue, for example if food and beverage outlets are outsourced to external operators or external management. This revenue differs from rent because the fees paid are in many cases based on turnover. (7) Consultancy services can include the sale of accumulated expertise to similar TAs elsewhere. Alternatively, history- or culture-based TAs can give advice to authorities, interest groups or commercial enterprises on aspects preserved at the TA that cannot be gained in other ways. (8) Grants are a common way by which TAs try to boost their revenue, either by reactively applying for money to conserve features of the attraction, or by proactively applying for seed money to enhance and diversify its offerings in order to create a sustainable entity. (9) Sponsorship can take the form of brief mentions in interpretive material, such as guidebooks, or of plaques visible outside or inside the TA; or it can relate to different attracting elements being named after sponsors. A source of revenue not directly mentioned by Swarbrooke is the opportunity for TAs to organise concerts and other special events on the premises (Yale, 2004). This option can, however, exacerbate the earlier mentioned TA management paradox, as it concentrates even larger than normal numbers of tourists into the space, albeit for relatively short periods. Management procedures to alleviate tourist impacts may not be enough for special events, and the increased income generated by the events may therefore not even cover the costs involved. This is where specific knowledge from the events management sector is necessary in order to take advantage of this revenueearning option appropriately.

Conclusion An antonym to maintenance is ‘destruction’ and it is therefore appropriate that Part 2 of the book is about deconstructing TAs – not because the two words are the same, quite the opposite, but because the two words sound similar but mean very different things. It is, however, not uncommon to see texts referring to deconstruction as destruction, for two reasons. Firstly, there is a degree of ignorance regarding what deconstruction actually entails

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and an assumption that the process of disassembling constituent parts of social realities is an attempt to destroy that reality. This is the less troublesome reason, as it can be alleviated by explaining its fallacies. The second reason is more menacing, in that there is an awareness of the rationale for deconstruction and active attempts to avert it for reasons of personal gain. By claiming that deconstruction equals destruction, people in positions threatened by the findings deconstruction bring to light seek to convince others that the deconstructive process is an act that will destabilise the social good and that all benefits of the status quo will be destroyed if it is allowed to be carried out. I now move on from Part 1 of the book, where the themes have been the definition, management and maintenance of TAs. I have built Part 1 of my text to a great extent on previous management research, which in many cases has been the view from people in power who manage these entities. The definitions in use often suit the needs and intentions of these powerful groups. The marketing, design and maintenance of attractions are very clearly in the hands of groups that hold power in their local, regional or even national environments. In Part 2, however, I will use a deconstruction approach and start to see how the status quo is constructed and critically analyse the benefits of suggesting alternative interpretations. The value of doing this after I have discussed how to successfully maintain TAs is that it will allow readers to incorporate those principles of success, but in a way that allows for alternative interpretations to come to the fore; this allows disenfranchised minority groups to be heard and it ensures that a more sustainable TA service or product is developed. It is only by being aware of our own prejudices that we can act on them and alter them. It is only by understanding how the discourses we operate within are constructed that we can actively challenge them and allow for more polysemic interpretations to be heard.

Part 2 Deconstructing TAs

Interlude A The aim I have in this part of this book is to introduce the first new way of investigating TAs that I have been alluding to in Part 1. I will demonstrate how poststructural narrative analysis can practically be used to explore how TAs are created. In order to show how TAs are socially constructed entities I need first to present some tools needed to disassemble them. I will throughout this part of the book apply the theories presented on the two main case studies that underpin this book: the Big Banana and Thunderbolt – the bushranger – mentioned in the Prologue. I will show the importance of deconstructing everyday notions and understandings in order to establish underlying discourses. Building on my ideas in Part 1, I will also show why deconstruction is not the same as destruction of concepts, but rather enrichments of them. I will discuss three separate themes here. Chapter 4 looks at how TAs can be ‘read’ or, more precisely, how the texts constructing TAs can be read. Chapter 5 discusses ways texts form TAs in tourists’ minds and how stakeholders in charge of TAs can enhance the texts creating and surrounding their attractions in order to form a fluent and satisfying narrative as a basis for tourists’ experiences. Chapter 6 evaluates how hidden discourses forge TAs and through them forges people’s identities also. I will in that chapter draw links to narrated identities and how TAs fit into the conscious and unconscious forging of national identities.

Narrative approach The model I use is borrowed from structuralist narratology, but is adapted to overcome the weakness of structuralism that focuses on 83

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uncovering underlying essences. In structuralism there is an assumption that different texts about a certain phenomenon have common elements that are links to a fabula. This view emphasises, therefore, some elements in its analysis, while it simultaneously excludes other elements that do not ‘fit’ the suggested fabula. Poststructural narrative analysis, rather, accepts differences as elements of a fabula that can never be seen as an essence, but will always be an abstract entity (Bal, 1997). It is thus impossible to find one essential meaning or a core of any one attraction in this approach. What the attraction represents is different to different people, depending on the elements that they have included in and excluded from ‘their’ fabula. I do not suggest that there are no tourist attractions in the physical world, but what I want to do is to follow the suggestion by Derrida that ‘there is nothing’, not even an attraction, ‘outside of the text’ (Derrida, 1976: 158). To take the appearance and presentation of a TA for granted is to exclude alternative ways of seeing the same thing. Something which is called a TA for some might have a totally different meaning for somebody else, such as being a religious shrine, a monument to commemorate political inequality or a memory of colonialism (Edensor, 1998: 17). If the text that constructs the attraction is not deconstructed, one is left with the attraction as an unproblematic ‘thing’. However, a more holistic perspective can be achieved if the TA is seen as a narrative with an individually constructed fabula and a multitude of different stories generated in diverse texts. I will be using narrative analysis to answer the following question: What sort of over-arching meanings are suggested in texts surrounding tourist attractions – is there a dominating hegemonic fabula or are tourists free to shape their own fabulae? I have, in order to answer this question, chosen two TAs that represent different visitor experiences in an Australian context. Neither of the attractions chosen is especially significant or outstanding on a national scale and even less so on an international scale. Each attraction builds, however, on a dominant discourse in one way or another. The purpose here is to test the concept of fabula in defining TAs as narratives.

4 Reading TAs

The first section below focuses on attraction markers/texts and explain how tourists collate impressions from different kinds of texts when constructing the fabulae of TAs. I described at the end of Chapter 1, ‘Defining TAs’, how ‘text’ in society is a theoretical construct that can help to illuminate divergent ‘meaning making entities’. That section will explain how some theoretical tools can be used to allow for broader understandings of the texts under investigation. The main thrust of the method is Bal’s analysis of narratives, in which she divides them into three analytical parts: the text, the story, and the fabula (Bal, 1997). The only concrete matters the analyst can examine are the texts – the other elements of the theory are abstract constructs. Each text contains different stories, describing the narrative in its own way, with different voices and different viewpoints. The final result is a fabula, which is a core that all the stories a tourist has come into contact with refer back to. It is not a core that never alters, but rather is a fluid abstract entity constantly being reformulated and reinterpreted, depending on the stories told in the texts. I will, at this early stage, warn the reader that it is not possible to describe the fabula in any final detail at any stage, and this fact might be seen as irritating when the analysis of the attraction narratives is completed. The point of the analysis of the narratives is not to produce a final meaning. The point is to open up the understanding of how the fabula is constructed in the tourist’s mind, and how that has an impact on how the tourist enjoys the attraction as a narrative. The point of the narrative analysis of the empirical cases I discuss is to reformulate TAs from objects (which are solid and objective) to narratives (which are changing and subjective). If tourism is to be viewed from a holistic perspective – having the ultimate purpose of providing leisure and enjoyment, but equally politically and 85

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socially significant in its power to educate travellers about social inequalities – new ways of presenting, interpreting and experiencing attractions and destinations are needed. Kenneth Allan and Scott Coltrane conclude from their research on gender roles in advertisements that ‘[n]onstereotypical media depictions … have the potential for providing cognitive maps, visual models, and linguistic resources for resisting or creating new patterns of gender relations’ (Allan & Coltrane, 1996: 188). Equally, if non-stereotypical depictions were to be utilised in tourism, new ways of thinking would be opened up – not just in terms of gender relations, but also, and equally importantly, in terms of social equality, as well as age and race relations.

Attraction Markers/Texts Many travellers, in an attempt to familiarise themselves with the region visited, access a range of texts with information about the destination region. I outlined in Chapter 1, ‘Defining TAs’ how Leiper’s tourist attraction system consisted of three elements: a tourist, a nucleus, and a marker (Leiper, 1995: 141–143). My suggestion was that the marker should be regarded as two separate entities: the actual texts, which Leiper was referring to, and the stories that these texts transmitted (Bal, 1997). Leiper further divided the so-called marker – or, in my application, texts – into three categories, described hereunder with specific reference to the Thunderbolt case study. Generating markers/texts are texts which tourists come across while in their home environment. These are potentially books or programmes on television or radio about the TA that form an impression in the reader’s mind of the story. Generating texts are, however, in Thunderbolt’s case more focused on the person, not the attraction, and are therefore generally outside the scope of this analysis. However, I will analyse some travel guidebooks to highlight how attractions are described to an audience that, most likely, has come from further away, as it is less likely that local tourists would purchase travel guidebooks for the region they live in. The name ‘generating markers/ texts’ refers to the suggestion that these texts might generate tourist activities by motivating tourists to visit certain destinations. The second category is called transit markers/texts, which tourists come across while travelling to a destination. Examples would be articles in local newspapers about Uralla, which mention Thunderbolt as an intrinsic part of the town’s attraction, highway billboards, as well as advertising in the media and in regional brochures for Uralla with links to Thunderbolt. They are texts encountered en route and are thus not the primary reason for the journey, but they have an impact on how the more detailed itinerary is planned and

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executed. Transit markers/texts give travellers additional information about destinations visited, and it could be argued that the interactive features of social media and travel blogs act as transit markers/texts, especially when friends and readers of the blogs send the travellers suggestions and hints about places worth visiting when travelling through specific areas. The third and final parts are texts found when experiencing the attraction, either in the form of oral accounts from other stakeholders or in the texts and constructions that are erected to commemorate Thunderbolt. This category also analyses brochures published in Uralla by the Visitor Information Centre and other local businesses, which are found only at the destination, and each of which would be seen as contiguous markers/texts in Leiper’s (1995: 143) terminology.

National fictions: Tourism and the construction of Australian narrative I wish to highlight that this section analyses Thunderbolt-the-touristattraction rather than Thunderbolt-the-person, as these can be seen as two separate entities. The TA is naturally loosely formed around the person and his life; however, the general story that will be presented is not directly related to the person, but the interpretations that exist today which the attraction revolves around. In this book I try not to promote any one of the narratives above the others. A historical ‘truth’ is not interesting to me here, in that I want to follow a genealogical approach (Foucault, 1991), which shows how different texts contain different stories, and how each of these – at times contradictory – stories contributes to the formation of a fabula in the shape of a TA. Trapp-Fallon compares history to oral narratives and suggests that ‘the point … is not so much about attaining historical “truth”, but about understanding a given point of view’ (Trapp-Fallon, 2002: 299). Similarly here, TAs are seen as micro-narratives in the meta-narratives that authors such as Anderson (1991), Appadurai (1996), Bhabha (1990) and Jameson (1989) refer to when they analyse the narrative structure of nations. Attractions, through their mere existence and the texts surrounding them, might highlight ideological positions and cultural values that exist in society if they are deconstructed and treated as narratives rather than simply as physical entities. The heading of this section refers to a book called National Fictions: Literature, Film and the Construction of Australian Narrative written by Graeme Turner (1993). The text is a study of famous Australian written and cine­ matographic narratives and the connection Turner suggests exists between

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those narratives and the ways Australians understand themselves. I propose that TAs, regarded as narratives, can be deconstructed and shown to fulfil similar functions to the narratives analysed by Turner. The fact that the examples here refer to Australian TAs and Australian narratives should not be regarded as a drawback. They are equally valid in other nations with their own national fictions. Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt et al. (2004) suggested that tourists seldom ex­ perience their travel pursuits in the present tense. Instead they construct their present experiences for the future consumption of a past event. Evidence of this includes photos of experiences, and even more so videorecordings of those experiences, where the individual making the recording is too focused on the activity of recording to appreciate the details of the experience when it is taking place. If tourist activities therefore are viewed as ‘novel-like’ experiences that are moving in future imaginary space then it makes sense to regard attractions as narratives where, to borrow a positivist concept, ‘true history’ is not relevant, as the final fabula is ‘fiction’ anyhow. Turner highlights the discursive formations that are brought into being through the way narratives are told in Australia. Narratives in Turner’s interpretation essentially take on the role of epistemology in society – the creation of a culture’s general knowledge of itself. This is common in societies that in dualistic terms still regard epistemology, and the thinking mind, as preferential to ontology and the holistic body, in describing the formation of personal and cultural identity (Zahra, 2006). The fact that Australian tourist practices, related to the beach and the sea or to the bush and the land, are so highly related to embodied practices makes this theoretical focus on disembodied epistemologies even more contradictory. By preferring certain narratives to others and by inscribing in tourist practices common values for Australians, it becomes possible to uphold a hegemonic meta-narrative about what it means to be and act as an Australian. Or, in Turner’s words: ‘narratives are ultimately produced by the culture; thus they generate meanings, take on significances, and assume forms that are articulations of the values, beliefs – the ideology – of the culture’ (Turner, 1993: 1). That the narratives produced highlight and prefer certain meanings over others is therefore a natural outcome of that ideology in action. The theme of Australian narratives – regardless of whether these are found in books, films, TV series, or tourist attractions – all build on a range of national myths that are constructed and self-reinforcing. The study of these narratives is thus ‘a study of representation, for narrative then also has a cultural function of making sense of experience, of filling absences, of resolving contradictions’ (Turner, 1993: 9), similar to the ancient myths

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referred to by Claude Lévi-Strauss (1955) and more modern myths discussed by Roland Barthes (1972 [1957]). But rather than analysing each text about a TA as an entity on its own, I have decided to collate a range of information sources – in the way a tourist would do when travelling in a region, or towards that region – and collectively analyse these texts for the messages they have and the fabula they construct. In this way, I will examine ‘what is “national” about the narratives.… The texts examined are not then seen simply as natural and organic products of an emerging national character – but rather as cultural constructions or “national fictions”’ (Turner, 1993: 20).

A postmodern TA narrative My choice of case studies for the empirical aspect of this study was a result of the conscious decision to choose examples as dissimilar from one another as possible. This was not only in terms of what there was to ex­ perience at the attraction sites, but also in terms of the narratives making up the sites. Where Thunderbolt in Uralla is the attraction the Visitor Information Centre emphasises and promotes over and beyond other attractions, the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour is promoted only marginally in official texts. Uralla and Coffs Harbour are both situated approximately halfway between Sydney and Brisbane, on different highways (Figure 11), and should therefore have approximately the same volume and type of

Figure 11  New South Wales (NSW) with case locations marked

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traffic passing through the towns, which was the case still some 15 years ago. But the increasing focus on upgrading the coastal route, the Pacific Highway, rather than the inland route, the New England Highway, has led Uralla and other inland towns to become ever less frequently visited, while at the same time Coffs Harbour and other coastal communities have to face an increasingly busy highway passing through their areas. Other differences between the Big Banana and Thunderbolt narratives are that no specific commercial source owns the attractions of the Thunder­ bolt narrative, while the Big Banana is explicitly an enterprise developed for and still related to business. The site was originally opened as a giant sign for a ‘farm-door’ sales position in late 1964 and was soon thereafter so popular among passing motorists that additional services were added, such as a coffee shop and a small gift shop (Clark, 2004: 79). The attraction of Thunderbolt is, in turn, related to heritage, historical myths and to issues at the heart of an Anglo-Australian nationalist discourse (Harding et al., 2000), whereas the Big Banana is connected to modernity, commercialism and tastelessness, which is often associated in Australian minds with the USA and the Australian State of Queensland (Daly et al., 2003; Grossetti, 2005), which somehow epitomise ‘bad’ taste. Susan Stewart states that both giant town symbols (Big Things) and also ‘the hero on the horse … symbolize the reproduction of the social’. The difference between the giant sculpture and the statue is that the giant sculpture functions as a snapshot in time, symbolising something that is contemporary, while the statue illustrates ‘a historical narrative, or instructions for the generation of ideology’ (Stewart, 1993: 90). When deciding on the erection of statues of past events, it is a formulation of an accepted view of history that has taken place. A statue is a historical narrative when it is created, which explains why it is more accepted at a later stage than the giant sculpture, which is, initially, a sign of something only of the moment (Ryan, 1995: 54). However, due to their in-built political significance, statues are also highly controversial after political upheavals, something, for example, illustrated by the highly publicised removal of Saddam Hussein’s statue by US forces in Iraq (Macleod, 2010), and when statues are relocated from prominent central locations to the suburbs (Wight, 2009). Whereas Coffs Harbour was the largest banana-producing area in Australia in the 1960s – when the Big Banana was constructed – and banana growing was a significant income earner for a large part of the community, it has now become a reminder of past success connected to a minority, in more than one sense, of the population. The banana farms have always had strong connections with the Sikh community in the Coffs region. Bananas were introduced to the region from Queensland or Fiji by ethnic Sikhs in the

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1880s (different sources claim different locations) and a large proportion of those farms that are still operational are owned by ethnic Sikhs. However, nothing informs the visitor about the Sikh population of the area at the Big Banana. The Anglo-Australian majority population of Coffs Harbour largely moved into the area since the 1980s. Most of them work in secondary and tertiary industries such as manufacturing, hospitality services, aged care, public service and education, and few therefore feel connected to an agricultural minority industry with tropical roots. In Australia (and elsewhere) bananas are often given derogatory associations. Bananas and monkeys have a close connection in media depictions from as early as children’s ABC books. The national telecommunication company, Optus, during 2006 ran a television advertising campaign for broadband internet connections. The advertisements showed how simple the system is to operate by having a monkey surfing the internet, and all the sites shown were related to bananas. The first of the sites visited was the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour. Internet ‘dictionaries’ – sites where readers can contribute by adding their own definitions of words – give a range of different meanings for bananas. For example, contributions to http://www. urbandictionary.com variously list ‘banana’ as meaning: an individual of Asian origin who behaves like a Caucasian – ‘yellow on the outside – white on the inside’; a dildo; a fruit, or a herb; a derogatory meaning of produce from tropical regions; or a verb meaning ‘to go crazy’. The term ‘banana bender’ is used in Australia for people from Queensland, the largest bananaproducing state in the country. The denotation is insulting as it refers to a meaningless act (the fruit’s natural state is bent) and therefore attempted only by people who would be regarded as unintelligent. The former Australian Treasurer Paul Keating warned in a famous 1986 speech that Australia was becoming a ‘banana republic’, referring to the increasing reliance on export incomes from unprocessed commodities, with decreasing global market value (Mosler & Catley, 1998: 49). That he used the word banana republic was naturally to associate the nation with other former European colonies, mostly in the Caribbean and Africa, that depend on export incomes from agricultural produce. He could equally well have coined a new term, such as ‘coal’, ‘wool’ or ‘beef ’ republic, as it would have been more relevant to the actual commodities exported from Australia. However, both wool and beef are, in Anglo-Australian thinking, related to European values and European prosperity (Schlunke, 2005: 14–20), while the low esteem and value in which bananas from tropical nations are held produced the shock effect intended in Keating’s message. Steven Stockwell and Bethany Carlisle suggest that bananas are innately funny, and refer, for example, to slipping-on-banana-peel jokes, as well as

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the colour and shape of bananas (Stockwell & Carlisle, 2003). Stockwell continues, in an essay about Big Things and the Big Banana, by stating: ‘Everything about a banana is an invitation to laugh and one can’t but think that the locals were always in on the joke’ (Stockwell, 2004: x). However, the reality is that the locals in Coffs are by no means ‘in on the joke’, but are rather quite discomfited when the attraction is mentioned (Simmonds, 2002: 116). The community’s unease with banana connotations can, for example, be seen in the unwillingness to call the tourist area the ‘Banana Coast’, even though this is an established branding for over 20 different local businesses, and was the tourist branding in the area previously (Joyce, 1999). For example, the local ‘Bananacoast’ Credit Union, with its 18 regional offices from Port Macquarie in the south to Tweed Heads in the north, has a clear local focus and identity. The area did for a long time call itself the ‘Holiday Coast’ instead, but as this was found to be too non-descriptive, the name was changed in 2003 to ‘Coffs Coast’ (Tourism Leisure Concepts, 2001). One could, of course, question the decision to brand the area with a word that sounds like a respiratory illness, at the same time as SARS, as well as the swine and bird influenzas were causing global tourism to plummet. With all the differences between the two attractions chosen as case studies, it was a surprise for me when writing them up to realise the similarity of the two attractions in terms of the rationale for the development of both, and the ambiguous relation locals have to the attraction that symbolises the region they reside in. I once again want to reiterate the reason for conducting this study, namely: to question the common-sense idea of regarding attractions as objects. The texts surrounding the attractions are imperative in forming an attitude to them and in describing to tourists how they should experience the sites. By stating that the sites are, for example, kitsch, in bad taste, or the opposite of the beautiful nature of the area (Swaffer et al., 2002), the texts focalise the visitors’ experiences in advance and thus shape the phenomenon, and the TA.

Narrative Synthesising Places Narratives have been studied through representation. Such studies examine, for example, how media texts construct certain images of places. The point with this group of studies is that they all incorporate a notion of readers’ capacities to synthesise a range of different texts into narratives that, when combined, form the image of the place presented. Carla Santos asserted: ‘coverage of destinations and hosts promotes misrepresentations – a world of the Other as the writer wants it to be and the travel

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editor believes it should be’ (Santos, 2004: 126). She continued, however, by stressing that images of destinations are not constructed simply based on travel writing in newspapers, but rather that this type of writing, together with other sources of information, jointly forms the perceptions tourists have of places. Edensor claims, in a similar vein: tourist sites are themselves not static entities. Their material shape, symbolic importance and the ways in which they are perceived, represented and narrated change over time. Through place-marketing and the construction of tourist attractions, potted historical narratives are produced, only certain features of attractions and tourist space are highlighted, and the movement and time of tourists must fit in with this packaging. (Edensor, 1998: 11–12) This type of reasoning is close to studies in human geography that move away from the positivist notion, common in geography, of places as physical entities and rather see them as negotiated abstractions (Cresswell, 2004) or even as narratives (Entrikin, 1991). Eeva Jokinen and Soile Veijola have built on this idea in one of their articles in which they explore the ‘embodied visualities’ of landscapes. They state: ‘Unlike narratives with linear textuality, such as an autobiography or a sociological theory, a landscape does not use words or conventional grammar’ (Jokinen & Veijola, 2003: 259). They outline how places and mountains are described, depicted and interpreted in a set manner that reveals values held in society and by authors of the texts. Tim Cresswell suggests three alternative dimensions. These are: (1) the descriptive approach, which understands places as unique and particular entities that are developed as if from an internal organic growth, and that can be analysed as objects; (2) a social-constructivist approach, which also sees places as separate entities, but that are regarded as constructed from the outside by different social forces, such as male dominance, or capitalism; (3) a phenomenological approach, which does not view places as social formations or objects, but rather as stages of human experience where individuals are ‘in place’ (Cresswell, 2004: 51). Cresswell links these three dimensions to different users of places. For example, historians and politicians often subscribe to the first dimension, as it allows them to link certain events to specific locations and thus explain the inherent value of those places. Nicholas Entrikin similarly accepts that the positivist descriptive approach and the phenomenological approach are the two extremes of a spectrum in understanding place, and he agrees

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that social constructivism is also an accepted theoretical alternative – but he rejects the focus on external objectivity, on the one hand, and internal subjectivity, on the other, and offers as a workable compromise the analysis of places as narratives: We understand the specificity of place from a point of view, and for this reason the student of place relies upon forms of analysis that lie between the centered and decentered view; such forms may be described as narrative-like syntheses. In their syntheses geographers have adopted a point of view that is less detached than that of the theoretical scientist and more detached than that evident in the accounts of the travel writer. Of course, these represent ideal distinctions that blend together in experience. They do, however, illustrate the relative differences in the representation of place that result from the process of seeking a de­ centered perspective versus one that attempts to mediate the views of the insider and the outsider. (Entrikin, 1991: 3) While tourism is always interested in specific locations, destinations and attractions, much research has uncritically regarded these places as objects, using the first of Cresswell’s perspectives (the descriptive approach). The study of representation in tourism has, however, taken this discussion a long way towards a more inclusive understanding of place. For example, Ateljevic (2000; Ateljevic & Doorne, 2002, 2003), Morgan and Pritchard (1998), Pritchard and Morgan (1995, 1996, 1997, 2000a, 2000b, 2001, 2003), Urry (1990, 1994, 1999, 2004) and Edensor (1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004a, 2004b; Edensor & Kothari, 1994) all advance the idea that tourist places resemble social constructs more than objects. The book by Britta Knudsen and Anne Marit Waade (2010b) is a good example of what can be achieved with the combination methods, such as narratives, performance and phenomenology, to describe tourist places and experiences. I want to highlight the immense number of studies that utilise the concept of narratives in one way or another. Regardless of whether the discussion focuses on texts that describe the practice of tourism, texts produced for tourists, or texts tourists produced when recounting ex­periences in order to produce an identity for either a person or an organisation, the narrative structures that potentially form tourists’ experiences, or the narrated syntheses that produce representations of places, all use the same terminology but from very different perspectives, and in order to fulfil very different objectives. I follow Vanessa May (2004) in claiming that this richness of approaches shows the value of the underlying theoretical constructs. Individuals make

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sense of their experiences by consuming narratives in society, and for me to highlight how those narratives are formed collaboratively, not only is a deeper understanding of attractions and destinations reached, but also the fact is underscored that hegemonic agendas are hidden in the texts. These findings can then be associated with, and inform, the other studies outlined. They can, for example, help to explain why individuals, and even nations, form their identities based on TAs, or how stereotypical representations are formed and can thus be resisted. In Regina Bendix’s words: ‘[n]arration and narrative potential was, from the inception of bourgeois travel, a powerful means to create tourist attractions’ (Bendix, 2002: 474). My intention is to analyse this power and suggest how it can best be used in order to promote a holistic understanding of the destinations that the attractions represent.

Terminology Used in Narrative Analysis of TAs I will, in my use of narrative analysis, employ a range of theoretical concepts borrowed both from the original structuralist form of narrative analysis – narratology – and also from later forms of narrative analysis – built on poststructuralism and constructivism. I will in this chapter discuss a narrative’s diegesis and show how it is constructed in the Thunderbolt and Big Banana cases. Chapter 5 ‘Forming TAs’, will then discuss diachronic and synchronic elements of narratives, and also narrative voice, and illustrate how these are used at the chosen TAs. The final chapter in this part of the book, ‘Forging TAs’, will present the final terms of narrative analysis, focalisation, and narrative tempo.

Single-frame narratives – diegetic and extradiegetic narratives A common way of defining narrative texts is that they have to contain more than one ‘picture’ or ‘scene’ in order to be classified as a narrative. For example, Nick Lacey (2000) specifies that a single-frame cartoon is not a narrative while a multi-frame comic strip is. Emma Kafalenos agrees, in principle, but adds that the reader or viewer unconsciously develops a narrative of past or future events in relation even to single frames, and the reader is not always able later to separate the viewed part from the constructed part of the narrative (Kafalenos, 2001: 138). It could be suggested that a single-frame cartoon, or a photograph in a brochure, or an information sign on the roadside, to name some examples, are all narratives in that they represent the elements William Labov (1999) referred to when defining a ‘fully-formed narrative’ in some way or another.

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A single photograph can provide a viewer with an orientation and a complicating action in that it portrays a situation that the viewer attempts to associate with personal recollections of similar situations, and clearly leaves viewers with the task of imagining what happened next. That a photograph or any other single-frame narrative in most cases does not contain an abstract, an evaluation or a resolution, and a coda is potentially what urges a researcher such as Lacey to disqualify them from being narratives in his definition. However, Kafalenos (2001) points out that a series of single-frame cartoons feature characters that readers can follow and become familiar with over time. The characters’ specific attributes are known to the readers – such as the cheekiness of Max and Moritz, the deafness of Professor Calculus in Tintin or the laziness of Garfield the cat – and therefore do not need to be explained in each single-frame cartoon where they feature in order for the readers to understand the gag. It is, however, not only in imagined narratives where specific attributes are used to give single frames a context. Political satires used the former Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s bushy eyebrows, and his refusal to say ‘sorry’ to the nation’s Indigenous population for mistreatment by earlier governments, as attributes that gave readers instant tools of recog­ nition when he featured in single frames. The single frame introduces readers to a situation which becomes intelligible through the readers’ awareness of the context that the narrative is placed within. This context can be diegetic, defined as ‘the spatio-temporal universe designated by the narrative’ (Genette, 1988: 17). In other words, it can occur in a single ‘narrative world’ that readers are familiar with, such as political cartoons in newspapers that poke fun at current events in the society the readers live in – or the world in which Max and Moritz ‘live’. The context can also be extradiegetic, where it occurs in one ‘narrative world’ such as Springfield where the animated family The Simpsons live, but also refers to another narrative world, such as another TV series. Extra­ diegetic sequences of The Simpsons often refer to events in ‘real’ life and these separate diegeses together form the story in a way that carries the main narrative forward (Genette, 1988: 39). An author who has utilised this type of analysis extensively is Barthes in his semiotic analysis of texts compiled in Mythologies (1972 [1957]). An example of a picture Barthes discussed is a French author depicted reading a book aboard a boat travelling down a river in Central Africa. The semiotic meaning of the picture, which essentially reads as a narrative in Barthes’s text, illustrates a range of assumptions that society makes about the societal context of a famous person. Even though the author is performing acts like any other citizen – such as being a tourist – he is still portrayed

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in a manner that upholds his status above ‘ordinary’ tourists, as the book might signify work for an author (Barthes, 1972 [1957]). By producing a single frame where the abstract is known to the reader, most of the power of the narrative comes from the fact that readers can interpret the frame in a similar fashion to the way the producer intended it to be understood. The reader can generate an evaluation and resolution of the situation, which can clarify and/or ridicule the characters involved in the narrative, depending on how the frame is constructed. Pictures of tourists at heritage attractions are often single frame and intentionally extradiegetic. They combine ‘actors’ from one ‘narrative world’ – tourists on holiday – with a different constructed narrative world from the past. The composition of such pictures lends the actors a sense of involvement, or ‘authenticity’, and functions as a marker for the meta-narrative for which the attraction was originally erected.

Diegesis of Thunderbolt The concept diegesis refers in narrative analysis to the ‘entire created world’ of one narrative. Dino Felluga explains that ‘[a]ny narrative includes a diegesis…. However, each kind of story will render that time–space continuum in different ways. The suspension of disbelief that we all perform before entering into a fictional world entails an acceptance of a story’s diegesis’ (Felluga, 2003). The texts I have chosen to analyse all include Thunderbolt in one way or another, and all ultimately construct a diegesis for that narrative. The different geographical details presented structure the space the diegesis is set in, and the events noted in the texts present the time of the diegesis. Like all TAs, these change by each new text added to them. It is to my joy that I discover now, in 2015, that the local official website has developed into a more inclusive version than what it was five and ten years ago when the analysis was initially conducted. On my journeys to Uralla I collected four regional tourist brochures. These were freely available from tourist information centres and hotels, restaurants and other places where tourists could reasonably be expected to find them. Different interest groups produced the regional brochures, each focused on slightly different geographical areas, with the common denominator that they included Uralla and Thunderbolt as attractions. Regional brochures represent – in Leiper’s (1995) terms – ‘transit markers’ that collate a range of attractions available to travellers while on their journeys. The texts analysed are all parts of collages of texts in which the whole region is presented. While none of the brochures analysed was

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informative enough on its own for readers to form a complete understanding of what the attrac­tion might be like, each added some elements to the fabula. A tourist brochure differs from a guidebook in that it is expected to have a shorter lifespan. As these are free resources, travellers tend to use them for information purposes while in the region or possibly travelling to the region, but commonly do not save them for extended periods, as they would save a book purchased for essentially the same reason (James & Von Wald, 2004). It is interesting to note that three out of the four regional brochures collected call themselves ‘Visitors Guide’, while the fourth calls itself ‘Touring Guide’. I outlined already in Chapter 1, ‘Defining TAs’ that the difference between a visitor and a tourist might build on the same dichotomy as being a traveller or a tourist – the visitor/traveller is thus a more prestigi­ ous description than the tourist can ever be. Additionally, each publisher presents its brochures as guides in the same way as ‘unbiased’ guidebooks do, rather than overtly calling their publication brochures. The relevance of this linguistic detail is that the publishers try to represent their publications as information, as a guidebook is defined as ‘giving information about a place … [or a] subject’ (Crowther, 1995: 529), rather than as a form of promotional material – as a brochure is defined as a ‘printed promotional tool used by tourism industry firms to motivate and inform potential consumers about their services’ (Harris & Howard, 1996: 67). Olivia Jenkins highlights that ‘the main aim [of a brochure] is to “convert” a potential tourist into an actual tourist through the sale of tourist services’ (Jenkins, 2003: 312). JeanDidier Urbain, partly quoting Barthes, reminds us that ‘advertising is not only the art of persuasion … it is also a “meaningful aspect of ideology”.… It exalts values and very real symbolic experiences, pregnant sociological devices, myths, and more or less, cryptic basic narratives’ (Urbain, 1989: 108). Finally, Penny Travlou points out that brochures produced by local authorities may have the power to offer to travellers a different image compared with the stereotypical outsider’s view that guidebooks produce, but she concedes that ‘the brochures distributed … are narratives of mimicry…. Instead of producing a new imagery, they reproduce and/or recycle the “ready-made” one, employing the same stereotypical images. They shape their cultural identity according to what they believe tourists want to see’ (Travlou, 2002: 125). Apart from the local brochures several guidebooks including the TA were examined to enrich the analysis. With this information in mind, I will describe the texts that present the diegesis of Thunderbolt in Uralla. The description of Uralla in a Swedish guidebook, Australien: En Guidebok (henceforth A:EG), sets a well defined diegesis for the narrative,

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and provides a good foundation for a reader who has never previously heard about Thunderbolt: The old gold-mining town Uralla is 22 kilometres south of Armidale. Today the town is mostly known as the place where the bandit Captain Thunderbolt, alias Fred Ward, is buried. By the age of 21 he was sentenced to ten years in prison for stealing a horse. After four years he was released, but was shortly thereafter arrested again for horse theft. Three years later, in September 1863, he managed to escape from the prison at Cockatoo Island in Sydney and swam ashore. Over the following years, he robbed several mail coaches, inns and shops. Thanks to being a good horseman he always managed to escape from the police. Captain Thunderbolt had a reputation for being a real gentleman, especially towards women. In May 1870 he was finally surprised by a constable Walker, who hit him over the head with a rifle. Captain Thunderbolt died of the injuries. Today he and his horse are commemorated with a statue in the corner of Bridge St./Salisbury St. (Nordström, 2000: 181, my translation, original emphasis) While the Lonely Planet guidebook on New South Wales, presented in Chapter 6, ‘Forging TAs’, focuses on the story as an attraction, it still includes some tangible clues to what else, besides Thunderbolt, a tourist might find to experience in the area. The A:EG does not include links to any tangible evidence of the story except for mentioning the statue and, in passing, that Thunderbolt is buried in the town. It seems that the only reason Uralla has received an entry in the book is because of the story. Several other towns of similar size in the area are not even mentioned. Uralla is initially described as a ‘gold-mining’ town, not a totally correct label; however, this functions as a marker for the town’s ‘authentic’ atmosphere, and is linked to pioneer times when adventures were possible – unlike in modern times. The diegesis presented in the brochures is in general more fragmented than that in A: EG. It seems that brochure producers often assume that ­travellers have a previous awareness of the Thunderbolt narrative and so only excerpts of the full story are presented. The pages with the most material about Uralla, in a brochure called Country Way Touring Guide (Edwards, 2003), are collectively called ‘The Heart of New England’, and feature a combination of information on Armidale, Uralla, Walcha and Guyra. The utilisation of metaphoric expressions like the heading’s ‘heart of ’ bear strong connotations with the concept of a heartland – a place of belonging, or a

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place central to people’s values and thus often used in nationalistic texts to give readers a feeling of fitting into a place (Moran, 2004: 75). A stylised map covers the left side of page 8, showing the towns’ relationships to each other and informing the reader that the road between Walcha and Uralla is called Thunderbolt Way. The bottom of the page contains two pictures that are faded into one another; the left-hand image portrays a large church, while the right-hand side shows a smaller stone building covered in creepers coloured in autumn red and yellow. There is no caption for either picture, but the reader can assume that the pictures portray the same towns as are described above them. The text about Uralla on the upper part of the page reads: URALLA – Famous for the infamous. Captain Thunderbolt’s life of crime ended in Uralla. His grave is in Uralla cemetery and his statue is near the Visitor’s Centre. Uralla is truly Thunderbolt country. Displays of the bushranger’s life are on show at McCrossin’s Mill Museum. The New England Brass and Iron Lace Foundry has been continuously operating since 1872. Guided tours show the mesmerizing techniques of yesteryear still used to create iron lace today. Going to the chapel. Autumn is ablaze throughout the region, but Uralla dresses it up like nowhere else. Gostwyck Chapel, just 10km east of Uralla, is an adorable little brick church covered with Virginia creeper. In Autumn, the leaves blaze with ruby reds, emerald greens and rich golds, turning the chapel into a dazzling jewel box of nature. (Edwards, 2003: 8, original emphasis) The short part about Thunderbolt at the start of this text is arguably more informative than the other transit texts analysed in terms of who Thunderbolt was and what his connection with Uralla was. The reader learns that Thunderbolt was a criminal, and that he died in the town and is buried there, while his life is still on display in a local museum. The text is written in the third person, with a neutral tone that is informative and that remains unattached to the message. That the part about Uralla, and New England in general, is so detached in the style of its description makes the text appear factual. From the perspective of learning about Thunderbolt the text seems reliable, and might well form a basis for how the reader constructs an understanding of the attraction space, but the time element is totally missing here. The official website of the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) – http:// www.uralla.com – has extensive sections both about what there is to ex­perience in Uralla and about Thunderbolt (including about Mary Ann

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Bugg, his ‘wife’) and also historical descriptions of the gold rush. The section about Thunderbolt sets out a comprehensive diegesis about his life, starting from his father’s arrival in Australia and then, date by date, lists the robberies Thunderbolt was associated with throughout his ‘career’ as a bushranger. While the section about Mary Ann Bugg acknowledges that she was of Aboriginal heritage, and that her opposition to violence had influenced Thunderbolt’s actions as a ‘gentleman bushranger’, it is surprising how little the official website otherwise discusses the original population of the area. The website recognises that the township’s name is probably taken from the Indigenous term meaning ‘ceremonial meeting place’, but makes no further comment about that except to suggest that it is a suitable name for Uralla’s location at the crossroads of several highways. The only other mention of the area’s Aboriginal heritage can be found under a link about nature (sic!), where a short description is given of local rock paintings. Goldie Osuri and Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee explain that this combination of Indigenous peoples and nature is a recurring phenomenon in traditional Western museums. Dioramas portray Aboriginal people in natural settings, essentially constructing them as backward while simultaneously consolidating for white Australians ‘the status of being at the forefront of progressive human history’ (Osuri & Banerjee, 2003: 145). Similar combinations of Indigenous people and nature can be found all over the world, something Sandra Wall Reinius (2009), studying wilderness in the Swedish Lapland and the local Sami people, traces back to Latour’s separation of nature and society, with ‘others’ and ‘us’. So while the website frames the diegesis of Thunderbolt well and informs the reader about the township’s chosen main attraction, it simultaneously distances alternative interpretations by silencing them. The final transit text describing a diegesis of the attraction comes from a newspaper article written by Elisabeth Wynhausen (2001) and the connotations and comparisons made by her make the text important for this analysis. Wynhausen discusses music – composed and performed by two Uralla-based academics – that makes fun of the town’s close relationship with the bushranger. She introduces Uralla in her text by mentioning all the TAs that are connected to Thunderbolt, saying: ‘Paris has the Arc de Triomphe, Rome has the Colosseum and Uralla … has Thunderbolt. The locals don’t over-analyse it. He brings in the tourists; what more can you ask?’ (Wynhausen, 2001). This text is, from a theoretical perspective, exciting because the diegesis of the text is multiple; it refers to Thunderbolt – the person, the attraction, a festival commemorating him – and references to world-famous tourist icons. While the text is fairly informative in terms

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of what there is to see in Uralla, mainly making up the diegesis, it simultaneously expects readers to be able to understand the references to the intra- and extradiegetic features that form the text (Genette, 1988: 17). In a witty way, Wynhausen has summed up the connection between the bushranger and the town, and pointed out that much of the connection is related to tourism. She further comments that the locals do not overanalyse the connection. The interesting thing here is the comparison she is making with world-famous icons in Paris and Rome. To many people, such icons contribute to the definitions of the national identity of the people inhabiting those places. That Thunderbolt is the icon of Uralla in the same sense therefore also shows how an attraction ‘not over-analysed’ becomes a connection to history and identity. Citizens of Paris probably do not ‘over-analyse’ the meaning of the Arc de Triomphe as an object to them, either – it is located in the city and it ‘brings in the tourists; what more can you ask?’ But as David Rowe reminds us, the first sin of show business is to believe one’s own publicity (Rowe, 1993: 266). The emotional meaning the structure has to Parisians, and to the French in general, is immense, with the Arc the Triomphe being the centre of all nationalist celebrations, such as sports victories or Bastille Day. The point is that tourist attractions in general are similar: they bring in the tourists, but they form an identity of the place simultaneously. So, by reading the stories about Uralla and the town’s connections to Thunderbolt, an identity is constructed both in the readers’ minds and also in the inhabitants’ minds (Gruffudd, 1995: 65; Pritchard & Morgan, 2001). This is a thought I will build upon when I analyse the Big Banana, a TA that has been invented for its own sake. When that attraction is referred to, there are no other layers of meaning; the tourist entity refers to the tourist entity – a circularity that is interesting in the investigation of tourism in general. The contiguous texts available at the attraction were not, surprisingly, the most informative in terms of outlining a diegesis for the narrative, even though these texts often were more detailed and specific to the attractions that visitors had the opportunity to see on site. The Captain Thunderbolt Family Stories booklet (Goode & Sinclair, 2004) was the most extensive of these texts and in many respects presents the same texts as Uralla’s official website and a private website dedicated to Captain Thunderbolt. This was a booklet I was given at the Uralla VIC, the main points of which I will describe in in Chapter 8, ‘Performing TAs’. It also has text extracts which have been used in other brochures. The booklet, however, discusses extensively the person, not sites in the town. In following up internet searches, the same text was also found on almost 50 websites, even among those translated into Spanish and German.

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The Big Banana On longing: Narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection Susan Stewart (1993) has produced several exciting essays in relation to the narrative meanings of symbols in individuals’ daily lives, and specifically in topics related to journeys and excursions. She expertly explains why the miniature is a signifier for the antique and for historicity, by pointing out that history is made up of narratives of selected past – and consequently controllable – events, in the same way as are miniatures. Miniatures, such as model railways or miniature cities, are selected and controlled environments that allow the individuals viewing them to have a feeling of control over the objects. Additionally, the miniature and its selected order is a metaphor for human rationality and culture, something which is almost impossible to grasp in daily life and therefore longed for in retrospect as a past reality. The giant, on the other hand, is in its abundance both a signifier for irrationality and nature, and also of an inconceivable future. Stewart claims: ‘The giant is represented through movement, through being in time’ (1993: 86). The Aboriginal dreamtime stories, as an example, often feature giants who through their travels and actions shaped the landscape into what is visible today (Hulley, 1999). In the Dreaming, when human beings, animals, spirits, and nature were one, all the geographical shapes known today acquired their form, and stories exist all over Australia to explain this connection. ‘In contrast to the still and perfect universe of the miniature, the gigantic represents the order and disorder of historical forces. The consumer­ ism of the miniature is the consumerism of the classic; it is only fitting that consumer culture appropriates the gigantic whenever change is desired. We want the antique miniature and the gigantic new’ (Stewart, 1993: 86). In the generation of miniatures, selected ideals are chosen, and the models or sites can be hidden in any environment without being known to the outside world unless they are explicitly publicised. By creating giant symbols, on the other hand, a type of over-writing is taking place; something big acts to replace and silence what was before. High buildings in cities shadow those buildings that looked high earlier, and they rewrite the skyline and cityspace through their very existence. But also big natural phenomena, such as giant tsunami waves, instantaneously and irrevocably rewrite the coastlines that they roll over. The giant is therefore regarded as large, slightly clumsy and dangerous to smaller, ‘natural sized’ individuals (Stewart, 1993). Stewart suggests that gigantic roadside attractions should be understood as parts of collections – their attraction is not only developed through

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their own existence, but also through the fact that they constitute parts of a series, which travellers collect on their journeys (Stewart, 1993: 162). This is also a point that other researchers studying ‘Big Things’ agree on (Barcan, 1996; Krahn, 2002; Marling, 1984). An example of this can be found in a self-published travel book by Fredrik and Heather Stenshamn, which states: ‘Many a little town tries to attract tourists or just put themselves on the map by having “The Big … ” something or other. After a while it turned to an obsession for me to collect pictures of them along the way’ (Stenshamn & Stenshamn, 2005: 240). This sentence is followed by some pictures of different Big Things, often with the authors in the foreground. As Stewart asserts: ‘the wide availability of high-quality photographs of various tourist sights does not cancel out the attraction of taking one’s own pictures of public sights or the continual production of tour books with titles such as “My France”’ (Stewart, 1993: 137). I will discuss the relevance of how these pictures are composed in a later section.

Diegesis of the Big Banana Whereas the diegesis – the ‘spatio-temporal universe’ (Genette, 1988: 17) – of Thunderbolt-the-attraction is based on a historical narrative, but experienced as a set of physical attractions, the Big Banana is the opposite. The Big Banana is a tangible thing and any stories related to it are connected to its overall existence in the world. It might seem contradictory to even suggest that the Big Banana has a diegesis, but therein rests the key to the possibility of deconstructing attractions, not as objects, but as fluid narratives. In the case of Thunderbolt, I expect readers to disregard the underlying historical story when studying the way the diegesis of the attraction is constructed. The diegesis of the Big Banana could, in an extended analysis, refer to the initial creation of the attraction, the people involved in the creation, the initial rationale for the creation and the subsequent development of the site into what it was, what it is and what it is planned to be in the future. But the daily descriptions in advertising material and in the media of the Big Banana, its location, its opening hours and its different attractions construct even more than any historical descriptions the ‘world of the narrative’ – the spatio-temporal scope that most visitors would relate to the Big Banana. Coffs Harbour has some connection to bananas, a fact that can be seen, for example, in the city’s coat of arms (Figure 12). The official emblem was registered in 1966 with the city’s four main industries at that time pictured: bananas (the trees shown either side of the shield); timber (principally cedar, on the shield); agriculture; and fishing (Coffs Harbour City Council,

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Figure 12  Coffs Harbour coat of arms. Source: Coffs Harbour City Council website, http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au, 2003

2003). While this emblem is not used much in public discourse, it is still a reminder of the values that were dominant when the Big Banana was originally constructed. The logo that was used in all advertising for the town until late 2011 was introduced in 2001, at the same time as the name ‘Coffs Coast’ was introduced, after a consultation: ‘While the image for the Coffs Coast area is very much beach, bananas and family, the reality is that the area offers a wide range of activities and environments’ (Tourism Leisure Concepts, 2001: 5). The same report further stated that one of the disadvantages that the area had was its inexpensive image, which was created, for example, through extensive discounting of accommodation products in a highly seasonal market. The consultancy report stated: ‘What was desirable or acceptable ten or twenty years ago may no longer be acceptable’ (Tourism Leisure Concepts, 2001: 12). The new logo that was introduced was a triangular symbol (Figure 13), ‘standing’ on one of its edges, with a large green section on the left-hand side, a thin yellow section in the middle and a somewhat wider blue section on the right. Underneath the ‘triangle’ are the words ‘Coffs Coast™ – Discover our Green, Gold and Blue’, referring to the green forested area west of the region, the beaches and the sea. The slogan

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Figure 13  Advertising logo for Coffs Coast, used 2001–11. Source: Coffs Coast Marketing website, http://www.coffscoast.com.au

underneath the logo is at times exchanged with ‘Where Champions Play™’, referring to the city’s focus on sports events, or, as in the example with the participating councils (local government areas) named. While the advertising logo has nothing to do with the old coat of arms related to an agriculture-focused area, it is interesting to see that the logo focuses solely on nature. The points that made the region distinct from any other coastal community were erased, and the logo is thus a very generic offering. A slightly deeper reading of the logo reveals as well that the middle section of it is a long, bent, yellow shape; one wonders if the authors realised that they had thereby created an implied banana? The change in 2011 introduced a round blue-coloured Coffs symbol representing different nature elements. A text that contains an extended diegesis of the Big Banana comes from a book by David Clark called Big Things (2004), which focuses on different big sculptures as TAs around Australia, with the common denominator that they were larger than the original that they represented. This book is a generating marker/text, something that travellers can purchase in their home environments or on the road, and which functions as an introduction to attractions that the traveller therefore might want to visit. The Big Banana is presented as the oldest of all big attractions and is ‘honoured’ with more pages (seven pages out of a total of 225, presenting 118 different Big Things) than any other attraction in the book. Part of these descriptions forms the basis for what a reader/visitor could experience at the site, or at least what one could have experienced at the time of the book’s publication. As the Big Banana, like most other Big Things described, is a commercial enterprise, several parts that were not economic­ ally viable in its earlier form have since been closed or dismantled. But for other travellers who have not the interest in purchasing a whole book about

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Big Things, the diegesis is potentially not as clear. Websites, the first source of research for many travellers nowadays, can set a partial diegesis for the Big Banana. Readers who search for ‘Coffs Harbour’ are reminded repeatedly that Coffs Harbour is famed for its Big Banana, something a majority of descriptions about the town seem to begin with. One site (COFFSAC. com – no longer extant) even claimed it to be ‘Australia’s most famous attraction’. Two separate calendars, printed in 2004 for the following year and presenting iconic sites in New South Wales, used the Big Banana as the image that signified Coffs Harbour. Newspapers and magazine articles that describe the town or the area in any way are also often introduced with a reference to the Big Banana (Cummins, 2005; Hills, 2004; Viney, 2005). For example, Chris Viney, in the free Qantas in-flight magazine, started a major article about Coffs Harbour with the following description: Coasting along – There is Much More to Coffs Harbour than That Giant Banana – Coffs Coast’s star has always been tied to a certain bent yellow fruit – and to be truthful, there are rather a lot of bananas in and around the bright and friendly city of Coffs Harbour on the subtropical North Coast of New South Wales. There’s the famous ferro-cement Big Banana, of course – but beyond the quaint souvenir shops where all the coaches pull in, there is a real banana plantation extending up the steep slopes towards the crest of the hill. (Viney, 2005: 31, original emphasis) What is interesting with the diegesis constructed by Viney is his portrayal of ‘the famous ferro-cement Big Banana’, ‘the quaint souvenir shops’, ‘where all the coaches pull in’ and the ‘real banana plantation’. If readers had not known about the Big Banana before, they would have been informed in this text that it is well known and prominent enough to be mentioned first in the article. Additionally, they would discover the sculpture’s constitution – that it is made out of steel-reinforced concrete. The reader would also learn that the souvenir shops attached to this eminent feature of the town are quaint – which is a very interesting choice of words. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines the word quaint as ‘attractive because of being unusual or old-fashioned’ (Crowther, 1995: 949). The word is usually attached to delightful and somewhat odd features of regions or places, quite often remnants from earlier times not expected to be found anymore. If Viney found the souvenir shops quaint, it might of course be an indication of the shops’ age, or range of products for sale, or maybe a positive memory from his childhood; in any case, the perception is, as the dictionary states, ‘attractive’ and thus positive, even though it is patronising.

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Viney continues, however, by stating that coaches pull in at the quaint shops. With this he describes how the site is visited by large groups of travellers on coach holidays. Coach tours are often viewed as the most mundane type of holiday travelling, with people, herded like sheep, led from place to place determined by somebody else to be of interest (Löfgren, 2002). Pejorative uses of the word ‘tourist’ claim that ‘they “swarm” in that they move about in a destination in large groups together; they visit places in such a way that they cannot know it deeply, by “ticking” places off a list’ (McCabe, 2009: 39). That the coaches are emphasised in this text is an indication of the vulgarity the attraction represents according to the author, and in combination with this perception the word quaint gets a different meaning: it becomes an indication of weird and unsophisticated tourist shops. The final part of Viney’s introduction to Coffs Harbour refers to the reality of the banana plantation, in contrast to the constructedness of the ferro-cement sculpture. This emphasis builds on the idea of the search for authenticity so often found in tourist/travel texts and tourist angst (Dann, 1999; Larsen, 2010; Redfoot, 1984). As the author is aware both of his readers’ attraction to ‘authentic experiences’ and of the Big Banana’s ‘inauthenticity’, the final sentence above places the attraction in relation to ‘real’ things that can be experienced in combination with the famous and quaint attraction, which, unfortunately, is not ‘authentic’. So regardless of whether the tourist consultant for the Coffs area was trying to steer away from bananas as the major point of focus, it seems that the town is too deeply associated with bananas to ever be mentioned without them. In an article published before the World Cup Rugby Union Finals in 2003 (jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand), a BBC reporter (Mullins, 2003) presented Coffs Harbour in comical terms – firstly as the home of the Big Banana, and only as a remote second as the home of the Wallabies. The town was until 2008 the official training ground for the national rugby union team – nicknamed the Wallabies. Nick Mullins wants to tell his readers two things: firstly, that the town is by the seaside; and secondly, that it is a small and not a particularly modern or urban town, as he suggests that it is an ‘outpost’. That same point is also made in an initial sentence, where he suggests that the town ‘is on the map’ for only a few specific reasons, as if the town would be too small to even feature on a map unless the Big Banana and the Wallabies had a connection to the place. He implies while bananas might have been the ‘second biggest cash crop’ at some time, that is more of a historical statement. He claims the material the Big Banana is made of is plastic, which is an indication that he never visited the sculpture in person, but formed an impression about it from a distance or through secondary sources. The latter is the more likely, as he

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continues by saying that drivers can drive by at 70 mph (112 km/h), while the Big Banana is in reality situated in a residential area with a speed limit of 60 km/h (37 mph). His final comparison of the town to the UK resort town, Torquay, is quite blunt. It suggests that Coffs Harbour, like Torquay, is a destination that has been more glamorous and popular in the past, while both nowadays carry an image of being cheap and tacky destinations for the budget markets of their respective countries (see also Carr, 2002). Another point is naturally to ask whether the marketing people have really thought through the message they are sending to potential visitors by steering them away from the Big Banana sculpture because it is regarded as too cheap and common, and instead trying to portray a more sophisticated image – in connection to rugby players. To an educated section of the Australian population it might, in fact, be easier to connect a Big Banana sculpture to a sophisticated destination – if the locals themselves treat it as a joke– than to attempt to connect rugby players with the destination. Sport is, in some circles, regarded as the antithesis of (high) culture, and even undermining ‘Australian culture’ (McKay et al., 2001: 245). The description of the Big Banana attraction/narrative is, however, often limited to a listing of what there is to see and experience at the site. The diegesis that most readers consequently construct is drawn, therefore, from the opening lines of presentations of Coffs Harbour in general, or from advertisements concentrated on a shallow reading of the opening hours and prices for different activities at the attraction. The main influences on the diegesis are, however, pictures of the Big Banana. I will study these pictures in the section ‘Narrative Voice’ in Chapter 5. ‘Forming TAs’ (p. 122).

Conclusion I have in this chapter presented how TA narratives can be read. The suggestion that TAs can be ‘read’ harks back to my explanation in Chapter 1, ‘Defining TAs’, where I explained that ‘text’ is a general description of all meaning-making entities people come in contact with, be they films, buildings, pictures or written words, and these ‘texts’ are therefore ‘read’ when individuals interpret their meanings. Building on that notion I presented the three levels of attraction markers/texts, tourists come in contact with while on holiday (i.e. generating, transit, and contiguous texts). I continued on from this to explain how TAs can be regarded as elements of national fiction: the way narratives are created in society relates to national myths, and the way TAs are presented therefore creates and reinforces a national narrative. As an example of these national myths I presented the

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first case, Thunderbolt-the-attraction, which is a heritage attraction which builds on the Australian bush myth. I then presented the book’s second case, the Big Banana, which I suggested represents a postmodern TA narrative. I examined also how narratives have been used in human geography to synthesise ‘place’, in response to suggestions that place has suffered from dualistic interpretations, either objectively and descriptively from the outside or subjectively and emotionally from the inside. The suggestion in the text was that narratives can work as a middle way in showing how perceptions and understanding of place are created through texts. This is an important point in the redefinition of TAs, it shows how narrative analysis aims not at supplanting one or another viewpoint, but rather to bridge viewpoints. The chapter was concluded by introducing the first theoretical concept of narrative analysis that I used in the deconstruction of my chosen TAs: diegesis, or the ‘life-world’ that the narrative exists in. I also outlined the diegesis of my cases, Thunderbolt and the Big Banana, by exploring information found in different markers/texts.

5 Forming TAs

This second deconstructive chapter will examine how TAs are formed through the texts tourists come into contact with. The analysis aims here to show how texts created in regular promotional material and also in independent texts describing the TA, in combination, form the understandings tourists have of attractions visited. The theoretical constructs this section will present and then use to analyse the two cases are firstly the diachronic, synchronic, and anachronic elements of narratives, and secondly an analysis of narrative voice in texts. These elements are built on the basic reading of TA diegesis presented in the previous chapter. The connection between narratives and the culture in which they are produced is informative for an analyst. Each narrative develops within a society that shares and shapes common myths and norms of reality (Allon, 2004: 52; Turner, 1993: 2). An understanding of how a society wants to view itself and what dominant forces shape the preferred view can be gained by deconstructing a set of common narratives (Clegg, 1993: 27). By defining TAs as narratives – rather than things – that are constructed by a range of different stories, it becomes possible to investigate the different narrated components that comprise them.

Pre-travel and On-travel Narrative Consumption One author who has focused on narrative reification of tourism is Bendix, who studied ‘the intersection of tourist productions and “children’s tales”’ (Bendix, 1999: 29). Her 1999 article analysed the manner in which many Austrian destinations and attractions were formed around different imaginary stories and how the tourism industries tried to make the connection between fictional tales and physical locations tangible through, for 111

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example, theme parks. In another article she discusses attractions related to the Anne of Green Gables book series in Canada. She states: ‘Sites like these reify narratives and make them available for touristic experience, offering not just fictional reality, but also clearly scripted patterns along which to experience this dream-come-true’ (Bendix, 2002: 475). As she compares the Austrian attractions to American-styled theme parks, she discovers that the Austrian parks are not such totalising experiences, but are rather fragmented. From this she claims: ‘Materialized narration can tell a lot about the disjuncture between individual experiences – which ultimately remains fully known only to the self – and the experience that is constructed, advertised, and to be paid for’ (Bendix, 1999: 31). In these cases the narrative served to the tourists in the themed environments can be both something known prior to visitation – such as Little Red Riding Hood or any other classic fairytale or fantasy creatures – but in all cases the narrative forms a structure for how that destination is experienced and understood as a reified entity. Her conclusion is that the fantasy features that are added to contemporary Austrian TAs reflect the fear – held among tourist managers – that natural attractions are ‘too familiar’ (Bendix, 1999: 37) for visitors. Similarly in a Norwegian context, ‘Ideas about places are produced and re-produced, and places are constantly the subjects of re-evaluation. The place-narratives separate the world of tourism from everyday life; certain areas and places are elevated and segregated from the commonplace and profane. This is often done by making places unique’ (Selberg, 2010: 238). These are aspects I will return to throughout the remaining chapters. Other researchers have also analysed narratives ‘consumed’ by tourists before journeys and the impact these have had on the tourists’ experiences (e.g. Dann, 1999; Gruffudd et al., 2000; Jansson, 2010; Johnson, 1995; Kaur & Hutnyk, 1999; Månsson, 2010). Graham Dann (1999) points out that the traveller/tourist dichotomy and tourist angst are fed by travel writing, as many travel writers specifically try to distinguish their own practices as independent travellers in a negative comparison with tourists. Travel writing is compared in Dann’s work to a type of autobiography, something that is extensively studied among backpackers and their narration of travellers and tourists (Elsrud, 2001; O’Reilly, 2005). David Johnson analyses critically two travel writers in his essay, and claims that ‘[t]ravel begins and ends in the book; it takes place in the interval between reading and writing’ (Johnson, 1995: 2). The claim is rather common, as many writers have studied the hermeneutic circle of travellers reading or hearing about a destination, after which they set out to experience it for themselves, but unconsciously are constrained simply to reproduce the narrative (Daye, 2005; Galani-Moutafi, 2000; Jenkins, 2003).

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Rudy Koshar traces guidebooks – similar in structure to the Lonely Planet series – back to the mid-1800s and points out that they are often criticised for being superficial and formulaic; thus they are seen as debasements of earlier travel literature, from the era of the Enlightenment (Koshar, 1998: 324). He does, though, go on to point out that the value of guidebooks is in giving readers useful insights into a ‘MacCannellian backstage’ that would be hard – if possible at all – to gain without the information from the guidebook. Deborah Bhattacharyya (1997) has, however, shown that the Eurocentric voice used in, for example, the Lonely Planet guidebooks does, in reality, further distance travellers from the local population. As it is perceived that a large part of the market consuming contemporary guidebooks unconsciously suffers from tourist angst (Buzard, 1988: 156), there is an urge to move beyond traditional attractions and a greater demand has arisen to experience life ‘as the locals live it’. This underlying tourist angst has, however, led both guidebooks and tourist brochures to highlight attractions in areas that previously were not on any leisure traveller’s agenda. Harriet Dennys (2006: 4) suggests that travel guidebooks are to an ever higher degree being substituted by weblogs and podcasts, that is, electronic recordings of information, available free or for a fee via the internet. The traveller can, before a journey, download to a mobile player podcasts from different destinations and listen to the information when experiencing an attraction, or at a destination visit an internet café and search weblogs for information about the site. Travel guidebooks such as Lonely Planet and Fodor’s both use these technologies and are thus extending their reach beyond the printed format. The difference is, however, that free brochures are visibly promotional vehicles often funded by advertising, while travel guidebooks are supposed to be written neutrally, to give the traveller unbiased information, thus making them worth paying money for. Betsy Pudliner (2007) and Takeshi Kurashima et al. (2005) claim that weblogs are more reliable than both guidebooks and advertising as they are supposedly written by private people with no interest in manipulating readers. This claim has to be viewed as naïve, as operators in the travel industry learn quickly how to take advantage of a new and free promotional channel – something underlined by the fact that many hotel operators are setting up their own blog sites (Anonymous, 2005). The same criticism – of silencing diversity – that was directed at tourist guidebooks is also found in connection to brochures. Stephen Papson states, for example, that a tourist’s ‘[e]xperience is shaped by preconceptions learned from advertising. Advertising demonstrates the breathtaking scene. The role of the tourist is to find it and take a photograph of it’ (Papson, 1981: 227).

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Raminder Kaur and John Hutnyk take on travel writing from a nonWestern perspective and ‘signal the need’ for travel records to be rewritten, as they see a present dominance of a hegemonic Eurocentric emphasis, be it in academic discourse or in popular media (Kaur & Hutnyk, 1999: 3). They state that ‘travel is rooted in a colonial past: it is acquisitive, exoticizing, and, to a huge extent, dependent on the racial associations of the traveller … travel being more about confirming prior assumptions than about discovering new realms’ (Kaur & Hutnyk, 1999: 6). Their findings are also reflected by Tim Edensor (1998), who acknowledges that too often tourism studies are presented from a simplistic Western perspective and that generalisations about motivation and tourist behaviour cannot be made for different cultural patterns of tourism. Edensor finds that ‘[t]he culturally located ways of framing sights and arranging narratives is a selective process that usually reproduces the predictable; the already said, written and photographed’ (Edensor, 1998: 13). He states, however, that the hegemonic practices of presenting destinations and attractions only according to one agenda are being challenged by ‘[n]arratives and images wrought by women, ethnic groups, religious minorities, and the previously colonised who have claimed and reinterpreted spaces in their own ways’ (Edensor, 1998: 17). It is, though, evident that some overtly hegemonic narratives are still presented to tourists at attractions around the world. Heidi Dahles, for example, examined the narratives told by tourist guides at attractions in Indonesia. She questioned how suitable – from a tourist perspective – it was that the guides had to follow an agenda set by the government. The narratives were seen to be political propaganda instruments rather than informative insights into the essence of the sites (Dahles, 2002: 785). Similar critical studies have been done by Joan Henderson (2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2008), who has focused on how governments in South-East Asian nations use tourism, tourism promotion and tourism narratives to present a very specific image to the outside world. While critical studies are becoming more frequent (see, for example, the chapters in Macleod & Carrier, 2010), there are still many sceptical studies that are based on the familiar criticism that tourism has faced for centuries, of being inauthentic, surface-directed and aimed only at visual stimulation.

Diachronic, Synchronic and Anachronic Narratives Much writing about narratives is concentrated on specific written or spoken accounts of events (Kohler-Riessman, 1993), thus closing out other texts. Others (Berger, 1997; Lacey, 2000) use narrative analysis to study

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Synchronic axes – length indicates depth of detail

Diachronic axis

Anachrony with a synchronic axis

Figure 14  Simple diagram of a narrative with a diachronic axis denoting the passing of time, several synchronic axes denoting descriptive passages, and an anachrony, denoting an event that took place after the initial diachronic time had ended (i.e. a postscript). Source: By author

popular culture and media. Berger reminds us that ‘many phenomena that we do not think of as narrative texts are, in fact, narratives – or have strong narrative components in them’ (Berger, 1997: 16). The general rules that almost all narratives conform to is that they act on several axes – a horizontal or diachronic axis, and multiple vertical or synchronic axes. This can be explained in simplistic terms as the temporal progression of a narrative, or the plot, which can be viewed on the diachronic axis, while descriptions of characters or environments happen on subsequent synchronic axes (Figure 14). None of the synchronic descriptions leads the narrative forward on the diachronic axis, but without them the narrative would become uni­ dimensional and lose its ability to involve readers in its diegesis. Not all texts develop diachronically, however, but might include events that have taken place long before the text is narrated, or will take place at a later stage. These time discrepancies, which still form the way the narrative is structured and understood, are referred to as anachronisms (Talib, 2005) (discussed in the section on narrative tempo in Chapter 6, ‘Forging TAs’). Bal refers to the synchronic events of a narrative as either descriptive or argumentative, as both can contain illustrations of characters, or opinions that an external narrator includes in the narrative (Bal, 1997: 8). Bal also considers many argumentative features of a narrative to be ‘explicit information about the ideology of the text’ (Bal, 1997: 34) and, as such, vital clues to what sort of underlying message the narrative is trying to promote. It is easier to distinguish diachronic and synchronic features in written accounts than in pictorial accounts, such as photographs, comics or films.

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However, the same distinction can still be made in all texts. The way a cartoon character is drawn, or the types of actors who are cast for roles, are both synchronic features that a reader is aware of and which help to shape the reader’s perception of the narrative. Though none of the synchronic features need be specifically outlined for readers to follow the diachronic flow of the plot, they exist in a ‘natural’ way owing to the readers’ famili­ arity with the synchronic elements. When, for example, the sub-texts of the James Bond films are analysed for the synchronic messages entailed in choosing different enemies for Bond, it can be seen as a reflection of Anglo-hegemonic world politics that in general the enemies were of Germanic descent in the early films, followed by Eastern European during the Cold War era, then a short period of South American drug dealers in the 1990s, before the enemies became Middle Eastern in the latest films. Similarly, the way tourist literature and promotions are constructed when they are presenting destinations and attractions can be studied by distinguishing diachronic and synchronic features. Most guidebooks and brochures are presented as a chain of synchronic texts and it is left up to the reader to compile a diachronic narrative. They have a certain diachronic structure, in that the places and attractions described appear in a geographical order, thus seeming to follow the narrative of a journey as it was travelled, when it was described, and how it could (should) be travelled in the future. If the whole guidebook is seen as a full narrative, then the structure of the journeys described comprises their diachronic logic. However, the bulk of the writing in guidebooks is made up of synchronic features, describing in fairly explicit ways what there is to see, structured according to a meta-narrative. It should also be acknowledged that guidebooks can be read in any order, and are only ever read in part, depending on what is of specific interest to readers, or how readers decide to plan and execute their journeys. Travel descriptions are, on the other hand, usually diachronic texts that lead readers through subjective experiences, only at times referring to synchronic texts to extend the portrayal in some way.

Diachronic/synchronic elements of Thunderbolt Examples from the texts surrounding Thunderbolt and Uralla of synchronic, rather than diachronic, sequences can be found in several of the brochures analysed. Uralla is mentioned on two pages in a publication called The North Coast Monthly iMag; page 13 is focused on Uralla and is printed in the brochure’s general colour scheme of black on white with highlights printed in red (Melrose, 2004). There are five elements on the page: on the left-hand side of the page a historical account of the township;

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a ‘family story’ about Thunderbolt, with extracts from Arnold Goode and Barry Sinclair (2004) taking up half the page on the upper right-hand side (analysed in more detail in the section regarding narrative voice later in this chapter); and three advertisements from businesses in Uralla on the bottom of the page. The two written texts on the page are different to all the other texts in the brochure, as the texts about Uralla do not contain one word about what the town currently offers – all the text refers to is Uralla’s past. The historic text on the left-hand side of the page reads: The History of Uralla – Uralla’s heritage is closely connected with gold, [sic] Although gold had been discovered earlier at Rocky River, a ‘deep lead’ was found in February 1856 on the side of Mount Jones under the overlaying basalt. Uralla benefited from the ‘rush’ of over 5000 people to the area and soon became a small township. Uralla began life as a shepherd’s out station after Colonel Henry Dumaresq chose his squatting run in 1834, which he called Saumarez. The government surveyed a reserve in 1849 at the foot of Nit [sic] Mutton and Mt Beef enclosing a portion of both Rocky and Uralla Creeks. These creeks became a testing [sic] place for the squatters as they journeyed north in search of grazing lands. An accommodation house and inn was soon erected and Samuel McCrossin became the licensee. This inn was on the sight [sic] of the present Bowling Club greens. (Melrose, 2004: 13, original emphasis) That this text omits Thunderbolt from its story is not the most significant feature. That the text does not include any of the elements that other descriptions of the township contain, and that it does not feature anything that a traveller today can experience, is even more significant, taking into consideration that this brochure is produced as a ‘visitors’ guide’. The area’s Indigenous history is totally ignored here, and the only history served up is of gold rushes, squatters and the government’s land survey, none of which can be tangibly experienced anymore – or if they could be, the travellers are not told how. Another example of this same lack of awareness about racially incorrect Australian narratives is found in a critical analysis of Australian filmmaking. Marcia Langton claims that ‘[o]ne of the major problems for the Australian Film Commission is to find … critical thinkers, Aboriginal and non-­Aboriginal, who can assess both individual and community scripts … [that] include a knowledge of and sensibility towards Aboriginal cultural values and the impact of history’ (Langton, 1993: 84). What Langton is referring to with regard to Aboriginality is that all stakeholders involved in

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creating images have ‘to distinguish between colonial and anti-colonial representations’ (Langton, 1993: 84). It could naturally be claimed that, in the tourist brochure analysed, no mention of the Indigenous people who used to live in the area before the colonial era is better than an incorrect depiction. I would, however, counter that any history that starts from the first signs of non-Aboriginal influence in an area, and that relegates Indigenous history to nature, is a hidden attempt to reconfirm the ‘terra nullius’ argument. Joseph Pugliese states: ‘terra nullius is something that filters down into the practices of everyday life. Terra nullius functions to render Indigenous heritage and history invisible at the level of heterogeneous practices and sites … at the seemingly banal or inconsequential levels of everyday life, for example, simply going to the cinema or visiting a tourist site’ (Pugliese, 2002: 14–15). This omission is especially surprising as it is placed next to another text where the region’s connection with its colonial past is highlighted, namely the story about the bushranger. An advertisement in The North Coast Monthly iMag for the ‘Bookshops of Uralla’ features a silhouette of a person reading a book. The clothes and hairstyle that appear in the silhouette either portray a man dressed in Victorian clothes featuring a half-length cape or, alternatively, an older woman with a winter coat. In either case, the image the androgynous picture conveys is of an older person, and probably also from an earlier time. Next to the silhouette is the text: ‘Antiquarian – Secondhand – Remainders – Collectable to cheap as chips – Open every day except Xmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday’ and after that each of the three bookshops’ contact details. The advertisement fits well into the context of a historic town, which seems to be the message portrayed by the written texts on the page. An alternative view that can be taken of the androgynous silhouette in the advertisement is that it signals a less well known side of Uralla, namely the gay connections of the town. Wynhausen points out, for example, that Uralla has had ‘an influx of lesbians that had prompted someone or the other to dub Uralla “the Lesbian capital of the northwest”’ (Wynhausen, 2001). She describes the initial resistance to this move by local people, commenting that the population of the town was essentially divided into three: locals (however defined), artists, and university people from the nearby University of New England (UNE) in Armidale. Katrina Schlunke also makes a point about the camping ground in Uralla, where the proprietor did assume that Schlunke and her (female) partner would share a double bed in a rented cabin, and sees that as a positive lack of homophobia in a rural community (Schlunke, 2005: 91). Another text that links Uralla to gayness is a travel blog that introduces Thunderbolt in the following way:

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Thunderbolt, Freddie Ward, was a local bushranger around Uralla in the 1860’s. A compassionate and funny cove, he was revered by many. Especially by chicks and Kooris. He was courtious [sic] to women, never shot anyone, and wore a kerchief. This of course inspired some brain at UNE to write a revisionist history thesis insisting he was gay. Dope. (Neylan, 2004) It is interesting to note that all of these passages come from transit texts that a visitor would happen to come across only if they were reading more broadly about the destination before their travels; no generating or contiguous texts have similar messages, and no official websites mention anything like this. And it is certainly not the image celebrated by government in various ceremonies (Nicoll, 2001: 190). Without this background, a visitor would probably not even notice that outside one of the local shops on the main street hangs a rainbow flag, a subtle but potent marker for a narrative about Uralla that is not part of the official discourse. Gordon Waitt suggests that ‘Australia continues to be organised around structures which reaffirm and reinforce differences along the social divisions of class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.… The Australian government has always bracketed together the nation, the sporting body, whiteness, masculinity, and heterosexuality’ (Waitt, 2005: 440–441). That Thunderbolt in official texts is thus regarded as a gentleman seems always to be presented as a masculine trait, but should it perhaps rather be treated as evidence of his homosexuality? The history thesis referred to by Adrian Neylan above (2004) is never given any other voice in the texts surrounding the attraction. One history thesis is presented in Family Stories (Goode & Sinclair, 2004), but only to refer to the question of whether it was Fred Ward or somebody else who was shot in Uralla; the name of that thesis or its content otherwise is, however, never disclosed. This assembly of synchronic sequences of the narrative does not advance the story in a diachronic manner; rather, it deepens it and makes it personal. Synchronic features are quite common in newspaper articles, as they focus on details of news value and have the potential to add depth to the fabula. Some texts from newspapers related to in the issue of who really was shot in Uralla – whether it was Fred Ward or somebody else – and each of these texts points out that the truth of the issue is of secondary concern; just raising the question has in itself been beneficial for the tourism industries in Uralla, adding to people’s interest in visiting the town (Masselos, 2003; Scanlon, 2002: 53; Williams, 2004: 11). Steve Meacham presents the tourist attractions of New England, and mentions Thunderbolt as part of the invention of ‘tourism spin doctors’. He claims: ‘you can hardly move in Uralla for Thunderbolt memorabilia’ (Meacham, 2002). Meacham’s

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suggestion that Uralla is simply using the Thunderbolt legend as ‘spin’ to attract tourists might be correct, but the connections between the town and the bushranger are deeper than only something tourist operators’ spin can achieve. For example, Simon Kent, in a text regarding Uralla’s political preferences, presents the town by saying: ‘Uralla, 22 kilometres south of Armidale and infamous home of the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt, is almost a typical town’ (Kent, 1987: 4). The article goes on simply talking about Uralla as a Labor-voting town, but the initial introduction shows that the bushranger has come to define and connote Uralla and its inhabitants more than just as tourism spin. All of these short, synchronic details about Thunderbolt are typical pieces of information that travellers can come across in their daily reading of newspapers, and that jointly contribute to a perception of the full narrative. People who are not familiar with the story and its diegesis will probably not pay any attention to these details, but for travellers who already have some knowledge of the attraction/narrative, each of these pieces becomes a further aspect of what constitutes their personal fabula. The only consciously diachronic contiguous text is the Heritage Walking Tour booklet (produced by Uralla VIC) which has a map with numbers and descriptions of the corresponding sites in the township.

Diachronic/synchronic elements of the Big Banana There is no linear story line at the Big Banana – unlike the experience of a visitor to Uralla interested in attractions linked to Thunderbolt, which are present stories that are easy to follow. Diachronic and synchronic features of the Big Banana can be determined only by regarding the attraction as a postmodern narrative. The Big Banana site was constructed, and is operated, in one location and for a tourist the synchronic activities are elements without self-evident links to one another. The original sculpture was erected to entice travellers to stop and purchase farm produce (Clark, 2004: 80). It acted in the same way as a one-frame cartoon, funny and interesting as a stand-alone feature. The attraction was later added to in order for the different owners to capitalise on the initial success (Beeton, 2005; Leiper, 1997). The add-ons constitute the separate activities that now exist in conjunction with the original sculpture. Had each new activity a connection to bananas, then some type of linearity might be achieved, but, at the time of writing at least, there was very little if any connection between the different activities, at least overtly. This confusion for visitors can, for example, be found in Ben Hills’ statement: ‘Turn right at the Big Banana … in fact, do anything you can to avoid the

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Big Banana, which for some weird reason now sports an artificial ski slope’ (Hills, 2004: 12). That at a later stage he listed the same site’s ice-skating rink as one of the positive activities in the town, without mentioning where it is, made his initial dismissal of the Big Banana ring hollow. A first impression of the Big Banana among visitors to Coffs Harbour is likely to come from the back cover of the Coffs Coast – Free Map, produced by Here&Now publications in 2003/04. This is a promotional map that is available at the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) as well as at hotels, tourist attractions and other places that have advertised in that medium. The main colour of the advertisement is yellow, with the text on the page being either black on a yellow background or the inverse. The advertisement has a picture of the Big Banana covering the entire top of the page, and beneath that the text: ‘coffs harbour’s biggest attraction … something for everyone!’ The emphasis on size can here be seen as a play on words; the attraction is big both spatially and in fame; it is also the only well known Big Thing in the town, and can thus substantiate its claim to be the biggest attraction. A linear reading of the size emphasised in the advertisement can also connect with the notion of importance – Stockwell reminds us that men especially are preoccupied with size. The assumption made is that the bigger something is, the better and more important it is, and the smaller it is, the more insignificant (Stockwell, 2004: xi). The advertisement could in that sense equally well have referred to the Big Banana as Coffs Harbour’s ‘most famous attraction’, or ‘most important attraction’ – the meaning is essentially the same. The slogan that follows the size claim is used in much promotional material for the Big Banana – ‘something for everyone’. But what does that really mean? It is meant to be a positive claim, inviting as many visitors as possible to come to the attraction and enjoy themselves in the variety of activities, something that is backed up by the rest of the advertisement’s text. An explanation put forward by Andrew Wernick claims that producers of advertising messages are ‘pitching to the mass’ and thus ‘pitch to the norm’; this is an adaptation strategy aimed at appealing to a ‘value consensus’ (Wernick, 1987: 277). By offering a little bit of many things, the hope is that a big proportion of the text’s readers would be attracted to the site, but the slogan stands in contrast to modern marketing theory, which emphasises strict segmentation and target markets for all products and service offerings (Kotler et al., 2003: 264–267). This is potentially one of the aspects the Coffs Coast consultation report referred to when it pointed out that, in a changing marketplace, something that was acceptable earlier is no longer acceptable (Tourism Leisure Concepts, 2001). Stewart suggests that the ‘primary qualities of gigantification and novelty [in pop art], its obsession with the mechanical possibilities of

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exaggeration, and its anticlassicism, are the modern expression of the qualities of gigantification we find in previous uses of the spectacle – the articulation of quantity over quality, of “façade” over “content,” of m ­ ateriality and movement over mediation and transcendence’ (Stewart, 1993: 92–-93). This is very much the case at the Big Banana site. There is hardly any content in the actual sculpture; it is only a façade. The diachronic ‘line’ is thus hard to extend – it is, rather, a group of synchronic ‘lines’ that jointly make up the narrative. For readers/visitors who expect a diachronic narrative with content behind the façade, this becomes confusing, and leads to the type of negative comments earlier stated by Hills (2004), and that are also aplenty in guidebooks. So, with a population that is becoming more sophisticated in its consumption of leisure and holiday experiences it might be suggested that an old-fashioned funfair and spectacle with ‘something for everyone’ is regarded as passé, and that consumers reading the slogan therefore would form a perception of the Big Banana as something old-fashioned. Research suggests that tourists want to experience a cluster of activities, not single attractions when visiting regions (see Chapter 1, ‘Defining TAs’). In a society where tourism is one way of constructing an identity that differentiates the individual from the masses (Aitchison et al., 2000), attractions that are directed at the masses would be seen as pointless, as they would only lead to a homogenisation of the individual’s activities with those of other people.

Narrative Voice All narratives are essentially narrated by someone, regardless of whether the narrators are absent or present when the narrative is perceived by the reader. Some narratives are narrated in the third person, by a narrator who does not take part in the narrative personally. Examples of this in everyday texts are news reports, most scientific arguments and many fictional texts. This form of narration is referred to as external narration (EN). A narrative can also be narrated by a character who is part of the narrative, which often takes place in the first person and is referred to as character narration (CN); this can be found in many fictional narratives (Bal, 1997: 22). The difference between using EN and CN in a narrative is the level of intimacy the different narratives have for the reader. A narrative with an EN may seem objective, neutral and distanced from the actual plot, while a narrative with a CN seems more personal and to a certain extent subjective (Felluga, 2003). Narrators can use the two different voices in order to influence readers’ feelings towards the message that is

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being conveyed – either intimate and subjective or distanced and objective. However, as these are conscious choices of voice, either position is chosen for strategic reasons only in order to convey a message in a way that suits the context. The distinction between using EN and CN, from a tourism perspective, is clearly seen in the different types of tourist guidebooks on the market. Guidebooks used to be written in a (pseudo-)scientific and distanced style that outlined ‘what ought to be seen at each place, and … what may be seen’ (Koshar, 1998: 323, referring to Murray’s Travel Guide printed in 1858, original emphasis). The same types of distanced narrations were still predominant in all guidebooks published until tourism became more common in the Western economies in the late 1960s/early 1970s (Koshar, 1998). One of the first publishers that offered a different type of narration, in the mid-1970s, was the now dominant Lonely Planet (LP) guidebook. LP is currently seen as the most important guidebook series for English-speaking travellers on a global scale (Bhattacharyya, 1997). The LP series is published in Australia, though nowadays owned by a British parent company, and sold all over the world. One or several main editors commonly edit the books but acknowledge that they are written by different contributors, while readers are encouraged to write to the publishers and inform them about updates suitable for the next edition of the text. Whereas the LP guides are not written in the first person, they contain enough traces of personal ex­periences for travellers to read them as if they were CN. Travel books that use a distinct CN are, for example, the books written by Bill Bryson and those by Michael Palin. These travel books are highly personal, and the reader is usually familiar with the character through other media as well. Aside from printed material, I have to acknowledge the influence of the internet, too, as it is for many people the first source of information when planning a journey. The resources presented via the internet cover all ‘traditional’ publication strategies. There are ‘official’ sites, published by governmental or public sources, that present destinations and attractions in a distanced way using an EN. There are, however, also private sites where travellers retell their travel ‘adventures’. Some use social media to produce in effect their own internet pages as their travel diaries, which are regularly updated and are available for friends and relatives – and anybody else who happens to come across it – to follow the journey as it progresses. These so-called weblog or ‘blog’ sites (Kay, 2003) are the epitome of CN. Travel blogs offer an interactive element, as readers of the text can participate in the evolution of the narrative by writing their own messages at the site, but the main characters of the narrative are the actors who originally started the blog and later invited others to take part in it. In the

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same vein, numerous other forms of third-party internet sites allow tourists to share and recommend personal travel experiences (Hills & Cairncross, 2011). The difference between ‘old-fashioned’, ‘objective’ guidebooks, such as the Baedeker series, which are distinctly EN, and ‘subjective’ travel books such as Michael Palin’s, or travel blog sites, which are distinctly CN, is clear and easy to distinguish. However, the more subtle subjectivity of the Lonely Planet series, which overtly seems like EN but in many regards reads like a CN, is harder to classify. This is where focalisation, the next theoretical concept from narrative analysis, which I will analyse in Chapter 6, ‘Forging TAs’, is helpful.

Narrative voice of Thunderbolt Narrative voice refers to the style a text is narrated in. It is either in a subjective and personal first-person voice, in which case it would be referred to as CN, or an informative, and still relatively subjective second-person voice, which still might include a CN, but not overtly, where the texts are not written in the first person. This could be viewed as having a perceptible (p) or non-perceptible (np) external focaliser (EF). The final voice is that of a distanced and ‘objective’ third person, which is referred to as EN. As discussed above, both guidebooks and blog sites are dominated by first- and second-person texts, as these are written by – or directed at – specific travellers’ itineraries or refer to questions asked about specific destinations on the sites. Page 9 of a brochure called Around and About Waterfall Way (Cody, 2004) concentrates mainly on Uralla, with a third of the text on the page stating: As fortune would have it and I am sure that Captain Thunderbolt would agree, Uralla is nicely situated on a junction of three main highways. But rather than contemplate what Thunderbolt might have done in the 1860’s we prefer to welcome those travelers that stop over for a coffee and a break. Servicing many places, the original inhabitants, the Anaiwan and the Moshe tribes called this the ‘Meeting place’[,] a distinctly appropriate name then and now. From East and West, North and South, the junction of roads lies through the middle of Town nestled in the Rocky River tributaries that flow down on to the great Murray-Darling Basin…. (Cody, 2004: 9) The fact that the text is written in the first person – ‘I’, ‘we’ – is an interesting linguistic tool. By the use of CN, the intention is to give the reader a more intimate relationship with the text. No other destination in the

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brochure has the first person used for its descriptive text, but rather the more common third person, EN, with ‘objective’ descriptions of different destinations. There are also some sections of second-person voice, np EF, which addresses the traveller with ‘you’ and describes what ‘you’ will see. The value of using a CN is, however, lost owing to the poor text that the piece otherwise provides about the township. The flowery text uses, at times, American spelling – travelers; unusual words – confluence, credence; and places a very small emphasis on Uralla (the majority of the text is about surrounding areas). Finally, the use of Thunderbolt in the text is without any explanation about who the person was; it is, rather, building on an assumed knowledge among readers. Assumed knowledge can feed a feeling of intimacy for people who can relate to the knowledge, but it can equally become a barrier that assures ‘outsiders’ that the attraction is not meant for them (Golden, 1996: 233). The only tangible information a traveller without previous knowledge of the Thunderbolt legend would receive from this brochure is the notion of Uralla calling itself ‘Thunderbolt Country’, Thunderbolt having something to do with horses, and that Captain Thunder­bolt had something to do with the 1860s. It can thus be suggested that travellers would construct a rather vague narrative about Thunderbolt, if any at all, and that other sources are needed to actually feed travellers’ interest in learning more about the attraction. A positive feature of the text is, however, its emphasis on the original inhabitants of the region by naming the Indigenous peoples that gave the township its name. Anthony Lambert suggests that Australian films often suffer from the suppression of ‘the importance and visibility of certain active representation’ of Indigenous realities, something he calls a ‘filmic terra nullius’ (Lambert, 2000: 8). Even a brief mention, as in the brochure text above, allows for a wider understanding of the continuity of history, and therefore does not create the ‘touristic terra nullius’ that is so common in the Australian tourist industry. Rowe, for example, points out that ‘Aboriginal people living a traditional tribal existence can be admitted and accommodated [in tourist discourse], but not that of Aboriginal inner urban or outer suburban dwellers’ (Rowe, 1993: 265). Meaghan Morris similarly highlights that visible Aboriginal culture in Australia seems to be a product for tourists’ consumption (Morris, 1995: 188). This strange dualist way of representing Aboriginality can be traced to the uncertainty the majority non-Indigenous population has in finding suitable modern ‘cohesive models of socially being and belonging’ (Potter, 2002: 1). By producing memorials and selecting specific heritage attractions, national myths like bush romanticism can be sustained, and the violent colonisation of the land can conveniently be forgotten. The fact that a place that carries an Indigenous name, and an

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associated history, is not acknowledged in tourist texts reflects the creation of a touristic terra nullius. The February 2004 issue of The North Coast Monthly iMag contains one section entitled ‘Family Stories’. It is printed on a red background and therefore stands out as the most important feature of the page. A well known fact about ‘Thunderbolt’ – It is claimed in nearly every book about Thunderbolt, that, throughout his career, he never shot at any one, including the police. However what is not so well known is the reason for this. Thunderbolt’s wife, Mary Ann Bugg, by her aboriginal heritage, had a total hatred of guns due to the way so many of her people had been murdered by the white population of the time. During her time with Thunderbolt she instilled in him this same total hatred of guns and of shooting people. This is an important factor in the subsequent pursuit and death of Thunderbolt. Was ‘Thunderbolt’ married – Many authors claim that Mary Ann & Thunderbolt were not married despite this testimony shown in the article. The problem is their [sic] seems to be no records at Stroud to the marriage [sic] We remember reading in the ‘North-West Champion’ of December 7, 1929, that an old lady whom I knew, Mrs Deamer, in an article entitled ‘The Days That Were’, claimed that she saw Thunderbolt married at Stroud. The old lady seemed to have a clear recollection of the event, and she told the story in these words, I quote: ‘It was at Stroud and I was going to school at the time. Fredrick Ward, that was Thunderbolt’s name, was a nice looking fellow, and the girl he married was Mary Bugg, daughter of Mr Jimmy Bugg who looked after the Australian Pastoral Company’s station at Port Stevens. There was a great to-do at the church the day the wedding was on, and we were all let out of school to see them come out of church.’ At that time, Mary Ann was working in the Anglican School at Stroud. It is certainly reasonable that the children would be given time to watch the wedding. The Parish at that time was not the parish of Stroud but part of the Church of England Parish of the Australian Agri­ cultural Company, which included the area from Wollongong to the Queensland border with the exception of Sydney. The Stroud Website clearly indicates that Thunderbolt was married in the Stroud Anglican Church. (Compiled by Barry Sinclair, Captain Thunderbolt family historian, 2004: 13, original emphasis)

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What can be noted from the text is the combination of assumed knowledge about who Thunderbolt was and the narrative voice that moves between EN and CN while constantly being an EF. The text starts off in the first paragraph with the third-person voice (EN) – a voice that is supposed to be neutral – but the focalisation at this early stage strongly tries to convince the reader of Thunderbolt’s virtues. The second paragraph incorporates the reader even more into the text as the narrator uses ‘we’ and ‘I’ and thus integrates a first-person voice (CN). The result of this textual manipulation is that readers should feel an intimate trust for the message as it essentially is told by an ‘eyewitness’, first directly and later indirectly, to the reader. Who the initial ‘we’ and ‘I’ refer to is hard to determine, but it could be assumed that it is the author of the piece, who is the ‘I’, while the ‘we’ is the author and anybody else who happened to read the same newspaper article from 1929 and still remembers it. The overall message that this text gives readers is one of personal experience – a family story told directly to the reader by a named person. Regardless of whether the author is a relative of Thunderbolt or simply a person who has taken on the task of writing the family history of Thunder­bolt’s descendants, there is an intrinsic familiarity to the story. Most readers can probably imagine themselves, at some stage of their lives, in the company of one of their older relatives who tells them a story about somebody in the family. There is an aura of authenticity in the story, often simply because no alternative stories exist that can contradict the one heard. In the brochure this is the case, as no other versions of Thunderbolt’s life are included in it. There is even a feel of research to the story when the author mentions that ‘Many authors claim…’, thus proving to the readers that alternatives exist, but even when they are taken into consideration, it seems to say ‘this is the truth’. Letters to the editor are in most cases written in the first person – they are messages from individuals who want to make their opinions heard in public. The apparently controversial issue of choosing to erect a statue commemorating a criminal, rather than the person who captured him, is commented on in some texts from newspapers. Lenore Oliver (1988: 14) suggests in a letter that the statue should be erected for the police officer who shot Thunderbolt, while Warren Fahey (1988: 26) – in an answer to Oliver’s note – makes fun of the suggestion that a ‘copper’ should be remembered when Thunderbolt was such an ‘eccentric and wonderful’ person. These two texts refer back to the national myth, highlighted by Turner (1993), that glorifies criminals, in that they represent the common people’s dislike of authoritarian oppression. The first writer, Oliver, makes a reasonable comment from a present-day perspective where law enforcement

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is viewed as a source of security by the conservative public. The second writer, Fahey, however, wholeheartedly accepts the old myth, and clearly wants to associate himself with the picture of the common Australian as a larrikin opposed to authority.

Narrative voice of the Big Banana A feature I will discuss in Chapter 9, ‘Remembering TAs’, is that my partner and I take pictures in different ways at tourist sites. Kevin Markwell, in his study of different dimensions of photography in tourism, analyses this to some extent (Markwell, 1997) but even more so Donald Redfoot, in his article about ‘tourist angst’. He describes these exact photographic strategies when he gives examples of the difference between what he calls first-order and second-order tourists. The first category consists of stereotypical tourists who take photographs and visit sites without having any deeper connections with the places. The second-order tourist category consists of individuals who, in their own minds, are more like the stereotypical traveller, supposed to have a more holistic understanding of the meaning of the place visited, while in reality carrying ‘a considerable amount of anxiety and “shame” in being labelled as a “tourist”’ (Redfoot, 1984: 296). In Redfoot’s descriptions, first-order tourists take pictures only to store them up for future reference. ‘Typically, family or friends pose in the foreground, literally and symbolically turning their backs to the setting that they are supposed to be experiencing’ (Redfoot, 1984: 294). Second-order tourists, in a bid to distinguish themselves from first-order tourists, can choose between different strategies – for example, not carrying a camera at all, or instead having an expensive camera with lots of lenses in order to be regarded as an artist or, finally, taking pictures in a non-typical manner using different angles, or even using black-and-white film in traditional cameras rather than digital ones. Redfoot (1984: 297) asserts: ‘There must be no family in front of some officially authenticated monument’. He then describes anthropologists or, as he calls them, ‘third-order tourists’ and finally travellers who discard their former personae in order to ‘go native’ as fourth-order tourists (Redfoot, 1984: 301). He concludes, however, by showing the similarity between all the different orders, and by relating the whole discussion back to tourist angst: each of these types develops different levels of anxiety about modern identity. Based on Redfoot’s studies, I therefore suggest that the way a tourist picture is taken indicates a different ‘voice’ that the narrator wants to present to the ‘reader’ of the ‘text’. A picture of an attraction with a tourist

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in view aims to create a first- or a second-person narration – it is subjective, personal and contains an individual story beyond the mere attraction. The semiotic relevance of the way people are facing in pictures – towards or away from the camera – can be read as follows: when people are facing the camera, the textual intention is to absorb the people into the context so that they become a part of the environment, objects among other objects – essentially a first-person narrative. However, when people face away from the camera, they seem to replace the reader in the context with the message, ‘If you were here, you would see that view or enjoy this activity’ (Cohen, 1993: 49), thus creating a second-person narrative. A picture without any people tells a third-person narrative – aiming at objectivity, public exposure and reliability. I have decided to investigate the type of pictures that present the Big Banana in order to describe the narrative voice that is utilised in this attraction/narrative. A blue-green tourist leaflet, titled The Big Banana – Coffs Harbour’s Biggest Attraction, printed on glossy A4 paper and folded into three sections, was collected from a local hotel on a visit to Coffs Harbour in 2004. The leaflet does not contain any information about when it was published or by whom but, based on the attractions displayed and the phone numbers printed on the brochure, it could be assumed that it was put into circulation around 2003. The front page comprises the following features: text on the top of the page, ‘The Big Banana’; below that, a photo of the Big Banana from some distance, so that the sculpture is viewed from a low angle from the front. There are no people in the picture – only flowers and a well manicured lawn in front of the Big Banana, and the surrounding buildings. Below the picture the text reads: ‘Coffs Harbour’s biggest attraction’, and below that a drawn picture of a bunch of bananas; finally, at the bottom of the page, the text: ‘undercover attractions – open 7 days’. The voice utilised on the front cover is a neutral and objective third-person voice; the Big Banana is pictured as an object, and the setting, which includes surrounding buildings, allows the reader to gain a perception of the sculpture’s size. Fences restricting visitors’ passage to and from the Big Banana that existed when I first visited the site, in 2004, are not seen in the picture, which either means that the picture was taken at an earlier stage, or that it has been retouched in order to delete unsightly features. The reader of the text is presented with a credible message of the actual attraction, supporting slogans, and the sketch of bananas suggesting to us what can be purchased at the site. The centre-fold of the leaflet is a full A4 ‘landscape’. On the top of the page there is a panorama looking northwards from the lookout at the Big Banana, and depicting mainly a green landscape and the sea in the background. No people can be seen in that picture – again, using third-person

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voice in the narration. Jokinen and Veijola explain the connection between masculinity and pictures taken from high positions when they suggest that a ‘view from the mountain symbolized the brave, modern, new, autonomous world … it is also a master’s view, favourably experienced alone’ (Jokinen & Veijola, 2003: 263). Written in an ornate typeface on top of the picture is the site’s slogan: ‘Something for Everyone!’ On the bottom of the page there is an inset picture of the Big Banana cut out of its context and pasted onto the blue-green background of the leaflet. There are nine smaller pictures, with a text box attached to each, below the large top picture. These portray: • Souvenirs – an indistinct picture from within the souvenir shop with seven people, of whom one is the shop assistant, two are children with an adult female, and one an elderly man, plus a couple waiting by the counter to be served. • Food outlets – a busy-looking cafeteria with people sitting at tables or queuing at the counter – mostly couples but also a mother with a child, and the same elderly man as in the souvenir store – though this time from behind. None of the people in either of these two pictures is looking into the camera; most are looking away; only their profiles or even backs are shown, and the pictures are thus using the second-person voice to present readers with what locations they would be in if they visited the site. • Toboggan ride – shows a man in shorts and a t-shirt, wearing a summer hat and sunglasses, who is hunched over a toboggan while racing down the toboggan track. The man is pictured from the front, but he is not looking into the camera; he rather seems to be concentrating on the track following the curve ahead. His clothes indicate to the reader that he is a holiday maker. The image is thus also in the second-person voice, acting as a promise to visitors that they could place themselves in the man’s position if they visit the site. • Candy making – portrays two people in the foreground, dressed in t-shirts and aprons, gloves covering their hands, rolling out colourful strips of something that probably will become candy. In the background of the picture, behind a glass wall facing the candy makers and the camera, stand three children and a woman. The spectators are all blurry, the focus being on the candy makers, with carefully detailing of their facial expressions. • Plantation tours – picture of the front of the monorail; on the right-hand side of the train a mother with two small children stand watching the train. The voice is in both cases first person – including visitors as objects in the picture and thus telling a subjective narrative of the site.

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• Guided walks – a group of people (couples and families) traversing a pedestrian bridge over flowering gardens. • Fresh candy – a drawn picture of candies spilling out of a container that has fallen over. • Adventure – picture of a ‘bunyip’ rising from a ‘billabong’. • Fresh produce – the same sketch of a bunch of bananas as the one on the front page. This picture and the adventure picture portray objects that are meant to stand for things that visitors can experience at the site. The texts are thus presented in the third-person voice and are meant to be read as objective and distanced. In the middle of all the pictures the text describes in the second-person voice what a visitor can experience at the site – ‘You can spend an hour or a day’ – and lists also the different activities portrayed in the leaflet in a neutral third-person voice. The inner page has the text ‘Alpine fun in the Subtropics’ on the top, and below that seven pictures, the first two from the ice-skating rink, for example three youngsters in the foreground skating towards the camera and holding hands, and in the background five other people (children and adults), some of whom have fallen on the ice. The fact that all of the pictures feature people signifies that the sites are meant as activities, not purely attractions to be seen. Visitors are given texts that create personal narratives, in that they are shown images that could have been taken out of private photo albums. The voice used on the page is an informal mixture of first and second person. The back page of the leaflet contains a stylised map of local landmarks that situates the Big Banana in a larger context in the town. The Big Banana is marked on the map with a small image, this time a photograph taken from the rear end of the sculpture. Again, no people feature in the picture, only the Big Banana and well groomed gardens surrounding it. Below the picture are contact details for the different attractions and activities that feature in the leaflet. The whole page is meant to give the reader reliable information, and the voice used is therefore the third person. Many of the pictures used in the leaflet were apparently part of the Big Banana’s media pack at the time, as several of them were found in other materials. I will therefore not analyse those pictures in any further detail. The message is the same, simply using different angles, and the inclusion or exclusion of people in order to narrate texts in the first-, second- or third-person voice. The ‘official’ tourist brochure for Coffs Coast, a 50-page full-colour A4 brochure, published by the Coffs Coast Tourist Association – an associ­ation for tourism businesses in the region, supported by the council’s tourism department – resembles in layout and style the official website. On

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page 4, with the heading ‘Attractions and tour activities’, are five pictures, for example: people white-water rafting down some rapids; George Gregan (former captain of the Wallabies – Australia’s national rugby union team, and generally seen as a gentleman rugby player) looking out over the surf while leaning against a surfboard; and a young couple, both dressed in red t-shirts, the man holding his arm around the woman’s waist, both looking into the camera, smiling, and in the background the Big Banana. The collage of pictures gives the reader a good idea of how the area wants to be seen, what focus the official channel has decided to take, and which attractions and activities are seen as the icons of the region. The emphasis is on water experiences, both in the sea and in the hinter­ land’s rivers. The inclusion of Gregan as one of the individuals enjoying leisure activities signals, without being too obvious, that the area was the ‘home of the Wallabies’, not only a place to train in, but also to relax in – ‘Where champions play™’. That another picture of a surfer shows only his back is a clear second-person voice, where readers can imagine themselves surfing in the environment shown, just as famous rugby players do. The people in the raft are not looking into the camera. Readers are therefore invited to place themselves in the riders’ place by ‘listening to a secondperson voice’ about the experiences on offer. The two best-known attractions of the region, the Pet Porpoise Pool and the Big Banana, are places that a majority of visitors list as sites that they aim to visit when in the region, according to a research report conducted for Coffs Coast Tourism Association (Armstrong et al., 2005). Both of the attractions in the brochure are presented in a personal first-person voice. Visitors are pictured participating in activities within the context of the major attraction, but with their focus on the camera, not the activity, and therefore acting out the first-order tourist role described by Redfoot (1984). The inclusion of the Big Banana in the middle of the collage is interesting, given the otherwise relatively minor role the attraction had been given in council documents, and the criticism it received in the tourism consulting report that the marketing at the time was generally based upon (Tourism Leisure Concepts, 2001). This was partly explained by Walden, former executive officer at Coffs Coast Tourism, in that the icon of the region could not be totally neglected; it still carried too large a recognition value to be totally discarded (personal communication with Maree Walden, 17 January 2005). ‘The gigantic is … put on parade with great seriousness, not as a representative of the material life of the body, but as a symbol of the abstract social formations making up life in the city. On the other hand, the gigantic continues its secular life in the submerged world of the carnival grotesque;

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its celebrations of licentiousness and lived bodily reality are truly the underbelly of official life’ (Stewart, 1993: 81). The sculpture that 50 years ago was the pride of the region, a showpiece for tourism, and embraced by the city’s leaders (Clark, 2004: 82), has turned into a grotesque reminder of the past, something councillors and inhabitants of the town would like to forget (Grossetti, 2005; Murdoch & Doling, 2004; Simmonds, 2002). Finally, from an economic perspective, one should of course not forget that the free brochure was made financially possible through the extensive amount of advertising in it. For example, two full pages by the Big Banana would be incentive enough to influence the message produced in the official text too. In other media, not connected to advertising, pictures of the Big Banana hold analogous messages. The sculpture is a signifier for the region, but is similarly simply a signifier for itself. Carolyn Cummins, in a story about real-estate earnings in the major newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald, mentions briefly that Coffs Harbour’s retail bulky goods market has been profitable. But the interesting fact is that the story is illustrated by a large colour picture of the Big Banana. It portrays two people dressed in long capes, their backs to the camera, kneeling in front of the sculpture as if praying. In the foreground of the picture the roof of an old Volkswagen bus is visible. The bus has a surfboard strapped to the roof and the partly visible windows have curtains drawn aside. The picture caption asks: ‘Despite, or because of? … Coffs Harbour has had tremendous growth in housing in the past five years’ (Cummins, 2005). The second-person voice of the picture is an obvious joke, meant to be read together with the caption. In order to give the joke a context, I’ll quote Stewart, where she defines the words ‘kitsch’ and ‘camp’: The term kitsch comes from the German kitschen, ‘to put together sloppily.’ The kitsch object as collected object thus takes the abstraction from use value a step further …. Camp is perhaps a more complex term. The American Heritage Dictionary … tells us that the term has obscure origins, but has come to mean ‘an affectation or appreciation of manners and tastes commonly thought to be outlandish, vulgar or banal … to act in an outlandish or effeminate manner.’ In all their uses, both kitsch and camp imply the imitation, the inauthentic, the impersonation. Their significance lies in their exaggerated display of the values of consumer culture. (Stewart, 1993: 168, original emphasis) The Big Banana and the strange people are supposed to symbolise eccentrics with alternative lifestyles. This is backed up by the Volkswagen bus, which, in an Australian context, often is associated with hippies, surfers and other

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people who presumably would not care about real-estate profits generally. The readers of that section of the newspaper would therefore not identify themselves with the people in the picture – which generally is the reason for using the second-person voice – but would instead be offered a laugh based on the caption. The readers, with their mind-set on property investments and the generation of profits, tend to think of individuals with alternative lifestyles as ‘outlandish, vulgar or banal’, thus perfectly combined in the image of Coffs Harbour with the Big Banana as a symbol of kitsch and camp taste.

Conclusion The topics I have presented in this chapter have been related to the types of pre-travel and on-travel narratives that tourists consume, which form the way that the journey and the TAs visited are understood. Much research has investigated what kind of narratives tourists produce for themselves, and also narratives shared with others through travel books or in guidebooks. A suggestion I made was that tourism is inherently regarded as a pleasurable leisure practice, and controversial, political or divisive facts are purposely downplayed as they are presumed to disadvantage the destina­tion. The danger with this presumption is that legitimate alternative stories in society, which could even become TAs in their own right, might be disregarded or even suppressed on purpose. I presented also some theoretical tools that can be used to deconstruct the way TA narratives are formed. These were diachronic, synchronic, and anachronic narratives, as well as the notion of narrative voice. The firstmentioned group of tools highlight a theoretical timeline on which the TA is placed and informative conjunctions that makes the narrative more personal and richer. The latter tool explains in more detail how the voice a narrator takes forms the narrative, either objectively, in the third person, or subjectively, in the first person. I also suggested that guidebooks where writers seem to ‘talk to the reader’ could be regarded as being in the secondperson voice. The final part of the chapter examined how narrative voice could be analysed at the chosen TAs.

6 Forging TAs

This final deconstructive chapter will dissect myths and myth making in society and show how power has strong links to TAs due to the significance given to them in creating homogenous national identities. I will present the final theoretical tools from narrative analysis, focalisation and narrative tempo, and again exemplify how these concepts can be used as tools to deconstruct TAs in the two case studies. Much research is nowadays analysing the political power inherent in heritage attractions (e.g. Harrison & Hitchcock, 2005). Tourists following in a blinkered fashion the modernist assumptions about premodern and modern societies, outlined by MacCannell (1976), often consider historical sites to be examples of places where they can experience ‘true’ attractions, not spurious ‘pseudo’ attractions (Fladmark, 1994). This is owing to the historic sites being ‘windows’ to the past, ‘life like it used to be before modernity’, and thus explanations for people constructing their own identity (Galani-Moutafi, 2000: 207–208). The assumption is that a TA built on historical events has an essence, a core that cannot be destroyed through tourism commodification (Breeze, 1994). While museums have been around for a considerable time, the problems they face in modern times is that they are considered too static and not giving visitors enough experiences. The solution has in many cases been to simulate historical experiences in order to bring visitors into the historical context (Kirchenblatt-Gimblett, 1998; Xie & Wall, 2008). Frans Schouten explains how he, as a visitor to an archaeological site, wanted the tour guide to answer questions about what might have been the use of a specific site. When the answer was that no evidence had emerged to explain that issue, he felt that the site was reduced to ‘another heap of stones’. He continued to explain this as he stated that ‘[v]isitors are not primarily looking for scientific historical evidence. They may even be only 135

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partly interested in the historical reality as such. Visitors to historic sites are looking for an experience, a new reality based on the tangible remains of the past. For them, this is the very essence of the heritage experience’ (Schouten, 1995: 21). While it is true that certain events have happened at many places that later might be classified as historic, and that tourists can visit those places, the question remains whether a core, or an essence, exists more there than anywhere else. Voase (2008: 150) states: ‘that which is known as “heritage” is arguably “history” in a selected, packaged and consumable form’. I do not attempt to question historical interpretations of events; I acknowledge that several different interpretations exist (Herbert, 1995) and I do not want to evaluate which interpretation is the ‘most’ correct. But what I do want to do is to highlight potential interpretations, and critically question the reasons why the different interpretations emerge.

Hegemonic Messages in Heritage Attractions While some debates surrounding heritage tourism still revolve around the correctness of the history that the sites are based upon, many articles have moved on from that unfruitful discussion and investigate instead different messages inherent in heritage sites (e.g. Bærenholdt & Haldrup, 2004; Perera & Pugliese, 1998). Hui-Ching Chang and Richard Holt state that the activity of tourism is connected to people’s leisure time and to other recreational activities, not to their social and political engagement in their daily work life. However, by ‘considering tourism as a form of power domination through which selected representations are intended to give visitors a selected view of the society it becomes clear that the region’s politics is [sic] a great impact on the representation selected’ (Chang & Holt, 1991: 103). If tourist destinations and attractions, like museums, were viewed as ‘a central part of the nation-building process’ (Leong, 1989: 355; Staiff, 2003), a greater political focus on this practice would presumably become the norm. Morgan and Pritchard claim, indeed, that ‘[t]he images projected on brochures, billboards and television … are powerful images which reinforce particular ways of seeing the world and can restrict and channel people, countries, genders and sexes into certain mind-sets’ (Morgan & Pritchard, 1998: 6). Gibson and Davidson (2004: 389) point out that place marketing aims to silence diversity in order to present a ‘safe’ destination to visitors. My suggestion is that these ‘safe’ images of society are unconsciously formed hegemonic messages. The notion of hegemony comes from political science, where it was introduced by Antonio Gramsci to describe the way certain understandings in

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society come to be regarded as natural and self-evident. Gramsci suggested that individuals and groups in power – such as politicians, owners of industrial enterprises and the media – had an influence over the way individuals in society at large came to perceive their daily reality (see Joll, 1977). Rather than being a forceful subjugation of minority opinions, it could be understood as an embedded consensus of views. Hegemony is never stable, and it should be ‘understood as a fluid and temporary series of alliances, [which] needs to be constantly rewon and renegotiated. The creation and dissolution of cultural hegemony is an ongoing process and culture a terrain of continuous struggle over meaning’ (Barker, 2000: 351). Thus, when I suggest that certain hegemonic views are reinforced through tourism, I am referring to the suggestion that hidden messages – which are taken for granted in a certain environment – may in reality be propagating a majority consensus view that is suppressing alternative viewpoints. It is in this struggle that almost invisible messages, hidden in everyday discourse, are presented to uncritical viewers as a common-sense interpretation of their social context. In their revision of the concept of hegemony, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985) put aside the final determination of class and economy, which for them do not determine cultural meanings. For them, the role of hegemonic practices is to fix difference, and to put closure around unstable meanings of signifiers in the discursive field (Barker, 2002: 61). If, however, only a specific view of the nation is presented to tourists, and alternative views – while existing, but not visible – are closed out, then it can be reasonably argued that attractions and brochures are tools constructing a single overriding understanding of society. The premise that I build upon here is that the Anglocentric, white racist and male views –presented by Horne (1989) as legacies from an earlier era – are still commonly assumed to be the norm in society. Furthermore, I argue that tourists consuming attractions and texts do not even reflect on the reinforcement of this dominant message, examples of which are provided in Chapter 5 and below with regard to how Thunderbolt is narrated into society. For international examples of national myths reinforced through TAs, see the book edited by Donald Macleod and James Carrier (2010).

Focalisation A further level of direction a narrator can use to convey a specific message in a narrative is referred to by Bal as focalisation (1997: 7). Focalisation is a concept borrowed from visual studies and refers to the choice of ‘focus’ – or viewpoint – that a narrator can apply to any one text. Focalisation can be

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found internally in a narrative, when it is attributed to a specific character (character focalisation, or CF), or externally (from an external focaliser, or EF). An example of CF could be thoughts that a character in a narrative has about another character in that diegesis. Both CF and EF can be found in non-fictional narratives, especially when feelings are utilised in texts to shape readers’ emotions regarding different topics. Jokinen and Veijola, in their analysis of power in tourist narratives, state that ‘Focalization, the sensual subjectivity of experiencing the world, is, however, the most important aspect in constructing the point of view of a tourist’ (Jokinen & Veijola, 2003: 274). Focalisation is an especially strong instrument of manipulation as it is, to some extent, a covert alteration of the messages that narratives transmit. The only way to consciously analyse focalisation is to investigate the features of the narrative that are narrated compared with the features that are focalised. Bhattacharyya describes the type of personal narrative commonly found in Lonely Planet guidebooks as ‘the narrator’s chat to the reader over a bottle of beer about experiences’ (Bhattacharyya, 1997: 375). The guidebooks function as collections of inter-subjective approaches and should be regarded as such, rather than as objective guides. It could be argued that this writing style is a reasonably successful attempt at secondperson narratives. Bal (1997) suggests that second-person narratives never work in novels, as they always ‘slip into’ either the first or third person. When the whole text is directed at a reader who presumably intends to undergo certain experiences, the borderline between the second and third person is hard to distinguish anyhow. An alternative approach is to view the guidebook texts as having an external narrator (EN) who simultaneously functions as a perceptible (p) or non-perceptible (np) external focaliser (EF). The narrator never participates in the narrative – other than in the introduction of authors at the beginning of the book – but continuously adds overt value judgements to the narratives and, through these, aims to form readers’ perceptions of the fabula in a certain way.

Focalisation of Thunderbolt The section about Uralla in the first edition of the Lonely Planet guide to New South Wales describes the township in the following terms: A small town (population 2300) on the [New England] highway, Uralla is a good place to break the journey. The information centre … is on the highway and is open daily. A market is held here on the second Sunday of the month.

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Captain Thunderbolt (the dashing name taken by young Fred Ward when he turned bushranger) roamed through much of New England in the 1860s, and you’ll see many sites claiming to be Thunderbolt’s caves, rocks, lookouts, hideouts, etc. Thunderbolt was popular with ordinary people and seems to have performed many acts of kindness as well as robbery. He was killed by a police[man] near Uralla in 1870 and there is a statue of him on the highway in the town centre; his simple grave, still sometimes honoured with flowers, is in the cemetery. Whether or not Thunderbolt’s body lies in the grave is another matter. There’s a persistent rumour that he was spotted in Canada many years after the funeral. The big McCrossin’s Mill Museum has some Captain Thunderbolt artefacts…. There’s also a foundry which has been operating since 1872 and has a small museum … and Hassett’s Military Museum. Burnet’s Bookshop is a large antiquarian and second-hand bookshop on the main street, open daily. There is a fossicking area with a picnic spot, about five km northwest of Uralla on the Kingstown road. Also in the area is Mt Yarrowyck, with some Aboriginal cave paintings. The information centre has detailed information. (Murray, 1994: 333–334, original emphasis) A traveller reading this description understands quickly that Uralla is not a destination in itself according to the author, but is rather a place to have a break in the journey, and before heading on to other places that actually have something worth visiting. It should be noted that more than half the text about Uralla is made up of the Thunderbolt story. While the physical sites related to him – even his grave – are all placed under doubt as regards their actual relationship with the person, it is quite evident that the story has become the attraction. In other words, it could be suggested that the fiction is the attraction, not the destination in itself. Thunderbolt is portrayed in a positive light, as a person who ‘performed many acts of kindness’ and who is still ‘honoured with flowers’, and it is through linguistic formations like these that the focalisation of the story becomes perceptible. This positive depiction is further highlighted in the third edition of the same guidebook (Harding et al., 2000). While the text has essentially remained the same, some more words have been made bold, and other words have been added: you’ll see many sites, such as caves, rocks, and lookouts, with a claimed association with the rebel. Thunderbolt was a popular hero and seems to have performed many acts of kindness … there is a statue of him on the highway in the town centre; his simple grave…. (Harding et al., 2000: 283)

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Why the updated text has added the highly positive words ‘rebel’ and ‘hero’ can only be guessed – it is possibly because bushrangers are becoming more popular (Walker, 2001) in Australian society and something to be proud of. The first word added to the newer edition might give some clues, as a ‘rebel’ is somebody who challenges oppressive powers. The sentence could thus be understood as presenting Thunderbolt as a representative of the common people, who are rebellious against sources of power, such as Australians against their colonial masters, the English. If this is accepted then it would logically follow that the representative would be viewed as a hero among the people. This is a position also held by Turner in his analysis of cinematographic narratives: Although the specific meanings which are generated by the use of these 1890s codes, the interests which they serve and the ideologies which they produce may vary, this set of terms and body of myth thus still remain as the definitive signification of Australian-ness; and their invoca­ tion has hegemonic potential.… The anti-English attitude modulates easily, as it does in our history, into a general suspicion of authority … the paradigm of authority – bureaucratic force aligned against human vulnerability – is English. The Australian versions of authority tend to tacitly condone the larrikin, independent and undisciplined behaviour of the troops. (Turner, 1993: 111–115) It could thus be claimed that the Lonely Planet series is only extending a well known national myth, easily found in popular films and books. By utilising structures like this, the series is able to weave in a range of nationalist clichés that on their own tend to look ridiculous, but together work as a confirmation of one another and of their joint message (Gibson, 1992: 162). That several books about Australia’s most famous bushranger, Ned Kelly, were published at the same times as the Lonely Planet guides analysed, some of which focused on Kelly’s Irish heritage, might have influenced the authors. The result is, in any case, a highly focalised narrative has been presented to readers who will view the sights found in Uralla in that light. Note also that the physical elements of Thunderbolt-the-attraction have been printed in bold text in the newer version, thus moving the emphasis somewhat away from the story as the attraction and closer to physical attractors. It is, however, also important to point out that this same interest in bushrangers and a ‘white Australian history’ developed following the Mabo court ruling of 1992, ‘which overturned the founding fiction of terra nullius’ (Lambert, 2005). The Lonely Planet text could be seen in that light as an even more

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current anxiety on the part of the authors to prove a historic non-Aboriginal basis for the attractions – especially in a township with an Aboriginal name, but with hardly any Indigenous input into the tourist products. Two contiguous texts with focalised messages that stand in contradiction to one another are, firstly, the plaque at Thunderbolt’s grave (erected by Uralla Historical Society) and, secondly, ‘The Death of Thunderbolt’ Paintings booklet (Mayo, 1996), which I will discuss below in more detail, and also discuss in Chapter 8, ‘Performing TAs’. The plaque describes Thunderbolt’s life and career in the following terms: he led an exciting career, ‘bailing up’ mail coaches, roadside inns, stores and private homes over a vast area of North Eastern New South Wales…. The Police found him hard to track or catch. He was a superb rider and usually rode stolen thoroughbred horses. The public generally had a ‘soft spot’ for him. He was never violent and usually quite courteous towards lady travellers. The text contains an overt positive focalisation through word selections such as calling the choice to be a criminal ‘an exciting career’ and referring to Thunderbolt as a ‘superb rider’. It points out how the local population felt positively about him – hardly a likely sentiment among those he decided to rob. In erecting a plaque next to Thunderbolt’s grave the Historical Society acknowledges the story’s value as an attractor and the need for an interpretation of the attraction, but by focusing on Thunderbolt’s positive attributes it simultaneously focalises the text according to its own beliefs. The picture of Thunderbolt as a violent criminal who had nothing to lose and whose only claim to fame was that he died in Uralla (Stevens & Stevens, 2004) is contradicted by Uralla Historical Society’s plaque. The plaque still contains traces of a hegemonic view of Australia, but rather than the educated conservatism of the New England: Regional Visitors Guide, it is a jingoistic conservatism that accepts the bush myth as a true indicator of Australian national identity (Seddon, 1997). The other text is also interesting, as it is a booklet with descriptions of paintings on display in the local historical museum (Mayo, 1996). Paintings are texts in themselves and contain overt messages and different types of focalisations, but the museum had apparently decided to add an official interpretation of the paintings’ motifs. Stewart comments on a similar textual interpretation of paintings: ‘The attempt to recoup their meaning through a narrative miming visual description marks a double falling away from the continuity of an original textual closure’ (Stewart, 1993: 50). The text in the booklet describes the events portrayed in the paintings and

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contains several strange passages that highlight the author’s own biases. For example: ‘An Italian hawker, Giovanni Capacotti, is about to hand over his pocket watch, money and some jewellery to the bushranger. Although the Rocky River Goldfields, near Uralla, had attracted thousands of Chinese and a lesser number of immigrants from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the arrival of an Italian would have been something of a novelty’ (Mayo, 1996: 2). The emphasis on Chinese immigrants is worthy of note here. The Rocky River Goldfields did at one time have a majority of Chinese miners, but by no means overwhelmingly so, and after a race riot in 1856 – 14 years before the incident reported in the painting – the numbers diminished and Caucasian gold miners were more common (according to http://www. uralla.com). To exaggerate the size of any one specific ethnic group is to ‘other’ that group, which could be a focalisation. Some lines later Mayo continues: ‘Capacotti’s wagon can be seen in the distance. Did Thunderbolt say … “Go home to where you came from!”? We can almost hear the Italian’s curses and protestations in the chill New England air’ (Mayo, 1996: 2). The text is potentially another blatant racist passage, as nothing in the original painting would indicate what Thunder­ bolt would or would not have said at that moment – it is simple the author adding his or her own thoughts. The scene of ‘invading’ foreigners also links to the idea that the ‘Old Australia’ is passing away. This relates to the reasons why Thunderbolt may be commemorated in the manner he is. Ghassan Hage (1998: 179) calls this a ‘discourse of Anglo-decline’. What the text performs is a non-perceptible external focalisation by attaching negative ideas to a character narrator, something that is used in narratives in order to turn sympathies against that character. The reason for this strategy becomes apparent at a later stage in the booklet. On the following pages the text pays attention to Thunderbolt’s and Constable Walker’s frames of mind: ‘Thunderbolt seems far less secure.… Constable Walker … seems to be a dominating resolute figure…. Thunderbolt looks more like a caricature … the Gallant Constable Walker looks even more heroic…. Thunderbolt, now a pathetic figure’ (Mayo, 1996: 4–5). This focus on specific details in the paintings illustrates the type of story the historical museum wanted to deliver with regard to Thunderbolt. Its fabula contains only one hero – the policeman – something that also was evident in the way the exhibition of Thunderbolt memorabilia was arranged. When I later asked one of the museum volunteers about the different emphasis presented at the museum compared with what could be found in the rest of the town, the short answer I was given was ‘Some people just drink too much and don’t know what they’re talking about’ (McCrossin Mill volunteer, personal communication, 12 May 2004), as if the version

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presented at the museum would be the only correct one, and others were only the inventions of drunkards.

Focalisation of the Big Banana In order to highlight the different focalisations that are used in texts describing the Big Banana I will concentrate on how different travel guidebooks present the attraction. This focus on a specific type of generating markers/texts will give an idea of how various texts, some presumably written with different audiences in mind and, as a result, focusing on different attractions, diverge in the ways they present the Big Banana, and the rest of Coffs Harbour in general. The first two guidebooks are from the Rough Guide series. According to the publisher’s website (http://www. roughguides.com), they attract ‘a much broader and older readership’, in short described as value-conscious readers who enjoy the more critical approach of their guidebooks. The Rough Guide to Australia describes the cultural and natural attractions in Coffs Harbour in detail, not only non-Indigenous history – as had all the other travel guidebooks studied – but also the Aboriginal heritage of the area. The adjectives used are very value laden, in order to create a positive impression of certain attractions, such as: ‘delightfully tranquil subtropical gardens’; ‘charming creek walk’; ‘the tranquil, tree-lined creek’; and ‘dolphins frolicking’ (Daly et al., 2003: 307). One of the town’s attractions is described in less positive terms, however: ‘If you want to see domesticated dolphins and seals being put through their paces, visit the misleadingly named Pet Porpoise Pool … which seems stuck in a 1970s time warp’ (Daly et al., 2003: 307). The text moves on from here to describe the Big Banana: The cultural influence of the nearby Queensland becomes apparent, in tourist attractions such as the Big Banana (daily 9am–5pm), a huge, bright yellow concrete banana.… It’s free to walk through the banana and look at displays dealing with early pioneer life in the district and Coffs Harbour’s 70 million-a-year banana industry. There are monorail tours of the plantation (1hr 30min; $12), which show you packing sheds and hydroponics glasshouses, as well as a space station and an Aboriginal Dreamtime Cave…. For the complete banana experience, stop in at the milk bar, which serves bananas in every conceivable way. (Daly et al., 2003: 307) The text is informative and relatively neutral, except for the little hint at the cultural influence of Queensland, essentially an ironic joke referring to

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the lack of high culture that Queenslanders are associated with in Australia (see Chapter 4, ‘Reading TAs’). The different activities at the site are introduced without any evaluation of their quality or suitability, and the paragraph concludes with a reminder of the site’s main attraction, essentially as a narrative closure. The perception the text gives is one of positive mockery – the attraction is acknowledged and presented truthfully, at the time of publication, but the first sentence focalises in a perceptible manner, with the reader’s attention to the low culture of which the attraction is an example. The Rough Guide to Gay and Lesbian Australia, edited by Neal Drinnan, sets the scene by presenting Coffs Harbour in the following terms: ‘marking the transition to subtropical climes – tackily announced by the vision in yellow that is the Big Banana (don’t ask)’ (Drinnan, 2001: 94). The positive focalisation in this guidebook is again on natural attractions, which are described in almost poetic terms. However, no attractions in Coffs Harbour that feature in the other Rough Guide are mentioned in this book. The book’s only entry on Coffs Harbour uses the Big Banana merely as a point of direction: ‘Little Diggers Beach – turn off opposite the Big Banana Coffs Harbour NSW 2450. The northern end of this nude beach is popular with gays’ (Drinnan, 2001: 95, original emphasis). As Neal Drinnan does not want to describe the Big Banana except for calling it ‘tacky’, one can only assume that he regarded it as being too implicitly ‘touristy’, especially as he goes on to describe in positive terms the ‘haven for artists’ – Byron Bay, and the ‘counter-cultural town of Nimbin’ (Drinnan, 2001: 96), two towns north of Coffs Harbour. The Lonely Planet series is published in Australia and at the time of writing proudly promoted itself as publishing ‘the world’s best guidebooks, travel advice and information’ on its official website (http://www.­lonelyplanet. com). Lonely Planet guidebooks are directed at value-conscious travellers who want to learn more about different destinations rather than just places to stay and eat, and local attractions. The publisher’s website stated: ‘Our Team – With over 400 staff in US, UK and Australian offices, Lonely Planet is home to a wide range of diverse people, from architects to physicists, snowboarders to photographers’. While the range of ‘occupations’ listed has some diversity, it is notable that two of them require university graduation and three out of four would, in general terms, be seen as professions, and not very ‘alternative’ professions at that. If the pro­fessions chosen are supposed to underline the expertise held by the authors, then it would be interesting to know what market the guides are aimed at. It would appear to be people who value formal education while at the same time being quite youthful, who might see a snowboarder as an authority on desirable experiences.

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I have analysed texts surrounding the Big Banana and Coffs Harbour in Lonely Planet’s general Australia edition. It has a special itinerary for Big Things in which it states: Australia has a bizarre obsession with cheesy ‘big things’. You can’t miss them if you pass them on the highway, but if you decide to do a ‘big’ crawl here are a few of our favourites. The one that started it all is the Big Banana (Coffs Harbour, NSW, p 174), built in 1968 [sic] is still going strong after appearing in 325,000 tourist photos. (Smitz et al., 2004: 24) The focalisation of this section is easily perceptible from an early stage. The words ‘bizarre’, ‘obsession’ and ‘cheesy’ in the first sentence all aim to show the reader the authors’ disregard for the attractions and to distance the authors from such ‘low-class’ inventions for common tourists. The Lonely Planet website confidently claimed that its guidebooks offer readers information that is ‘reliable, comprehensive and independent’ and that they ‘want to enable everyone to travel with awareness, respect and care’. The conclusion that can be drawn from such statements in comparison with the paragraph about Big Things seems to be that the authors are suffering from serious tourist angst. The words ‘bizarre’ and ‘obsession’ are both references to illogical acts or objects. ‘Bizarre’ could be a positive attribute for tourism, as it indicates something beyond the norm, but when combined with the word ‘obsession’ it becomes a descriptor of something almost pathological. When these two words are combined with ‘cheesy’, it becomes evident that this ‘pathological state’ is what the text refers to – it is tasteless, vulgar, tacky, cheap, maybe even offensive, to people with higher ambitions and better taste. The sentence has a very strong link to Leavisism, where ‘culture is the high point of civilization and the concern of an educated minority’ (Barker, 2000: 36). The paragraph continues by stating that a traveller cannot miss Big Things when driving along the highways of Australia. This acts as a justi­ fication for the guide’s authors talking about the attraction at all, insofar as Lonely Planet website claimed that: ‘Our community also embraces the thousands of people whose lives are affected by tourism, the businesses we do and don’t recommend, and the environments travellers explore, armed with information we provide on ethical and responsible behaviour’. The publisher essentially claims that it is its writers’ responsibility to inform the readers about everything that is available to be seen and that its guidebooks, in an ‘impartial manner’, will tell readers what businesses they do and do not recommend. This sets Lonely Planet apart from travel guidebooks from

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earlier times, like Baedeker, which concentrated on presenting the attractions that were condoned by their authors, while they disregarded those they condemned (Koshar, 1998: 334–338). The sentence continues after the comma with ‘but if you decide to do a “big” crawl, here are a few of our favourites’. The focalisation is still perceptible. The word ‘but’ signifies that regardless of all that has been said earlier in the description of these pathological attractions, the authors acknowledge that some people will be attracted to them, and so they see it as their responsibility to list some of them. The word ‘favourite’ may just point to the fact that some of the Big Things are more outstanding and well known than others and therefore have reached a favourite status in terms of symbolising the pathological more than the others. Finally, the sentence that the Lonely Planet Australia guidebook awards the Big Banana, which is the first Big Thing mentioned on the itinerary page, has one factual fault and one strange piece of information. The guidebook claims that the Big Banana was built in 1968, which is a careless mistake, as most material available about the Big Banana clearly states that it was opened in 1964, thus celebrating its 40th anniversary the year the guidebook was published. This may of course just be a typo, but is simultaneously an indication of the pseudo-researched information that is presented in an authoritative manner as if it were infallible. The sentence could as easily have left out the year, and said only that the Big Banana was the first Big Thing built in Australia, but the inclusion of the year aims to underpin its own message of reliability through ‘historical data’. The strange piece of information in the sentence states that the attraction is ‘still going strong after appearing in 325,000 tourist photos’. What are the authors trying to say with this claim? Are they trying to claim that an attraction would lose its attractiveness after a certain number of photos have been taken? What does the number 325,000 signify, and where is it taken from? Visitor numbers to the Big Banana are generally reported to be between 300,000 and 1 million a year, many of whom take pictures of themselves and the Big Banana (Singleton, 2006). Is 325,000 simply a number that sounds significant and is thus meant to impress the reader, or is it another attempt to appear as though the information were researched and thus to be trusted? If the reader then turns to page 174, where Coffs Harbour and the Big Banana are presented in detail, they are informed that the township is ‘a bit grotty … but on the up’, that there are good restaurants in town and that it is attractive to the backpacker market (Smitz et al., 2004). The attractions of the town are very sparsely described; none of the ecstatic and poetic depictions of the natural wonders found in the other guidebooks are found in this book.

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To conclude this section, I would like to refer back to the sections above in which I discussed the theoretical foundations of focalisation. I explained that focalisation is an instrument of manipulation of narratives. When I now deconstruct the Big Banana as a narrative, formed through the texts in travel guidebooks, the value of this theoretical construct should be evident. Texts that initially seem neutral may, on a closer reading, contain a nonperceptible focalisation. Texts with a distinctly perceptible focalisation give the analyst a good indication of the type of authors who have written the text and also a fair idea of the type of readers the authors are aiming at. For a manager in charge of a destination or an attraction, the skill of distinguishing focalised messages may reveal clues as to how that place is regarded by a wider audience, and how the marketing messages should therefore be constructed in order to underpin, or reverse, other messages in circulation. A fabula is always going to be an individual’s own construct, but if a greater understanding is reached in how that fabula is formed, then a greater positive manipulation of texts referring to the narrative would potentially be possible.

Fear of Falling Pyrs Gruffudd (1995) suggests that heritage is a powerful concept that has the potential to open up alternative understandings of history, but equally can close out any readings that do not suit the agenda set forward by the management of the heritage item in question. Thus, if heritage is not critically evaluated, it is possible that a skewed version of history is presented and that alternative versions are neglected (Meethan, 2001: 101). Tim Edensor and Uma Kothari present, for example, the male-centred narratives surrounding Scottish heritage sites (Edensor & Kothari, 1994). They see heritage as a combination of memory and myth, feelings and emotions, presented in whichever ways are seen as suitable in that context. The dominance of white, heterosexual, male-centred messages relates to the fact that Scottish heritage often is dominated by battlefields and other military attractions, essentially sites that evoke boyhood fantasies, while simultaneously marginalising female visitors and interpretations of female history. Suvendi Perera and Joseph Pugliese point out, in an Australian setting, that the signification of particular sites as ‘built or natural heritage’ is an act that in many instances ‘take[s] over where colonialism ended’ (Perera & Pugliese, 1998: 72–73). This is the same concept Wall Reinius (2009) highlights in northern Sweden. This is because the signification functions as a means by which the ends of powerful groups are enacted, where political

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interests override local – and Indigenous – objections. It is thus impossible for (post?) colonial nations to maintain a homogenised national identity based on inherited values and that is why culture and progress bear ‘unstated assumptions about race and ethnicity’, while nature and disorder – as the binary opposites of culture and order – are connected to the country’s Indigenous population (Perera & Pugliese, 1998: 73). Rich Harrill introduced the concept ‘fear of falling’ when discussing how groups in power hang on to a conservative view of history in order to maintain their privileged position and not to ‘fall away’ from it (Harrill, 2003). The concept is used in a metaphorical manner, referring to a society viewed as a hill, with people in power on the top of the hill, and people with less power, or no power, to influence the decisions of society, and even their own lives, being situated farther down that same hill. ‘Fear of falling’ thus refers to the metaphorical position ‘on the top of the hill’ that people in power are afraid of losing by acknowledging alternative viewpoints that might dispossess them of the top and allow other groups in society (located ‘farther down the hill’) to take their positions. Harrill’s case study presented a town in South Carolina, USA, that used the well preserved historical buildings in the region as TAs, but emphasising only one version of how the town had developed historically. Tourists who enquired about alternative views of the history were met with silence and in some cases even with open antagonism (Harrill, 2003). It could be argued that fear of falling is a concept closely connected with heritage tourism all over the world. People in power have the opportunity to instigate processes by which monuments and plaques are constructed and situated at places they deem to be significant (Hollinshead, 1999b: 273). Monuments and monumental buildings, the erection of statues, significant buildings and the naming of roads or places to commemorate certain things all in their own way contribute to the formation of a certain accepted view of a nation (McLean & Cooke, 2003). The replacement of monuments with counter-monuments by successive governments with different political agendas can be viewed as time capsules emphasising whatever values a govern­ment stood for (Sargin, 2004; Wight, 2009). Henderson states in a similar manner that ‘[t]he hegemonic implications of heritage and its conservation must not be overlooked, as a stable society inculcated with officially approved accounts which are flattering to the ruling elite is less likely to challenge prevailing ideologies’ (Henderson, 2004: 117). Heritage attractions should perhaps therefore be interpreted as ‘tools’ used by groups in power and who suffer from fear of falling to preserve their privileged positions. Hollinshead (1997) coined the term ‘past-modernity’ to describe how tourist managers of heritage attractions, by utilising the local and national

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past of a place, create a political past – the ‘modern past’. Hollinshead pointed out that both history and heritage are social constructions, and in making this point he mirrors many authors on nationalism, who equally remind us that the concepts ‘nation’, ‘race’ and ‘culture’ are social constructions (Anderson, 1991; Appadurai, 1996; Jackson & Penrose, 1993). If economic success is the purpose of the place’s existence as an attraction, it can be assumed that the image/product served to tourists is the one that market research has claimed that tourists want to consume. Alternatively, the image may simply be an invention of wishful thinking, based on some underlying myths that have taken the appearance of a recognised norm. Morgan and Pritchard point out correctly that all promotional messages function as mirrors of individuals’ views of society, views that often ‘reinforce ideas, values and meaning systems at the expense of alternative ways of seeing the world’ (Morgan & Pritchard, 1998: 5). The nationalist agenda of over-emphasising the uniqueness of a particular territory and history (Anderson, 1991) can be compared to tourist promoters’ agendas of doing exactly the same. It could even be argued that it is these same agendas that are in question (Rowe, 1993: 260). An attraction or a destination as a whole thus loses its opportunity to act as an educational tool for visitors, telling them alternative stories about marginalised groups who are potentially also stakeholders in society. The ultimate purpose of tourism is leisure and enjoyment – the intentional down-playing of ‘unpleasant’ factors is thus a part of accepted tourist management strategies (Chang & Holt, 1991: 102). However, Hall reminds us that tourism not only silences marginal voices, but simultaneously gives marginal groups a voice by allowing for their uniqueness to become recognisable TAs on a national scale (Hall, 2010), thereby emphasising the ethical responsibility TA managers hold in allowing for multiple texts to exist.

Narrative Tempo The final analytical dimension that I want to introduce is the notion of narrative tempo. It was earlier stated, in Labov’s definition of narratives, that a narrative is a sequence of events that are temporally ordered into a plot (Andrews & Fisher, 1991). Ismail Talib criticises Labov for treating this too simplistically in assuming that events narrated should follow the same time order as that in which they happened, and suggested that this notion disregards ‘elements of anachrony which occur frequently in narratives, including narratives that are relevant for sociolinguistic research’ (Talib, 2005, original emphasis). The order that events are written in does

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not necessarily have to be based on a chronological order. Bal clarifies: ‘Playing with sequential ordering is not just a literary convention; it is also a means of drawing attention to certain things, to emphasize, to bring about aesthetic or psychological effects, to show various interpretations of an event, to indicate the subtle difference between expectation and realization, and much else besides’ (Bal, 1997: 82). Where events in a story are written in a different order than the unfolding of the events in the fabula, an anachronism is created. The anachronism can be both a future event, compared with where it appears in the story, in which case it is referred to as a prolepsis – a ‘flash-forward’, or anticipation; or, a past event, which is referred to as an analepsis – a ‘flashback’, or retroversion (Bal, 1997: 84–89; Felluga, 2003; Genette, 1988: 23). Tourist brochures are in general filled with short texts that combine to form a perception of the attraction they present. Some texts may convey information about the attraction as it can currently be experienced, while other texts may refer to past events to explain some history of the attraction. If brochures are seen as distinct entities with a single story, then it is possible to determine the sequence within the combined text. If, for example, the attraction is a ruin, then the sequence would probably start with a history of why the structure was originally built at the location, how long it was made use of and what led to its ruin. However, by viewing the attraction as a narrative, additional events are equally important as – if not more important than –the historical background. When was the ruin ‘rediscovered’? Who decided that it was worth commemorating? When was it established as an attraction? Why is it narrated in a specific way? Who finances the upkeep of the ruin as an attraction? And so on and so forth. Each of these questions, all highlighting additional stories that refer to the same narrative, should also be included in the analysis in order to appreciate what sort of fabula is being constructed. This is also where it is relevant to establish the concept of anachronism in relation to TAs, as it may be that a ruin’s historical dimensions are less significant in understanding the politically unconscious fabula of the attraction than are the surrounding texts. Craig Wight cites Horne (1984: 29) as stating that ‘Anachronism is the very essence of tourism: the present is used to explain the relics of the past, then the meanings given to the past are used to justify aspects of the present, or to justify beliefs about how things should change’ (Wight, 2009: 134–135). The fabula of the attraction, which has been constructed in the reader’s mind through all of the texts consumed, may be a very recent one, such as a nationalistic interpretation of an event. While the historical events that the attraction refers to could be interpreted in many different ways, the attraction in itself has been included in the context to support a modern

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sentiment (Allcock, 1995). The tourist attraction fabula is therefore a modern construct. The historical event it has used to make a point is an anachronism but is, in a linear reading of the text, regarded as the basis for the attraction. I will below describe the narrative tempo only of Thunderbolt, as I pointed out in Chapter 5 that the narrative of the Big Banana exists only as a range of synchronic elements and does not have any specific diachronic line, and so cannot have anachronic elements.

Narrative tempo of Thunderbolt The narrative tempo used in attraction texts discusses how sections of, for example, fast forwarded, paused, and analeptic sequences each help to form the way readers concentrate on different details in their formation of their individual attraction fabulae. While the narrative of Thunderbolt is always situated in the past, there are indications in the texts that these changes take place in the tempo of the overall fabula. The way, for example, that the history of Thunderbolt is linked to other TAs in present-day Uralla makes an interesting conjunction, as these connections aim at naturalising Thunderbolt and the values which he stands for in the community. The picture portraying the statue of Thunderbolt in the New England: Regional Visitors Guide (Stevens & Stevens, 2004) is taken from a low angle close to the statue with the sun shining from above. This gives the statue the impression of being large, dominating and slightly mysterious, as the rider’s face is shaded by his hat. The horse and rider face left in the picture. Below the statue is a picture, without a caption, showing an older man, facing toward the right, fossicking for gold with a pan. The man wears a blue brimmed textile hat, which, on the one hand, resembles the picture of Thunderbolt, as it also shades the man’s face, but on the other hand highlights the man’s common urban appearance – a hat that is more expected on beaches than in the countryside. Turner claims that ‘[t]he typical depiction of the authentic Australian in the past is that of the common man of authentic values, who is constantly oppressed and victimised by British imperialism or by authority generally. Both the romanticising of the figure of the bushranger or the mythologising of the democratic spirit of Eureka are examples of this’ (Turner, 1993: 108). So by combining the picture of Thunderbolt on his horse with the man fossicking for gold, a link is drawn between history and the present day. The lower edge of the same page contains a commercial for a horseriding establishment. The commercial, which is situated below the man fossicking, has a picture of two riders on white horses moving to the left. The horses are caught in similar postures as Thunderbolt’s horse, but the

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riders are dressed in white helmets rather than hats. It can be claimed that a common narrative can be drawn from these three pictures, situated under one another on the left-hand side of the page. The first picture shows the history and what the area is famous for, while the latter two are ‘fast-­ forwarded’ to show that the same type of experiences are still available, such as gold-fossicking, which links to a romance of the past where it was possible to get rich quickly, and also riding adventures. However, the danger of the criminal is neutralised through the clothes the modern ‘Thunderbolts’ are wearing: urban-style textile hats and helmets. Even though some tourists suffer from tourist angst and would rather be regarded as ‘travellers’, they simultaneously do not want to give up on the safety provided by being a ‘tourist’ (Urbain, 1989). Next to the picture of Thunderbolt, on the right-hand side, is the heading ‘Uralla – Historic Thunderbolt Country’ and below that a picture of neatly kept historic buildings in Uralla’s main street. No caption is provided for this picture and no text on or around the picture says that it is from the town, but its inclusion in the midst of other Uralla material makes this assumed knowledge. The written text below the street picture states: Although at its most glorious dressed in autumn hues, Uralla is well worth a visit any time. Half way between Sydney and Brisbane on the New England Highway, the ‘Meeting Place’ is steeped in history, from aboriginal rock art to gold fever and the legend of bushranger, Captain Thunderbolt. There’s plenty of present day activity too, including a visit to one of the world’s most advanced satellite tracking stations…. Gold has lured people to Uralla since the 1850’s, and hawkeyed fossickers can still find gold and small precious stones. For those who prefer fossicking in shops, there are antique and craft shops, galleries, and a renowned antiquarian bookshop. (Stevens & Stevens, 2004: 22) The written text provides informative marketing messages about the township, presumably written by a person aware of the original Indigenous meaning of the town’s name, but failing to openly acknowledge the Indigen­ ous background, and unaware of the biases that slip into the text. The first paragraph discusses ‘aboriginal rock art’ as an essence in itself, rather than the local tribes’ names and the tribes’ name for the place in question; neither is the word Aboriginal given a capital letter, as is now common practice. In the last paragraph, the text traces Uralla’s histories back only to the first non-Aboriginal inhabitants, and excludes Indigenous habitation, thus

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implying a touristic terra nullius. These common biases in Australian promotional texts often show that the authors are non-Aboriginal ­Australians who assume that their audience is the same as they are, or, if not, at least wanting to assimilate into the same (Jakubowicz, 1994: 74). The juxtaposition of the messages can be seen as modes of narrative tempo, where certain elements of the attraction – such as the pictures of the statue and the tourists – are paused, while other aspects are fast-forwarded, such as the switch in the tempo of the text from discussing bushrangers, Aboriginal rock art and the gold rush to a mention of the modern satellite tracking station. The analepsis back to gold-fossicking by the end of the text works well as a narrative closure, as it brings the reader back to the starting point and at the same time gives the reader an idea about the pictures that feature on the page.

A ‘Touristic Terra Nullius’ I set out to demonstrate that physical properties of TAs are less important for visitors than are the texts and stories that surround them. The aim was threefold. Firstly, the aim was to test the theory that attractions are conceptual constructs that can be understood as narratives. Secondly, I wanted to show what type of fabula is potentially constructed in the tourist’s mind through the texts available. The third aim was to identify what the ‘reading’ of one attraction, that has been raised above other attractions in its region, has ignored – or, in other words, the aim was to investigate that region’s hegemonic values. The suggestion that hegemonic values appear in the texts is not an accusation against the producers of those texts of their having written covert propaganda, but rather that taken-for-granted views of society portrayed in the texts as unproblematic truths are not complete. The texts should, rather, be viewed as highly sensitive polysemic constructs. All the Thunderbolt texts focus on the events that made Uralla famous, the sites where the events took place being of lesser interest. What makes the attraction into an attraction is the narrative that surrounds it. This is by no means unique for this attraction – the sites of battles, houses that famous people have resided in, and locations that have appeared in films are all examples of attractions that are made up of the texts surrounding them. To start defining attractions as narratives is thus potentially a logical step, but before I draw that conclusion I will consider my second empirical case (after some further comments on Uralla, below), which is not famous owing to any of the stories surrounding it, but only because of its structure as a constructed giant fruit.

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The two dominant fabulae constructed in the Uralla texts analysed both concentrate on Thunderbolt – one positive, considering Thunderbolt to be a symbol that the people in the township, and other visiting Australians in general, want to be connected to. That fabula builds on a nationalist myth that praises rule-breaking larrikins – who are skilled in their trade as well as charming and liked by women, and who ‘get the last laugh’ (Neylan, 2004) in struggles against the authorities – examples of ‘true Australians’. Thus it reinforces the traditional perception of what it is to be Australian: non-Aboriginal, male and heterosexual. The alternative fabula has similar features: the main actor is still non-Aboriginal and male, and is still fighting an overpowering force, but is defeated in the end in order to serve as an example of the purposelessness of challenging authority. Regardless of whether the texts producing the different fabulae were aiming for one or another outcome, most of them were similar in closing out alternative stories and viewpoints in the township. The general heteronormativity (Cresswell, 2004: 105) in the texts bypasses the hints about Thunderbolt’s potential gayness and while the town could easily present a range of potential texts about the attractions on offer, it seems to have concentrated on a very narrow range. The original Indigenous population is mostly referred to in passing, as having given the township its name, but no present-day attractions are linked to the current Aboriginal population. The only reminder of the Indigenous history of the region is the Yarrowyck rock art site outside the town, and even this reminder was found under ‘nature attractions’ on the official website (http://www.uralla.com). The greatest emphasis the Indigenous population is granted comes from the fact that Thunderbolt’s ‘wife’ was of Aboriginal heritage, but many of these texts are formed from a very unapologetic non-Aboriginal perspective, with passages that could be described as ethnocentric in present society. For example, one booklet states: ‘She was obviously a very intelligent and smart woman. She was also reported as being very attractive. Although a half-caste she was only slightly darker of complexion than most countrywomen and had European looks rather than Aboriginal’ (Stackpool, 1998, quoted in Goode & Sinclair, 2004: 16). Racist classifications such as describing an individual as half-caste, or alluding to the point that a person is beautiful owing to her resembling one race more than another are in all cases discriminating, and a clear example of how and why TAs as narratives can play a role in maintaining a colonial discourse. Other ethnicities are seldom mentioned in the texts analysed; the assump­tion seems to be that individuals in the stories are Anglo-Australian and only in instances where victims of Thunderbolt’s robberies are made fun of are ethnicities highlighted. This is similar to analyses of Australian

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advertising, where ‘common’ consumers are played by blond Caucasians and other ethnicities play the roles of cooks, crooks and comedians (­Jakubowicz, 1994: 75–76). The concentration on one specific attraction in this small township essentially creates something I want to call a touristic terra nullius. It creates fabulae that visitors, as well as the local population, consume and in which history and importance are always linked to what has happened after nonAboriginal occupation of the land. The texts nullify Indigenous history and equate it with nature, something that has developed organically without human involvement. The texts also nullify alternative texts by building heavily on accepted myths already circulating in society.

A ‘postmodern touristic terra nullius’ What type of fabula has been constructed about the narratives of the Big Banana? I have outlined the possible diegesis readers can come across when trying to make sense of the attraction. The reader might know something about the sculpture’s history, but is more likely to know only that it exists. Big Things are regularly the subject of travel articles and television programmes about specific regions, and often figure as signifiers for the regions they are in, with many writers suggesting that they epitomise the Australian roadside (Barcan, 1996; Cross, 1995; Grossetti, 2005; Krahn, 2002; Negus, 2003). But beyond being a symbol for the Australian roadside, and for Coffs Harbour, what is the diegesis within which the Big Banana exists? The diegesis comprises the opening hours of the activities at the site and the activities in themselves. When referring to the Big Banana the reader is mostly informed that the diegesis contains more than just the sculpture – there are candy-factories, ice-skating rinks and toboggan tracks mentioned as activities to experience at the Big Banana. I presented thereafter the narrative’s diachronic and synchronic elements and showed why authors and visitors feel confused or even negative towards the narrative, as it does not lead in a normal – for Western narratives – linear fashion from factor to factor. The Big Banana has, instead, a diverse assortment of synchronic narratives combined on one site. It is impossible to ‘read’ the attraction as one narrative with logical connections to and between other elements in the story. It is instead, as I already alluded to, very much an example of a postmodern narrative. The Big Banana is all surface. It has no depth but instead numerous self-ironic intertextual links to other popular-culture stories. This is something I will analyse in more detail in Part 3 of the book, ‘Constructing TAs’, where I will report my experience of the two cases.

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I attempted thereafter to distinguish in what voice the narrative of the Big Banana is told. But rather than analysing the written texts, as I did in the narrative analysis of Thunderbolt, I suggested here that voice also can be determined in the way pictures are taken and images constructed. Building on Redfoot’s analysis of first- and second-order tourists (1984) and on Erik Cohen’s semiotic analysis of tourist pictures (1993), I suggested that different pictures represent first-, second- and third-person voices in the texts told about the attraction. The examples analysed often used the first-person voice in order to give the texts intimacy and familiarity. They were subjective and inviting readers to read them as pictures from a family’s photo album. The second-person voice was used in cases where the authors of the text wanted the readers to identify themselves with the people in the pictures, imagining themselves in the activities being performed. Finally, the third-person voice was used in texts that aimed to produce objective and reliable messages to provide the reader with certainty about the factual value of the texts. The final theoretical construct presented in Part 2 of the book, focalisation, aimed to show how texts, that in terms of information, looked reliable and rather similar, through covert manipulations in most cases made the narrative negative. If the voices used to create different impressions about the narrative gave the reader a feeling of subjective trust in a friend, or of objective trust in an authority, focalisation was presented as a major contributor to how readers would come to think about the narrative overall. The hidden hints about high- and low-class cultures and sarcastic undertones contributed in many cases to make the attraction/narrative a rather pathetic one, something visitors would know to stay away from unless they wanted to degrade themselves. Stewart claimed: ‘Under an agrarian economy, the giant became associated with the market and the fair and their attendant feasts’ (Stewart, 1993: 80). This was the climate the Big Banana was created in, and the burlesque celebration of that fact was therefore acceptable. Stewart continues: ‘In both statuary and living form, the gigantic appeared as a symbol of surplus and licentiousness, of overabundance and unlimited consumption. Here the giant’s consuming image is placed at the center of local civic identity’ (Stewart, 1993: 80). The initial appearance of the Big Banana made perfect sense therefore in 1964. It became a centre for local identity for a population who did not feel that they had a historical basis in the region otherwise. For the non-Indigenous Australians who settled in the region the banana was, at the time, a symbol of the overabundance offered to them. Pleasant weather, fertile soil and cheap land were attributes that led them to the region, but they did not have a long history of their own.

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The underlying fear associated with terra nullius made the construction of gigantic symbols of excess into shorthand for a new identity (Barcan, 1996: 36). Maybe the dreamtime cave and the diorama about the local ­Gumbaynggirr people that featured for some time at the Big Banana complex (Clark, 2004) were harsh reminders of this rewriting of history, as neither of them existed when I last visited the site. Only the bunyip in the billabong remained, and it was no longer then presented as an Indigenous myth, but rather as an Australian mythical creature. The narrative created at the Big Banana is consequently more similar to the narrative of Thunderbolt than originally expected. It is a postmodern touristic terra nullius, whereas Thunder­bolt was a conservative touristic terra nullius. The Big Banana has, through its power of signification, conducted a nullification of history in the region and while that was not perhaps the original reason for its development, it is the consequence. By now trying to displace the region’s signifier, the Big Banana, the authorities are just trying to overwrite the already overwritten. To create a representation of a place requires that the author follow accepted norms that readers understand. If the place is unknown to readers, then they tend to trust the author’s text, but if the place is already known then the text may contradict the readers’ impression of it. Just as a palimpsest contains traces of an earlier text and therefore shapes the new writing, representing the land that used to belong to somebody else creates a palimpsest that will always shape the way texts are written in Australia. It will be hard to develop and include Indigenous history as a part of the whole unless the Big Banana is discussed in the official discourse as one component of non-Indigenous history in the area. All alternative texts will only be overshadowed by that Big Banana.

Conclusion With this, I conclude the deconstruction of TAs. I have over the past three chapters introduced narrative theory in the context of tourism research and practices, and I have presented a range of theoretical tools that can be used to critically analyse attractions. I will now turn my attention in the final part of the book, ‘Constructing TAs’, to my experiences at the same two TAs that this part deconstructed. I will, in a similar fashion, present a new analytical framework for the construction, linguistic-hermeneutic phenomenology, and I will analyse different features of the cases in the light of the theoretical concepts that the theory offers.

Part 3 Constructing TAs

Interlude B Whereas it may seem logical to construct attractions before they are deconstructed, my aim is here to show that a deconstructive understanding of attractions is necessary before it is possible to examine how tourists construct TAs in their own minds. Part 3 of the book is not intended to offer managers practical instructions on how they should go about constructing or reconstructing existing attractions; rather, the aim is to illustrate how each and every tourist constructs an individual ‘idea’ of visited attractions. I will argue the significance of linguistic-hermeneutic phenomenological readings of tourist experiences. The first chapter in Part 3 will focus on the experiences tourists have at the attractions visited. I will initially take you on my journey to regional New South Wales as a tourist, and I will then introduce some theoretical foundations for phenomenology and show how each individual’s perception of reality is the sum of the experiences they have had so far in their lives, as well as the lived realities they are part of when the experience takes place. The description follows my journeys as a naïve tourist visiting the towns and wanting to understand meanings of the towns’ iconic attractions; the description simultaneously connects those experiences with theoretical findings from the fields of cultural studies and tourism studies, explaining why certain meanings may evolve in the tourist’s (therefore my) mind. I have structured this part of the book differently to the previous one, with a substantial theoretical section in the first chapter, and the major experiential sections in the following two chapters.

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Thunderbolt and the Big Banana The historical individual who called himself ‘Captain Thunderbolt’ was a so-called bushranger, essentially an Australian highway bandit (Routt, 2001) who stole horses, and held up travellers and mail deliveries, in the northern parts of New South Wales in the 1860s. Several similar individuals existed around those times and a considerable mythology has developed in present-day Australia around these bushrangers (Boxall, 1974 [1899]; Molitorisz, 2003). Even though the original stories about the bushrangers have not changed substantially, the mythology has become strong enough to justify repeated films and a tourist industry that capitalises on that popularity (Frost, 2006). I will present here how the stories surrounding Thunderbolt, and especially­his death, have come to symbolise the town in northern New South Wales where his career ended in a gun fight with a police officer (discussed in Chapter 8, ‘Performing TAs’). The small town of Uralla strongly emphasises its connections to Thunderbolt. This emphasis can be found in the town’s promotional material, in the naming of local businesses and in official memorials at prominent locations in the town. Bush romanticism and the so-called pioneer myth have been important meta-narratives shaping the Australian national identity since the late 1800s, even though the majority of Australians have never had any direct connection with pioneers of agriculture or life outside the larger metropolitan areas (Rowe, 1993: 257; Turner, 1993: xiii). The Big Banana (Figure 15) is an example of a special type of attraction that distinguishes the Australian roadside, namely gigantism or, as Cross (1995: 50) calls it, ‘the king of kitsch’. Australia has in this, as in so many other matters, taken after the USA, where these gigantic roadside sculptures have been a part of the scenery since the 19th century, and several of them have even been listed on the US national heritage register (Patton, 2003: G29). An experience of a ‘big thing’ is interesting, not because there are so many intrinsic attractors involved, rather the other way around. There are only extrinsic attractors – there is no ‘core’ (Meltzer, 2002: 173). Barcan claims that a ‘visit to any one Big Thing is not so much an intrinsically exciting tourist event as a participation in a larger system of classification: visiting is to some extent a process of taking it off the list’ (Barcan, 1996: 32). A fair number of studies done both in Australia and in the USA have examined the cultural dimensions of Big Things (Barcan, 1996; Cross, 1995; Marling, 1984; Ryan, 1995; Stockwell & Carlisle, 2003). These discuss, for example, Big Things as: American/Australian symbolism for a big country; place-making symbols in regions otherwise empty of significance;

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Figure 15  Tourist performance at the Big Banana. Source: By author

expressions of bush poems; or plain kitsch. Leiper’s case study of the Big Banana outlined the rationale for the site’s original development and subsequent failure. It also explained why the local population felt, and still to an extent feel, alienated from the attraction which, without doubt, signifies the township (Leiper, 1995, 1997). I have decided to evaluate this attraction because I want to show what tourism and management studies unconsciously disregard by remaining attached to positivist frameworks that do not allow fluid interpretations. I also want to extend, and reflect upon, the cultural studies already done about Big Things by searching for a personal meaning of the Big Banana. In Chapter 9, ‘Remembering TAs’, I will use linguistic-hermeneutic phenomen­ ology to explain the experience and the memory of the Big Banana and propose that the meaning of certain attractions is not their core but only their surface. That is, certain attractions can be insightful and fun owing to their intertextual play on popular cultural signifiers, not as a classic narrative, but because of a linear storyline. In other words, certain attractions should therefore perhaps be regarded as postmodern narratives.

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This is a point also hinted at in a television programme by George Negus about Big Things (2003). Eve Melzer points out: ‘most [tourists] walk away after an hour, dismissing [the attraction] as a “tourist trap”; but then the point will have been missed. There are hermeneutical hazards attendant to the study of places like this. Questions of taste or cultural merit often overlook more lasting questions: What does it mean and how does it signify?’ (Melzer, 2002: 162). David Chaney builds on this same line of thought when he states: ‘The meaning of tourism will not be self-evident but will require “unpacking” through some form of hermeneutic analysis articulated through crucial metaphors’ (Chaney, 2002: 194). What I aim to do here is, therefore, to offer my account of an experience at the site with a range of hermeneutic/­linguistic interpretations of the phenomena taking place. The experience is meant to be read as a metaphor for the readers’ experiences at similar attractions.

7 Experiencing TAs

I do not expect to uncover, in a Husserlian fashion, an a priori meaning of either of the places I visited, as there is no singular meaning that is more real than others. However, I do not expect the phenomenon to be tabula rasa either – there are always already meanings attached to everything we do. I am informed by my personal experiences from past events. The meanings I attach to the phenomenon are therefore parts of my hermeneutic circle (Shields, 1991: 17). At no stage do I intend to present the meaning of the site from a residents’ perspective – that would be a totally different book. I aim here only to lay bare one tourist’s experience of the attraction and meanings attached to that phenomenon. Phenomenology describes a phenomenon and gives readers a chance to recognise themselves in similar experiences. By seeing the phenomenon as a metaphor for other experiences, the reader can use the description to consciously apply the essential themes to other cases, while remaining constantly aware of the fact that every experience is individual and that it is impossible to draw generalisations from them (Becker, 1992). It should be noted that the Big Banana, at the time of writing (2015), has undergone a major overhaul and that some attractions here described have since been dismantled. The site has retained some of the details I describe, such as the obvious main attraction – the Big Banana itself – but a vast area previously occupied by banana plantations is proposed to be replaced to a large extent by both permanent and tourism accommodation facilities, and the ‘scenic’ train ride has already been replaced by a plantation walk with interpretation provided. Plans have also been drawn for parts of the attraction to become a water park, featuring waterslides down the hill. Later visits have confirmed that the site, which is now under new management, is a much more holistic experience, concentrated around bananas, and thus more in line with modern tourist attraction management techniques. 163

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This case study was, however, written in 2004–06 and the experience depicted in the following chapters describes the situation as it was then. The value of utilising a description of an attraction that no longer exists in the same mode is that it is a good example of many TAs around the world. Many attractions have evolved from something simple to become a signifier for the area, whether it is to the joy or embarrassment of the local population. This is, in many cases, owing to a lack of strategic – and overt hegemonic – direction, which in turn has led to the development of attractions that act as symbols of popular culture, and covertly retain traces of dominant social values. I follow in this the suggestion by John Fiske that the date an analysis in cultural studies is undertaken is important. Unlike many other scientific studies, it acts as a snapshot of a specific context (Fiske, 1994: 189).

Phenomenology in General Here I will present the general concepts that phenomenological theory is based upon. As I will later clarify, there are nowadays a range of different phenomenological approaches that are at times as critical of one another as practitioners from outside the phenomenological movement are of the movement in general (Moran, 2000). This section will, however, first outline some basic terminology that is used in most phenomenological studies regardless of the approach later chosen and that I will use in my phenomenological accounts in Chapters 8 and 9. Phenomenology traces its roots to Edmund Husserl’s investigations of intentionality published as Logical Investigations in 1913 (Husserl, 2001 [1913]) and to a later declaration by him in the Cartesian Meditations stating ‘Ego cogito cogitatum (qua cogitatum)’ (Husserl, 1977 [1931]: 36) – I think something. This highlights the relation Husserl saw between consciousness, thinking, the thing thought and the element of intentionality which creates the phenomenon of experience (Stumpf, 1994: 496). This was, according to Emmanuel Levinas (1989: 78), ‘one of the culminating points in Western philosophy’. According to Husserl, it did not make sense to think abstractly about theoretical matters that were cut off from the world as we live it, or the ‘lifeworld’ as he named it (Koch, 1995). In his account of phenomenology, thinking is always done by a person who personally experiences things and all thinking has to be about something that it is possible to experience (Husserl, 1977 [1931]: 33; Koch, 1995; Willis, 2001). Husserl’s ideas built on the work by Franz Brentano on descriptive psychology, which largely was a philosophical critique of the cause/effect relationship as a psychological

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explanation, the dominant tradition at that time (Haaparanta, 1988). Brentano wanted to examine psychology in a more scientific manner, by under­standing first-hand what experiences comprised, rather than to explain experiences afterwards by causal relationships. Husserl wanted to further this enquiry by applying empirical scientific methods to all phenomena to gain a better understanding of them and, according to him, to ‘bring philosophy back’ from studying pseudo-events and lay bare the essence of life as it is (Moran, 2000).

The phenomenological triad The philosophical movement that became known as phenomenology bases its practices on three foundational concepts: (1) introspection, or phenomenological intuiting; (2) bracketing, epoché, or phenomenological reduction and (3) naming essential themes, or phenomenological disclosure (Becker, 1992; Seamon, 2002). The three concepts are to some degree successional and always interdependent for phenomenological investigations. In saying this, Seamon quotes Renata Tesch in saying that the steps should not be regarded as a ‘straight process’, but rather as a ‘flow’ or ‘spiralling motion’, where some steps have to be done over and over again, with smaller and larger revelations taking place at the different steps before an end result can be reached (Seamon, 2002). Van Manen (1990) suggests, with regard to the first part of this phenomenological triad, that it is more suitable to talk about retrospection rather than introspection, since a phenomenon cannot be analysed at the same time that it is being experienced – it is always recalled afterwards. Both ‘introspection’ and ‘intuiting’ are also words that carry connotations generally not favoured in positivist circles and they have even been used to ‘prove’ the insufficiency of the whole phenomenological movement, claiming that phenomenological findings are nothing more than the private musings of the practitioners (Moran, 2000). John Hughson et al. (2005) clarify the distinction between introspection and retrospection by referring to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s explanation of football players as a metaphor for how consciousness and self-consciousness cannot be active simultaneously. In their example they refer to how skilled players on a playing field are perfectly conscious of their movements, and equally conscious of their teammates, and of where the ball is and where it is travelling. However, if they tried to self-consciously think of their actions and reflect on what they were doing while doing it, they would not be able to perform on the same level as they do. In similar terms, a phenomenologist cannot retrospectively and introspectively experience a phenomenon simultaneously. Thought, action and

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reflection are all interdependent and necessary for an individual to develop and act, but are generally not taking place totally simultaneously. ‘Play can thus be seen as a flow of embodied practical activities rather than as a series of discrete actions presided over and decided by a reflecting consciousness … the player–body–subject practically produces “moves”, which are felt (rather than thought) to be compelled by the spatial contours of the soccer field’ (Hughson et al., 2005: 144). The acts of reflection and self-reflection develop in individuals’ late adolescent years. Carol Becker states that phenomenological psychology often sees children and adolescents simply as ‘beings-in-the-world-with-others’, which in a phenomenological sense leads to experiences where meaning is determined more by context than it is among adults (Becker, 1992). This can be exemplified by contemplating how small children who fall over initially look at adults close by to determine whether to be scared and cry, or to ignore the event and go on with their play. Seamon acknowledges that valuable phenomenological intuiting is hard to learn, and almost impossible to teach to new phenomenologists, as it ‘requires discipline, patience, effort and care. It requires considerable practice and training, and students can find their way to intuiting only by themselves, often in hit-and-miss fashion’ (Seamon, 2002). The main features of a successful retrospection are connected to the two following concepts of the triad: firstly, when the phenomenon that is studied is bracketed off from the daily lifeworld and common postulations are attached to that, called ‘epoché’; and secondly, when the phenomenologist reaches a greater insight into the underlying meaning of a matter. The second part of the triad, bracketing, reduction, or epoché, should be under­ stood as consciousness without presuppositions. Robert Martin explains that bracketing was the name given by Husserl to the mental process that would allow experiences to be investigated without letting everyday assumptions about the phenomenon in question interfere with the outcome (Martin, 2002: 46). Phenomenologists would consciously ‘bracket off ’ their normal presuppositions about how phenomena take place and instead allow their consciousness to experience the incident ‘afresh’. In Husserl’s writing, which was inspired by René Descartes’s cogito, the assumption was that phenomenologists would be able to totally distance themselves from the phenomenon they were experiencing (Husserl, 1977 [1931]: 35). This supposedly objective view ‘from nowhere’ would be a purely scientific examination of the meaning of that phenomenon. The suggestion by Husserl was that ‘Transcendental Reduction’ suspends all independence in the world other than that of consciousness itself, and causes the world to be rediscovered as noema’, or, in other words, thought-objects (Levinas, 1989: 79). In the field of tourism studies, Gregory Szarycz is very

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critical of the idea of bracketing, calling it a ‘mental trick’ which Husserlian phenomenologists are using to achieve ‘objectivity’ (Szarycz, 2009: 54). Husserl’s followers, starting with Martin Heidegger and his reformulation of phenomenological theory, criticised this view and pointed out that individuals are always ‘thrown’ into life and are surrounded with a historicity that shapes experiences in their own time in specific ways (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]: 174). Merleau-Ponty similarly highlighted contradictions in Husserl’s philosophy when he explained that individuals have to add up different perspectives to invent a fictional position in order to achieve a transcendental view ‘from nowhere’ – thus aiming for an a priori ideal view rather than an experienced real view (Merleau-Ponty, 2002 [1945]: 77). Later accounts of bracketing have pointed out that people would not be able to ‘wipe out’ all knowledge and normal assumptions they have about any one phenomenon, and so the notion of bracketing should rather be understood as a mental process that sets aside the normal causal and cognitive thought processes for the while that the experience in question is described (Moran, 2000). The final part of the phenomenological triad, naming essential themes (Becker, 1992), means, for practitioners who utilise phenomenology, trying to gain understanding of a true meaning of experiences/phenomena by reflecting on, for example, situations experienced, pictures seen, texts read, in order to draw out from them what is essential in the phenomena (Martin, 2002; van Manen, 1990). This is the aspect of Husserl’s phenomenology that has received the most criticism, and the reason Husserl named his philo­ sophical movement ‘Transcendental Phenomenology’ when some of his followers started to suggest alternative ways of practising phenomenology. Transcendentalism, essentialism and true meanings are all often associated with eidetic forms, and Husserl was accused of bringing in neo-Platonic ideas under the banner of a totally new philosophy. Husserl always rejected the links drawn between his transcendentalism and the classic forms, but was never able, in his published writings and lectures, to fully resolve that critical point (Moran, 2000). An alternative to naming essential themes or searching for true meanings, which was suggested by Husserl’s students and followers, was the idea of applying a reductionism to the richly described experiences produced in the bracketing stage. This practice maintains the aim of trying to understand the experience on its own terms, without any links to an underlying structure or form. Becker (1992: 45) quotes Wertz in distinguishing the following eight steps to find ‘essential themes’: (1) recognition and utilization of an ‘existential baseline’; (2) distinguishing constituents;

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(3) reflection on judgement of relevance; (4) grasping implicit meanings; (5) relating constituents; (6) imaginative variation; (7) conceptually guided interrogation; (8) psychological languaging. Seamon (2002) refers to this whole stage of the triad as ‘phenomenological disclosure’ and suggests that practising phenomenologists know when they have reached this ‘moment of insight’ by having an ‘aha! experience’ or what van Manen (1990: 27), referring to Buytendijk, calls the ‘phenomenological nod’. Each of these names refers to a moment when the phenomenologist has removed all contextual details from the phenomenon in question, and only the ‘true meaning’ of the experience remains. The phenomenologist will recognise this moment and, in a metaphorical sense, ‘nod’ or have an ‘aha! experience’ in this recognition.

Phenomenology and Cartesian Dualism What set Husserl’s ideas on philosophical practice apart from the dominant philosophical traditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was his refusal to accept ideas that were not experienced in person, in an eidetic – or, in the word’s original meaning, empirical – manner (Marsh, 1988). This reconciliation of objects and subjects in philosophical thinking was something that had been questioned since Descartes had ‘separated’ the mind from the body in his famous statement cogito ergo sum (Becker, 1992). While Husserl accepted the Cartesian basis that critically doubted everything except for its own doubting, he rejected the way philosophy thereafter had become more and more abstract, and so focused on what he referred to as pseudo-matters. Bracketing was a development of ­Descartes’s epoché, the method used by Descartes in his Meditations to critically doubt the existence of everything (Kersten, 1989), but in Husserl’s work it never had the outcome that the mind and body should be regarded as two separate entities (Carr, 1973). The aspect of Husserl’s phenomenology that was regarded as a relic of Descartes’s dualism was the suspension, in an ‘idealist’ sense, of the materiality of the outside world – including the body, from the epoché, in order to describe a full self-being. Husserl suggested that a pure meaning of an experience could be objectively investigated only if all psychological impulses from material reality were bracketed out. Husserl referred to this state as a description of a ‘passive synthesis’ (Vandervelde,

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1996) or, in other words, an objective description of an experience as it would have taken place regardless of whether the person giving the descrip­tion was there or not. Husserl explains his use of the word ‘ideal’ in the following manner: ‘To talk of “idealism” is of course not to talk of a metaphysical doctrine, but of a theory of knowledge which recognizes the “ideal” as a condition for the possibility of objective knowledge in general, and does not “interpret it away” in psychologistic fashion’ (Husserl, 2001 [1913]: 134). This hypothetical re-unification of the body and the mind was questioned by philosophers active in France, where Husserlian phenomenology was seen as a form of ‘extreme Cartesianism’ (Moran, 2000) and where a range of alternative dimensions of phenomenology were developed instead. Merleau-Ponty, for example, criticised this view and pointed out that ‘The very experience of transcendent things is possible only provided that their project is borne, and discovered, within myself ’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002 [1945]: 430). Merleau-Ponty developed the term ‘body-subject’ as a signifier for the united body and mind (Becker, 1992). While the criticism has certain grounding in terms of how bracketing is used, it disregards the fact that Husserl had suggested a new terminology that did unite the subject and the object. Moran explains: In order to get away from all psychologistic and naturalistic misconceptions, including those of descriptive psychology, he [Husserl] introduced a new terminology, drawing on the ancient Greek terms for the ‘act of thinking’, noesis, and ‘what is thought’, noema, terms which carried less philosophical baggage than traditional terms for the intentional structure, for example ‘act’, ‘content’, ‘meaning’, and so on. (Moran, 2000: 155–156) The way this combination of the two parts of the whole should be regarded as one is offered by Kenneth Shapiro (1985), who describes Husserl’s technique when he distinguishes between the noematic features of a phenomenon, the object and its context, and the noetic features, the way the subject is experiencing the phenomenon. The dialectic of the two entities is the relation between them, where ‘neither is the cause of which the other is the result, rather, there is a circularity of influence’ (p. 12). The conscious awareness of the dialectics between the noematic and the noetic features is what distinguishes an experience. I can, for example, as a tourist, take a ‘step back’ from an experience and reflect not only on the attraction and its settings that I am visiting, but

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also on my own involvement with the attraction, including the personal closeness I have to a TA, the pictures I have taken of it and the souvenirs purchased for later re-consumption of the same experience. Shapiro sums this up by saying ‘experience is not somehow only a direct presentation of the object, nor is it merely subjective or mental. It is bodily in that the bodysubject or individual must actively participate or engage himself [sic] in the situation of any moment’ (Shapiro, 1985: 13). This last point is important, as an experience cannot ever be the same, while the subject is never the same at two different moments, or, as expressed by the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, ‘You can never step into the same river twice’ (Younis, 2003). While most practising phenomenologists agree on the usage of the phenomenological triad, in one form or another, and of a reconciliation of the mind and body under different terminologies, several other developments sharply divide different orientations from one another. Van Manen (2002) divides the orientations into transcendental, existential, hermeneutical, linguistical, ethical and experiential. Each has somewhat different methods of using reduction, that is, the bracketing of an experience to suspend all personal beliefs and to the intro-/retrospection of experiences. Dann and Cohen (1991: 164) further introduce sociological phenomenology, while James Marsh (1988) pioneers dialectical phenomenology, built on a combination of phenomenology and Marxism. The end results of phenomenological enquiries are quite diverse, depending on which orientation is subscribed to by the author using it (Moran, 2000). I will briefly describe the ones I have chosen to follow.

Hermeneutic Phenomenology Van Manen (2002) describes hermeneutic phenomenology as a combination of hermeneutics – ‘the theory and practice of interpretation’ – and phenomenology – ‘the study of describing phenomena’. According to van Manen, a practitioner using this approach is ‘attentive to how things appear’ and is letting the ‘things speak for themselves’ by describing them as carefully as possible. Hermeneutic phenomenology is another development from Heidegger’s writing on Dasein, in English ‘being-in-the-world’ (Pernecky, 2010), in which he used hermeneutics to highlight the frame of reference necessary to understand any one phenomenon. The understanding he had of hermeneutics as a concept was broader than the traditional one, which was generally restricted to historical or cultural sciences; instead, Heidegger applied hermeneutics to the whole manner in which individuals interpret and understand their existence in reference to meanings inherent

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in experiences in society (Moran, 2000). This interpretive understanding is what is referred to as the hermeneutic circle, or, in Löfgren’s words: ‘experience structures expression and expression structures experience. The associations are culturally conditioned and so are our afterthoughts, the ways in which we reflect on and express consciousness’ (Löfgren, 2002: 95). Rather than being viewed as a vicious circle always referring to other things farther and farther away from the phenomenon, Heidegger (1962 [1927]) proposed that the hermeneutic circle helped to clarify the historic and contextual surroundings that shaped the experience into what it finally meant. An example of this in tourism textbooks is Leiper’s (2004) detailed analysis of the meanings attached to words such as ‘tourist’, ‘tourism’ and ‘travel’, which I explained in Chapter 1, ‘Defining TAs’. Becker suggested that hermeneutic phenomenology has a broader range than purely empirical phenomenology, which always requires the first-hand collection of data. ‘Scholarly and creative works, as well as life events, can be the subject of this kind of systematic, interpretative study. In this research tradition, the reader-interpreter of life texts enters a “hermeneutical circle” of witnessing, responding to, reframing, and relanguaging the object of exploration. This process can be dynamic, creative, and open-ended’ (Becker, 1992: 32). The reason hermeneutics was brought into phenomenology was the realisation that a totally presuppositionless mind would not be able to grasp any ex­ periences in the outside world. Heidegger suggested that the only way to formulate a question is by having some sort of idea about what the answers might be. Unless that knowledge exists, the question can never materialise. This initial knowledge – which is based on what we have from before (Vorhabe), our foresight (Vorsicht) and a fore-conception (Vorgriff) – combined with the mode of access (Zugangsart) to the question, lead to how the answer to a question is formed (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]: 191). Rather than viewing this as a circular argument, Heidegger pointed out that the fore-conception was more like a misunderstanding or distortion of reality, and it was only through a phenomenological process, which filled in details and highlighted relationships between elements of the experience, that the fore-conception was confirmed or rejected (Moran, 2000). Heidegger’s student Hans-Georg Gadamer is the philosopher who developed this dimension of phenomenology the furthest. Hermeneutic phenomenology as it is generally practised nowadays is based on his writings. Gadamer suggested that hermeneutics is an art aimed at ‘avoiding misunderstandings’ by disregarding and consciously searching for meanings inherent in original texts and experiences. He further pointed out that researchers must rise above the ‘prejudice against prejudice’ common in positivist methods, and rather realise:

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It is not so much our judgments as our prejudices that constitute our being…. Prejudices are not necessarily unjustified and erroneous, so that they inevitably distort truth. In fact, the historicity of our existence entails that prejudices, in the literal sense of the word, constitute the initial directedness of our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are biases of our openness to the world. They are simply conditions whereby we experience something. (Gadamer, in Moran, 2000: 278) The points made in hermeneutic phenomenology are thus a further development of the original phenomenological tradition. Practitioners are asked to stay attentive not only to experiences as they take place but also to the fact that they, and all their study objects, are beings situated in a world filled with history. It is only with this realisation that it is possible to determine what the true nature of experience is, including one’s own prejudices that are forming one’s understanding of that experience (Sedgwick, 2002). ‘Combining Heidegger’s development of this concept [the interpretive paradigm] with Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is an important future task. It offers strong potential for developing robust theoretical and methodological frameworks for applying hermeneutic phenomenology to tourism studies of experience’ (Pernecky & Jamal, 2010: 1071). The action of drawing out the essential themes of the lived experience is subsequently a natural process according to van Manen, as ‘there are no such things as un-interpreted phenomena’ (van Manen, 1990: 58). Lived experiences are always experienced meaningfully.

Thunderbolt’s grave The first ‘Thunderbolt’ site I visited was his grave. After a sign by the highway, no other sign directs the traveller to the Pioneers’ Cemetery (Figure 16) where Thunderbolt’s grave is situated. The cemetery is, however, just a couple of blocks off the main thoroughfare, easy to see on the left-hand side of the road. I parked where some other cars were already parked, next to the fence separating the cemetery from the roadside, and looked around the cemetery to see if I could recognise the grave from a photo in a brochure I had earlier found in my motel. As I did not see the grave straightaway, I decided to walk systematically along the graves and read the inscriptions on the tombstones. It was still relatively early in the morning and the air was quite cool. Across the street, cars arrived and departed occasionally from a child-care centre and I thought to myself that the closeness between the cemetery and that institute of life made a strange juxtaposition, but dismissed the

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Figure 16  Pioneers’ Cemetery. Source: By author

thought straightaway after realising that both were natural parts of the little town. There were no other visitors at the cemetery at the time. As it was a normal weekday and not during school holidays, I assumed that the other parked cars belonged to staff at the child-care centre. I took a picture of the cemetery from one side, feeling a little silly being a tourist in that environment, with people going about their daily lives so close by. As I defined before, a TA consists of a tourist, texts, stories, and a fabula. The core element of any TA that motivates people to travel to it is, however, not by necessity an attraction to all people. When the core element is part of a person’s everyday environment, they are no longer classified as tourists at that site, and if no texts/markers indicate the site is a TA, it will not become an attraction to people in the environment. For the people across the street in the child-care centre the cemetery probably had a totally different meaning to mine. While it might have been a place of significance, it was not an attraction. This is one of the factors that make object-related authenticity (Wang, 1999: 352) in tourism experiences an impossible feature. Tourists want to experience aspects of daily life in areas they visit, but do not want to be regarded as ‘just’ tourists. However, the factors that are of interest to a tourist are hardly ever interesting to locals for the same reason, and the divide between ‘tourist reality’ and ‘local reality’ will thus never be breached.

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I have always enjoyed visiting old cemeteries. I often try to make a tour of local cemeteries when visiting new locations. While cemeteries that are still in active use at times are chilling reminders of death and people’s grief, old cemeteries resemble more old historical books (Rönnholm, 2003), just as museums do (Kirchenblatt-Gimblett, 1998: 6). They contain stories of past times, they give visitors information about how life used to be lived in the region when the tombstones state the professions the people practised, and what ages people were at the time of death (Bloom, 1998; HaldinRönn, 2005: 12). Gravestones explain where people emigrated from when they state a birthplace or simply through the surnames on the headstones (Estens, 2005: 5; Lehtonen, 2003: 12). Around the world, cemeteries are also increasingly being incorporated into sites mentioned as attractions (Raento, 2002: 159). Some places even use dog cemeteries as signifiers for their attachment to a life where dogs are more than just pets, but also work companions, and advertise the sites as attractions in the locality (Elder, 2004). My knowledge about cemeteries could, in Heidegger’s terminology (1962 [1927]: 191), be called Vorhabe – something I had from before that would form my im­pression of the cemetery in Uralla. When I arrived at the cemetery in Uralla I had in my mind a collection of texts to refer to in order to find Thunderbolt’s grave. The texts/stories stand in Heidegger’s terminology (1962 [1927]: 191) as my Vorsicht – something that I have seen before and that is thus part of the framework of information that I consciously and unconsciously reflect on while having the ex­perience. My experience of the cemetery in Uralla was therefore not without any presuppositions, but by being conscious of these I aimed to allow the experience to guide my impression of the site. I knew that one grave at the cemetery would be Thunderbolt’s. I thought I knew what that grave looked like, and therefore I, as my Zugangsart (mode of access) (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]), walked around, actively guided by my expectations alone. The cemetery is not in active use. Most of the graves are old and not attended to anymore. Some inscriptions are so faint that it is possible only to guess the names of the people buried there; some of the headstones are cracked or even in pieces on the ground. After a first walk round the little field without finding the grave, I started a second round, this time including the graves closest to the fence on all sides. I found Thunderbolt’s grave shortly thereafter, next to the only opening in the low wooden fence surrounding the cemetery, which I had earlier stepped over. The tombstone was smaller than I had imagined from the photo in the brochure, and there was a small information plaque with a roof just behind the grave, which made me even more surprised that I had missed it on my first walk round the cemetery.

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I realised that I had set off with a lot of preconceived ideas about the grave and the cemetery. I had imagined the tombstone to be large, but not very different otherwise from the other gravestones there. I had imagined the graveyard to be organised, well maintained and easy to navigate, and I wondered why I had had all those ideas. When reflecting on those thoughts I realised that I had seen only the one picture of Thunderbolt’s tombstone and through that had imagined the context it would be set in. This imagined context is, in Heidegger’s terminology (1962 [1927]: 191), called my Vorgriff – my fore-conception. When the reality of the site turned out to be, to use Schlunke’s (2005: 34) terms, more ‘opened’, in terms of the site’s general decay, and more ‘closed’, in terms of the prominence given to Thunderbolt’s grave, I experienced a moment of tourist angst. I wanted the visit to the cemetery to feel like other visits I had done at other old ­cemeteries, where unknown stories and lives were given a tangible milieu and I could be regarded as an amateur historian. But here, on a frosty winter weekday morning, next to an active child-care centre, I found the only grave that was maintained, and even set apart from the rest of the graves by being situated next to the cemetery’s entrance, and I realised that anybody who saw me at the cemetery would know that I was a tourist who was visiting the site solely to see Thunderbolt’s grave. Uralla Historical Society’s plaque next to the grave gave a partial answer to my original questions about why the town celebrates Thunderbolt as a hero. It states that the ‘public generally had a “soft spot” for him’ as he never was violent but always courteous to ladies. There was, however, no mention there of when the tombstone had been erected, or why the plaque’s heading is ‘You are now in “Thunderbolt Country”’, instead of possibly calling the area ‘Constable Walker Country’. I later found out from the Visitor Centre that the tombstone was erected in the 1920s, some 50 years after Thunderbolt’s death. It could thus be questioned how exactly the tombstone marks the spot where Thunderbolt is buried. The tombstone itself is shown in Figure 17. The meaning of visiting the cemetery was for me to see the tombstone. It became corporeal evidence of Thunderbolt’s being in the world and the cemetery would not have been ‘enough’ to make the story tangible otherwise. This was apparently something that had been discovered early last century in Uralla, when the tombstone was originally erected. Tourists were not satisfied with simply visiting the cemetery and knowing that Thunderbolt was buried there – somewhere. They needed a tangible sign to see and that had been provided by the tombstone. Seeing the grave had two meanings to me: there was the corporeal meaning of the visit, but it became also – through the exceptional care taken and its visibility – evidence of me

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Figure 17  Thunderbolt’s grave. Source: By author

being a tourist. What had drawn me to the cemetery was that grave. Was that bad? Why did I feel guilty about being ‘just a tourist’? The importance of Thunderbolt can also be experienced linguistically at the site. The site markers are generally related to Thunderbolt, not to the rest of the cemetery. The large sign on the main road indicates to visitors where ‘Thunderbolt’s Grave’ is – nothing else. Tourist brochures alternate between calling the site ‘Pioneers Cemetery’ (sic), with Thunderbolt’s grave marked, or in other cases simply ‘Thunderbolt’s Grave’. The facts that Thunderbolt’s grave is the first, and potentially only, grave visitors come across if they enter through the opening in the fence, and that the grave is maintained and marked by two separate signs, develop a narrative closure by underscoring its significance and the rest of the graves’ irrelevance. The meaning created for the occasional visitor is one of reverence for the tombstone because it is the corporeal evidence of the story that made Uralla significant in nonAboriginal history. Except that Thunderbolt had been shot in Uralla, and was therefore buried there, just about any town in New England could have claimed the story for itself and the tombstone is thus also the township’s evidence, in the struggle among competing destinations, to claim the

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story as its own. That the text on the tombstone claims that New England residents erected it (see Figure 17) might be a concession to other localities that they are included in the memorial, but the fact remains that no other town has capitalised on that memory to the same extent as Uralla.

Linguistic Phenomenology Linguistic phenomenology is a later development of the overall phenomenological movement and is found in many of the later writings by Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and also Gadamer. Merleau-Ponty, in his early writings, raised a position between the subject and the object and referred to this ‘in-between’ position as a dialectic between the two (see MerleauPonty, 2002 [1945]). He ‘stated that meaning is created between person and world. Both poles of the dialogue – the person and the object – bring certain limits and possibilities to the development of meaning. Meaning is formed in this exchange; it is co-created between the person and the object’ (cited in Becker, 1992: 19). This notion of a dialogue was something that Gadamer also pointed out when he claimed that language in its truest form is speech that occurs in a conversation and that phenomenological enquiry should therefore be alert to investigating mutual understanding between the two parties. That the two parties for Gadamer did not have to be two separate individuals but rather could be an object or a text, on the one hand, and a phenomenologist, on the other, highlights how his interpretation of dialogue should be regarded as a foundation for later linguistic phenomenological studies. The realisation that an understanding of a phenomenon is closely connected with the language in which it is described brought about the notion that different intrinsic meanings can be gained by the way different texts are formulated, in terms of both what is included and what is excluded from the texts. This linguistic turn has been especially powerful in formulations by Derrida and his deconstructive readings of texts. While Derrida’s later writings were not connected to phenomenology, his earlier ones clearly were, and his detailed deconstructions of Husserl’s texts have served as a good critique of the transcendental elements in those texts and also brought out the binary oppositions on which they unquestioningly depend. Moran states that Derrida mentions, as examples of this, ‘eidetic/ empirical; ­transcendental/worldly; original/derived; pure/impure; genetic/­ constitutive, arguing that Husserl ignored the manner in which these oppositions in fact enter in some kind of “dialectic”, and, as Derrida says, “contaminate” each other’ (see Moran, 2000: 438).

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Van Manen refers to Paul Ricoeur’s suggestion that ‘experience and (un)consciousness are structured like a language, therefore one could speak of all experience, all human interactions, as some kind of text’ (van Manen, 1990: 39). He refers thus to the phenomenological understanding of essence as a ‘linguistic construction’, or a textual explanation of an experience. He states: When a phenomenologist asks for the essence of a phenomenon – a lived experience – then the phenomenological inquiry is not unlike an artistic endeavor, a creative attempt to somehow capture a certain phenomenon of life in a linguistic description that is both holistic and analytical, evocative and precise, unique and universal, powerful and sensitive. (van Manen, 1990: 39) The co-creation of meaning, according to practitioners using linguistic phenomenology, occurs therefore not only between the self and the object, or between one person and another, but also between the parts of a text that are included and the parts that are not. ‘Meaning is created in the back-and-forth movement, the dialectic, between self and object or self and other’ (Becker, 1992: 19). For a linguistic phenomenologist to interpret the meanings of a phenomenon, there is therefore a constant need to question the way the phenomenon under discussion is described. In what context was the text constructed? What were the assumptions the author held when the text was produced in this specific way? These are questions that need to be analysed. The linguistic approach, like the hermeneutic approach, was not satisfied with the object-centred epistemologies of transcendentalism nor with the purely ontological accounts produced in existential phenomenology; instead, it goes one step further than hermeneutics, by questioning the very notion that an original meaning existed in the mind of the author at all.

The visit at the Big Banana Visitors who have chosen to park their cars in order to experience the Big Banana, rather than stopping only briefly for a picture to be taken, can choose between walking around the main building from the car parking area or through the building, and its gift shop and cafeteria, for a picture opportunity with the Big Banana itself. Additional attractions on the same site include a candy factory, an indoor ski slope with year-round snow skiing, an ice-skating rink, a summer toboggan ride (on wheels), a now dysfunctional ‘flying fox’ and a train ride through a banana plantation with statues of

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workers, old machines, and a taped narrative about the history and biological features of banana growing in the area. Bizarre highlights of the train ride are, for example, a monster that appears from an artificial lake when the train passes by, a former ‘space station’ that the train drives through, and a stop at a greenhouse where the logistics of growing, packing, shipping and storing bananas and hydroponic vegetables are described. Before setting out towards the attraction, I decided to bracket out all other meanings of Big Things that I had come across on my journeys. I also made an initial mental note of the fact that I was visiting the attraction in the good company of people emotionally close to me, but still determined not to neglect the interpretive task the experience would offer me for this case study. I also decided to write notes about the phenomenon as soon as possible after the visit. This text was thus written over a longer timeframe, the original experience having been captured in words initially, but the analysis of the events having unfolded in the following years. After turning off the highway and passing the Big Banana I turned up to an elevated plateau behind the site, following the signs to the parking area. It was a winter day, therefore low season in Coffs Harbour, and in the middle of the week. Despite this there were still some 10 to 20 cars in the parking area. Judging by the size of the carpark, however, it was clearly intended to accommodate a much larger number of visitors. It was a glorious day, with bright blue sky and a mild winter sun. The temperature was approximately 20°C. It was an ideal day to play tourist, and at the same time host, in my new hometown. The carpark felt dusty and somehow neglected in its small ratio of parked cars to available sites. The separate attractions that form the Big Banana site are spread out over a rather large area and signage is not totally clear in terms of a logical route to follow between the attractions. I looked around as I stepped out of the car and tried to see what would be a logical first stop. We decided to go initially to the main building, where we could see a map of the area on a wall. A map always represents a mental construct of a physical space and functions as an anxiety eraser, in that it gives visitors an idea of how to comprehend the space they are in. While the intention with maps is to transfer a complex reality into a simplified abstract picture that represents the reality well (Del Casino & Hanna, 2000: 24), many analysts critically examine the rationale for certain details to be included or excluded from maps and claim that unintended biases on behalf of the cartographers can be found in this way (Collins-Kreiner, 2005: 259). This issue is highlighted by the fact that tourists who are not familiar with an area come to depend on the representation provided in the map, and might thus be led past sites

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Figure 18  The sign for the Big Banana. Source: By author, 2004. The site has since been redeveloped and the sign, which has been removed, no longer represents the site

that would undermine the image that the cartographer or management who ordered the map wished to present (Neumann, 1988: 24). When walking from the carpark towards the map, we passed through a colourful gate with a text welcoming us to the Big Banana. The texts underneath the welcoming message (Figure 18) can be described as three different entities: two slogans and one list of all the attractions apparently available. The first slogan told me that I was entering ‘A Family Place – Something for Everyone’; the second slogan, written on the right-hand side of the first, told me that the Big Banana was ‘The 1st of Australia’s BIGS!’, and in smaller text ‘Operating since 1964’. The pictures on the gate were an interesting mixture between tropical colours made up of leaves and flowers, and round pictures that had apparently been attached later, showing snowboarders, ice-skaters and toboggan riders. The passage through the bright gate with its messages functioned as a reconfirmation for me as a host that I had made a correct decision in bringing my guests here, and eased the cognitive dissonance – the post-purchase doubt,

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which is supposed to be a part of any purchase process (Kotler et al., 2003: 223). The gate acted in the same way as the first sheet of most instruction manuals, which congratulates the consumer on making a good decision, before leading the consumer into the usage of the item. These congratulations are based on the concept that all consumers doubt the correctness of their purchase and need reconfirmation at an early stage in order to feel satisfied with the item chosen (O’Neill & Palmer, 2004: 434). The gate to this attraction carried the dual promise of providing something that would entertain all of us, at the same time as it ensured us that it was the original attraction that other ‘Big’ attractions were merely copies of, and thus this attraction was more ‘authentic and fulfilling’ than they could be. The map showed us that a train – which departed twice an hour from inside the building in which the map was located – would take us around most of the site and give us a good overview of the attraction as a whole. We therefore decided to catch the next train and determined that, based on the ride, we would decide what to experience next. The existential dimension that most vividly formed the meaning of this stage of the experience was spatiality. I felt nervous at leading my friends to a place that I did not know already, as the site beyond the Big Banana was new to me, but the relatively good signage, the messages on the gate and the map on the wall each helped to construct a mental space (Garner, 1994: 3–4) that reassured me in my role as a host. Similar to other occasions when I visit places for the first time, my inter-subjective experience was initially very abstract: I can forget about my own bodily needs; I can unintentionally close out the conversations of the group I am travelling with; and I can lose track of time as long as I am trying to construct a mental picture, a private Lebenswelt (Garner, 1994: 46) of the space I am in. However, the very moment that I have formed a perception of the spatial layout of the place I hardly think of the space, but can rather focus on the other existential aspects of the experience.

Phenomenology in Tourism and Leisure Studies Phenomenology has been used extensively in, for example, medicine and education (van Manen, 1990; Willis, 2001) and in architecture and human geography (Seamon, 2002), but has hardly been used in tourism studies at all until recently. This is somewhat surprising, given the discipline’s closeness to other humanities studies and its dependence on individual experiences (Andriotis, 2009; Pernecky, 2010, 2012; Pernecky & Jamal, 2010; Santos & Yan, 2010). One of the first mentions together of the words ‘phenomenology’

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and ‘tourism’ was in Erik Cohen’s 1979 article ‘A phenomenology of tourist experiences’(an article that had a wider influence on tourism studies). His text was written, as he himself explains in the introduction to a book where the article is reprinted, from quite an essentialist perspective (Cohen, 2004). The first sentence of the article asks, for example: ‘What is the nature of the tourist experience?’ (Cohen, 2004: 65, emphasis added). This assumes, in a transcendental way, that there is a nature that it is possible to somehow uncover and the way Cohen sets out to do this is by locating ‘centres’ that tourists are assumed to aim to reach. Even though Cohen refers, in passing, to Schütz (1941) and his phenomenological terminology, and purposely sets out to discover the meanings of experiences, it is never explicit in the study how the different typologies, which are proposed and described, have been developed in a (philosophical) phenomenological sense. It could even be said that the study, by its unspecified use of the terminology, is misrepresenting phenomenology as a methodology by implying that theoretically un­specified, basically common-sense, descriptions of tourist modes can be referred to as ‘a phenomenological typology of tourist experiences’ (Cohen, 2004: 69). Furthermore, the fact that the five typologies proposed became highly successful and often quoted by other researchers is not an excuse for the original work’s relatively weak theoretical basis. It is, on the contrary, this all-encompassing usage of the word ‘phenomenology’ that is one of the greatest threats to the methodology’s wider acceptance. As Moran notes: the nature of phenomenology has been exacerbated by the application of the term to any vaguely descriptive kind of philosophising, or even to justify proceeding on the basis of hunches and wild surmise. For example, the term ‘phenomenology’ is also increasingly often en­countered in analytic philosophy to mark off any zone or aspect of experience which cannot be fully articulated. (Moran, 2000: 14) Tourism as an academic subject was not as common and widely discussed for its factual content in 1979, when Cohen’s article was originally published, as it is today, and the careless usage of the philosophical terminology might therefore be excused. However, it is unfortunate that the article is now reprinted as a book chapter and therefore made available to students and practitioners without any further specification or contextualisation to ground it in current understandings of phenomenology. The only concession Cohen makes is in his introductory note: ‘The article … makes primarily a priori claims, whereas it is weak on ethnographic evidence. Its strength thus hinges on the correctness of MacCannell’s

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original argument, which remains a contested matter to this day’ (Cohen, 2004: 10). Studies that build on this article without further insight into phenomenology are still published. Consider for example the following passage: ‘Cohen’s phenomenological typology of tourist experiences (1979) and his distinction between institutionalized and non-institutionalized tourists (1972) are among the most recognized theoretical constructs in the academic literature dealing with typologies’ (Uriely et al., 2002: 522). One researcher who has written several articles analysing and develop­ ing Cohen’s original paper is Lengkeek (2000, 2001). In making these developments he was apparently unaware of the fact that Cohen had suggested more or less exactly what types of studies should be conducted (Dann & Cohen, 1991). The way Lengkeek develops the original idea is by acknowledging that Cohen’s original tourist typologies are well known by their given names: recreational; diversionary; experiential; experimental; and exist­ential. But the phenomenological attributes that these typologies signify are not as well known. He therefore first deconstructs Cohen’s typologies by investigating what the different tourist ‘types’ proposed by Cohen are supposed to regard as the meanings of their experiences. Following on from that, Lengkeek develops the phenomenological approach further by firstly referring to Schütz’s notion of how individuals’ experiences of everyday events are built up around a set of parameters, such as the social world, time–space continuums, as well as bodily senses. He collectively refers to these parameters as the experience of ‘out-there-ness’ (Lengkeek, 2000: 12–13). He secondly refers to Bergson’s ‘tension of consciousness’ – namely the different time tenses that individuals experience: ‘the moment (the experience of here and now), the retrospective (memory and reflection), the prospective (anticipation), and the projective (intention)’ (Lengkeek, 2000: 13). Finally, he ‘reassembles’ the typologies by reminding the reader that the two aspects he especially pointed out are missing from the original work. Tensions of consciousness and out-there-ness always have to be consciously acknowledged when the phenomena are bracketed. He also suggests an alter­ native set of ‘modes of experience’ to replace Cohen’s typologies, namely: amusement, change, interest, rapture and dedication (Lengkeek, 2000: 16). The studies by Lengkeek (2000, 2001) to some extent build on the suggestions of Dann and Cohen, although it is not clear if the different authors are aware of one another’s work. As Lengkeek never refers to the Dann and Cohen’s article (1991) and Cohen does not refer to Lengkeek in his recent re-evaluation of his typology article (Cohen, 2004), it can be assumed that they were not aware of each other’s work. I have to date not found any other appropriations of his theoretical suggestions from the tourism studies literature, but references to his work are still often found.

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Conclusion As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the experiences at the two TAs will be described in separate chapters, not intermingled with one another, nor with phenomenological theory as in the previous part of the book. The reason for this decision was that the experiential dimension is not as easy to analyse in sections like their narrative features were. The ex­ periences are ongoing events that I analyse throughout for what they mean. I combine instead the experiences with theories highlighting the importance of performance and memory in the construction of the TAs as an analytical construction of the meaning attached by me to the attractions.

8 Performing TAs

I will in this second constructive chapter show that authenticity, as advertised and imagined in tourism, is often lacking because it is too often object bound, while theoretical subjectifications of authenticity leave management without a valid path forward. I concentrate in this chapter on the ex­periences I had at the Thunderbolt attractions. By building on performance theory, this section shows how and why tourists are satisfied at attractions, based on their own performance. I said in Chapter 2, ‘Managing TAs’, that ‘authenticity’ – as a convenient descriptor for ‘original’ cultures, objects or traditions – is too simplistic to be useful, and that I therefore do not consider it to be one of the attributes caught up in the TA management paradox. Authenticity is in many regards something that is personally experienced – tourists perform the act of being tourists. I present the growing literature on tourist performance and show the value of using terminology borrowed from performance studies when assessing tourist experiences. I present a theatre play called Tamara and show how it can act as a metaphor for how tourists experience attractions in highly personal ways. I also suggest that tourists suspend their disbelief when they participate in tourist experiences and through this suspension accept, or reject, their experiences as authentic or inauthentic phenomena.

Tourist Identities – Authentic Performances? The ongoing debate over whether tourism can ever be regarded as an authentic practice, or if it should be viewed as something inauthentic, can be traced back to texts from the early 1960s and mid-1970s written by Daniel Boorstin (1961) and MacCannell (1976). Suvantola (1999) dismisses, somewhat impatiently, both Boorstin’s and MacCannell’s views about 185

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authenticity as unfruitful and sees, as a step forward, the fact that many researchers have discarded those views, and that more research concentrates on the experience as an entity in itself. This is in line with Ning Wang’s article (1999) that reviews tourism literature concerning authenticity, starting with MacCannell. The article clarifies that authenticity has been regarded as too simplistic a concept and goes on to divide authenticity into inter-personal and intra-personal spheres. Knudsen and Waade (2010a) build on Wang’s work by further introducing ‘performed authenticity’, discussed further below. Wang clarified that both Boorstin and MacCannell were too focused on authenticity as an object-related concept. He suggested instead that experiences can be viewed as authentic, from an intra-personal perspective, even though the context they take place in – such as Disney World – may be deemed inauthentic. He introduces the concept existential authenticity (Wang, 1999: 349) to explain this phenomenon.

Existential authenticity or object-bound authenticity Criticism similar to Wang’s can be found in research by Natan Uriely, where he compares modern and postmodern tourism (Uriely, 1997: 982). He refers to Boorstin and MacCannell and their followers as being modernist tourism scholars who are ‘non-compromising and authoritative’ in their attitude. Uriely continues by outlining features of postmodern tourism research as being divided into two separate streams: ‘simulational’ and ‘other ’ directed. The first stream builds on Boorstin’s notion of so-called ‘pseudo-events’, and the ‘other ’ stream follows MacCannell’s search for authenticity. Uriely (1997: 983), however, posits that postmodern tourism scholars incorporate both viewpoints, allowing for a more open reading of experiences. Kjell Olsen (2002) individually, and Mehmet Mehmetoglu and Olsen (2003) together, have extended the discussion of authenticity to a further level. While essentially agreeing with Wang’s critical view of the general ‘object-boundness’ adhered to by tourism researchers following Mac­Cannell, Olsen further states that the ‘problematic dichotomy between the tourist role and the experience of authenticity must be investigated at the level of ontology and not of epistemology…. Authenticity must not be regarded as a concept that describes an inherent feature of objects or relations, but as an important value in Western thought’ (Olsen, 2002: 161). Authenticity refers to issues such as referentiality and authentification, in both cases relating to the power or authority that somebody has to classify certain things as real and others as fake, some as authentic and some as inauthentic (Fees, 1996).

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The way Mehmetoglu and Olsen overcome these problems is by concentrating on the being of authenticity. In other words, this means researching what it is that makes tourists feel that they have had an authentic experience. They outline that one of the major obstacles to the feeling of authenticity is the being, ascribed to the role of the tourist as a spectator. They claim that the incorporation of tourists into performances that make up the experience forces the tourists out of the role of being only spectators and into a role of participation, thus out of the regular tourist role and instead enabling participants to take part in authenticity (Mehmetoglu & Olsen, 2003: 139). Mehmetoglu and Olsen assert that the inter-personal relationship between visitors and hosts, which Wang referred to as existential authenticity, takes place within what is in Western thought ascribed to the tourist spectator role and thus in an inauthentic state. They state that spectators cannot be part of authentic experiences as they, through their spectatorship, are separated from the act performed. However, if the visitor/spectator and host/actor both recognise that they participate in a performance, where they willingly can suspend their disbelief of the tourist setting, it is then possible to achieve an authentic experience (further analysis is given to this topic at the end of this chapter). I do not fully agree with the criticism of Wang’s concept of existential authenticity. I claim that a similar suspension of disbelief can take place also in situations where the tourist remains in the role of being a spectator. This is explained by viewing people not in dualist terms as subjects separated from their surrounding objects, but in phenomenological terms as conscious beings, feeling and relating to the atmosphere of their surroundings (Halgreen, 2004). On an individual basis, people attending, say, the same cinema or live theatre performances always have essentially different experiences. The way different people suspend their disbelief when attending a performance, allowing themselves to be consciously aware of being a spectator or alternatively ‘living into the performance narrative’ and forgetting about their social context, does not depend on the ontology of theatre, but on personality and social occasion. Kevin Meethan claims that this is one of the paradoxes in tourism: travellers do not seem to be able to suspend their disbelief in a tourist setting as easily as they do when confronted with the fantasy of a book or a film (Meethan, 2001: 112).

Performative authenticity Knudsen and Waade (2010b) have edited a book called Re-investing Authenticity: Tourism, Place and Emotion in which they bring new dimensions to how authenticity in tourism can be applied and understood. The chapters

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to different degrees build on narrativity, phenomenology and performance studies, and therefore are complementary to the way I have described how TAs can be studied. While some chapters are mostly analytical, others analyse destinations or TAs and show why authenticity is still a relevant concept for tourism researchers and for managers when presenting their TAs to tourists. One of the main points the authors make is that object-bound authenticity is too essentialist and existential authenticity is too relativist. Indeed, elsewhere they postulate: performative authenticity not only signifies that we do and perform places by our actions and behaviours, but that places are something we authenticate through our emotional/affective/sensuous relatedness to them…. Performative authenticity is dependent on proximity and in between-ness. In that sense, its relational quality appears to be highly phenomenological. (Knudsen & Waade, 2010: 12–13) The discussion about authenticity in cultural studies has lost much of its former potency. Barker, for example, relates the concept to essentialism and the assumption therein that objects, identities and cultures have stable referents – something postmodern theory clearly rejects (Barker, 2000: 21). Edensor equally suggests that authenticity ‘ought to be conceived as dynamic and emergent … a negotiable quality open to subjective interpretation’ (Edensor, 1998: 3), rather than being reified into an object. An exciting alternative dimension is presented by Nyíri, who examines tourist practices in China and concludes that authenticity has never been a concept of importance for most Chinese people but is solely connected to Western thought (Nyíri, 2006). My own position is that a place is always a construct, and thus never ‘pure’, but the experience of that place can be ‘performed authentic’. One way of facilitating the necessary suspension of disbelief is by incorporating the tourist into the performance of the TA narrative.

Uralla Visitor Information Centre – Thunderbolt I stopped at the town’s Visitor Information Centre (VIC) after my visit to Thunderbolt’s grave. I enquired about what there was to see and experience of Thunderbolt in the region. My initial intention to go only to the VIC and collect information without being in contact with the staff was instantly nullified. I thought that direct contact with other people and their opinions would bias my experience, but I realised very quickly that it is impossible not to be in contact with others. Tourist experiences are by

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default embodied phenomena that take place in a socially shared environment (Dann & Cohen, 1991: 165). The training so ingrained in me to act as a ‘distanced’ researcher without a personal connection with the research process (Ateljevic et al., 2005: 6) flared up for a moment, before I remembered that I was trying to describe in vivid terms my actual experience. It was still relatively early in the morning and I realised that I was the only visitor in the VIC when I walked in. The only staff member I saw in the centre was restocking shelves with brochures and other paper material and greeted me with a smile when I entered the room. He also asked if he could be of any assistance. After a moment of uncertainty about how to react to the unexpectedly direct question, I decided to accept the inter­ active component of the experience in my account. I explained that I was interested in Thunderbolt. I was in turn asked why, and was questioned as to what I knew about the bushranger from before. I told him that I was interested in bushrangers as attractions and said that I thought I knew the main points of the story about Thunderbolt – in particular, how he had been a horse thief who had been a very good rider, a courteous person and that he had met his end near Uralla. The staff member asked if I would mind getting an alternative version of the narrative, a small booklet called a ‘family account’ of the story. I was happy to collect all alternative texts that could help me to under­ stand the phenomenon in a more holistic manner and took the booklet (Goode & Sinclair, 2004) with approximately 10 other publications relating to the Uralla area or to Thunderbolt directly that were available free of charge from the VIC. The courteous manner of the staff member and the instant interest in establishing a closer contact by asking what I knew about the attraction, before giving any further information, was a reminder of how important front-line staff are in creating tourism experiences, as they, according to Tom Baum, ‘make or break the experience’ (Baum, 1997: 92). That the texts given to me later turned out to have much of the same content was not of particular significance. It was the interaction that created the positive atmosphere for the story to be told and my own interest was naturally also a trigger for the staff member to present the text in the way he did (Trapp-Fallon, 2002: 301). Reminded of Donald Macleod’s sober interpretation that ‘History, after all, is a human interpretation and construction of experience subject to bias: there is no purely neutral, omniscient human narrator’ (Macleod, 2004: 18), I gladly accepted the staff member’s invitation to hear an alternative story. While collecting the different texts for me from the shelves in the VIC, he outlined in broad terms the alternative version, saying that it was not Fredrick Ward who lay in the grave that I had visited earlier that morning,

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but possibly Fredrick’s brother, William ‘Harry’ Ward. The brothers were, according to him, both acting as bushrangers and both were calling themselves Captain Thunderbolt. It was claimed that this was how ‘Thunderbolt’ was able to commit crimes that were geographically far apart in a short period of time. Indeed, it was not the fast horses he used that were assumed to be the reason in official accounts. Another reason for Thunderbolt not getting caught was that the bushranger had married an Aboriginal woman and that she, and her people, had taught Thunderbolt how to stay hidden in the Australian bush. The alternative version also suggested that the loot from six and a half years of bushranging was estimated to have been approximately £20,000 – or almost A$1 million in current value – and had never been found. Additionally, some of Fredrick Ward’s closest relatives disappeared from public records at the time of the assumed death of Thunderbolt. These three additional aspects of the story presented were all aimed at questioning the narrative as it is normally told and they offered a good way of increasing the attractiveness of the original story. By firstly introducing the brother into the story and suggesting that he was killed in Uralla, the listener was given an opportunity to question who really had been buried. The suggestion that both may have acted as bushrangers at different places, and thus given ‘Thunderbolt’ the reputation of moving fast, acted in this context as a ‘truth marker’ (Dann, 1996: 10) of the statement that the brother may have been involved. The second dimension – building on the Aboriginal wife, her family and their superior knowledge of the land as evidence for Thunderbolt’s ability to escape into the bush – could be related to non-Aboriginal Australians’ connection between the country’s Indigenous population and nature in general. Elizabeth Edwards states: ‘notions of purity of culture and purity of nature are closely connected…. These preoccupations are couched in a series of binary oppositions … civilized/uncivilized, tame/savage, unnatural/ natural, urban/rural, white/black’ (Edwards, 1996: 202). So to suggest that Thunderbolt had access to this knowledge again acts as a validation of the alternative account. As previously mentioned, exactly the same dualist division can also be found on Uralla’s website (http://www.uralla.com), where the Indigenous history of Uralla is connected to natural attractions while non-Aboriginal history is counted as culture. However, the Indigenous account could also be seen as a counterhegemonic story (Chambers, 2005: 250) where the non-Aboriginal colonisers and officers of the law are outsmarted by Indigenous people. That would resemble the Indigenous stories about Thunderbolt at Bluff Rock, some hundred kilometres north of Uralla, recounted to Schlunke in

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her investigation of a massacre of Aboriginal people that was supposed to have occurred at a certain place (Schlunke, 2005: 96). However, as Donna Chambers reminds us, all counter-hegemonic stories serve two purposes: firstly, they question the dominant story and might over time lead to an alteration of the hegemonic story; but, secondly, they also form boundaries to the dominant story and therefore establish the hegemonic account as the primary one, as they highlight the dominant story through the contrast achieved (Chambers, 2005: 250). The final issue, involving the value of the items stolen, even translated into present-day value to underscore their worth, acts as a trigger for fantasies about lost treasures. The courteous bushranger who was famous for stealing horses is, through this account, transformed into the stereo­ typical storybook pirate with caches of fortunes hidden for some better future. The language used to create the experience of this story in its simplicity contained several classical narrative ‘hooks’ (Kohler-Riessman, 1993) meant to excite and capture the audience’s attention. The linguistic experience was built on a story that was recognisable from other accounts, but simultaneously added to the basic story by building in several dimensions that enhanced the flow and outcome of the legend. Other travellers came to the office while I was there and instead of walking around the small VIC we all gathered around the information desk, listening to the story. The other travellers, who apparently also knew parts of the Thunderbolt story, asked questions about possible hiding places of the loot. The VIC staff member assured us that ‘Every possible square metre between Armidale and almost down to Sydney’ had been dug up in search for the gold and silver that the bushranger’s loot was supposed to contain. The atmosphere in the relatively ascetic centre turned intimate and familiar. The staff member was clearly a good storyteller and I felt like I had been told an exciting secret that I now could experience in more detail by visiting the other sites connected to the story. When I left the office I realised that part of why Thunderbolt was still so popular might have resided in the alternative story that I had just heard. Popular texts, such as motion pictures and novels, often depict criminals as the heroes of their narratives, and no story is more popular than those where the hero in the end comes out as the ‘winner’, outsmarting the law officers and living happily ever after (Berger, 1997: 152). This is especially the case if the hero of the narrative is depicted as a fair and pleasant individual, while representatives of the law are depicted as oppressive and unfair. It is part of the ‘underdog outsmarting the powerful’ genre, which can be found in all types of storytelling traditions, starting from the Bible and continuing through to fairy tales and present-day stories (Bal, 1997: 147).

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That Thunderbolt had kept away from the law enforcers for six and a half years after his escape from prison was already noteworthy. Few bushrangers’ careers lasted longer than a few months (Boxall, 1974 [1899]: 3). That he had been courteous and non-violent has equally led to a reputation reminiscent of an Australian Robin Hood. The essence of the VIC, as part of Thunderbolt the TA was, however, not so much the availability of any new information offered but rather the relational space it provided. The inter­ action among visitors, and equally between the visitors and the information personnel, formed a new dimension to a story that so far had felt one dimensional. Charlotte Joy, reflecting on the experiences she had in Mali, made a similar discovery: ‘The indigenous guide can also share information about a place in a conspiratorial way with the tourists and become the embodiment of the annotated comments about a destination’ (Joy, 2010: 58). The information could of course have been provided in written form, but the interaction between the people present made the narrative appear as a shared secret, something to guard and keep safe, while the official account was open and public.

Tourism Performance Several of Edensor’s studies of tourists depict them as performers, in other words, individuals consciously and unconsciously playing the role of being tourists (Edensor, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2004b). Edensor examined in his most in-depth analysis of tourism practice, Tourists at the Taj, how a range of roles were performed by domestic and international tourists, pilgrims, state functionaries and people employed in tourism industries at the Taj Mahal (Edensor, 1998). His analysis shows that people behave and make sense of their experiences at TAs as they do because they are both consciously and unconsciously ‘performing’ in a certain way, with the aim of functioning efficiently in the chosen context and simultaneously to ‘narrate’ a chosen identity. Edensor analysed tourists through the metaphor of actors enacting ‘a range of performances on distinct stages’ (Edensor, 2000: 322). He built, just like MacCannell before him, on the sociological theory of life as performance that Erving Goffman (1959) introduced. Edensor, however, disagreed with MacCannell, as he did not accept tourists were simply an audience to enactments, but rather incorporated the tourists into the diverse performances. He claimed that tourists, like the destination hosts, act in separate roles built on their separate underlying cultural codes (Edensor, 1998). As in theatre, no two performances are exactly the same, but set policies, guidelines and

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assumptions function as cues that all actors taking part in the performance try, unconsciously, to follow. This follows the same approach that Stephen Doorne and Irena Ateljevic took when analysing young backpackers’ performance in Fiji (Doorne & Ateljevic, 2005). Edensor introduced three features of tourist performances that form the acts the tourists perform. Firstly, they have temporal and spatial dimensions – in other words, where and when the performances take place. He states: ‘[w]hile representational practices (by tourism employees, guidebooks, films and TV travel programs) (re)construct symbolic sites, they tend to be fluid entities whose meanings and usage change over time and are apt to be contested by different tourist groups’ (Edensor, 2000: 325). Secondly, he discusses social and spatial regulation – in other words, how tourists are directed to follow specified paths and to gaze at attractions from specific places. Thirdly, there is touristic performance – which carries the suggestion that tourists are performing the role of being tourists – at times self-monitoring so that their role performance is in accordance with learned scripts (Edensor, 2000: 325–326). While Edensor expanded his study based mainly on the third dimension – touristic performance – I will consider the first dimension, the temporal and spatial dimensions of attractions.

The statue Next to the VIC stands a statue of Thunderbolt on his horse, easily visible from the highway, as earlier noted. It is next to a bridge over a creek. No high buildings shadow it. Two main roads cross next to it and a small fence separates it from the footpath. The spatial experience is different if the statue is seen from a car window, in which case the statue appears quite small, or if seen on foot, in which case it appears bigger. When I walked out of the VIC I noticed that the temperature had started to rise. The morning chill was almost gone and the sun was warming the air. A slight breeze was blowing pleasantly as I walked the approximately 50 metres to the Thunderbolt statue that occupied its prominent spot in the middle of the town. As I approached the statue I saw that it was approximately lifesize, but as it was standing on a low pedestal it was raised above most viewers’ eye line and the feeling I had was almost of awe. I had seen the same statue a year and a half earlier and then I assumed that it portrayed a hero. I had later found out that it depicted a criminal, and my curiosity was raised due to that strange contradiction. Now when I was looking at the statue I realised that Thunderbolt, the historical figure, had been raised to the position of folk hero. The horse looked powerful and ready to take off, at the lightest touch from the rider. Thunderbolt looked

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Figure 19  Thunderbolt statue. Source: By author

down from the back of the horse as if talking to somebody on the ground. His expression was tense but he looked calm and in control. The impression the artist wanted to depict is definitely not one of a pathetic outlaw, but rather one of competence, strength and trust. The experience was yet again corporeal. Although it clearly is a statue, it brings the story of the bandit dynamically closer to the visitor than does the grave in which Thunderbolt so much more physically resides today, at least according to official accounts. Two plaques next to the statue told me about Thunderbolt’s history and connection to Uralla and that the statue had been financed by the New South Wales government as part of a bicentennial project. The second plaque explained who the sculptor was and the fact that a local Member of the Parliament had unveiled the statue in 1988, the

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year of Australia’s celebration of the bicentenary of white settlement. The symbolism of memorials is important. Emily Potter, for example, has found that one of the problems inherently attached to statues and memorials is that they ‘are presented as cohesive models of socially being and belonging, authorised by a particular ideology of common experience’ (Potter, 2002: 1). Rather than being empowering and inclusive for society, they try to construct an unchallenged and fixed version of the past in which alternative voices are silenced (Osborne, 1998: 433). The symbolism of the local MP having unveiled a heroic statue of a nonAboriginal criminal, in a small town that carries an Indigenous name, as a part of the bicentenary celebration of non-Aboriginal invasion of the land, is poignant. The statue is supposed to be a memorial that the residents of the area can feel some connection to – a joint history that unites the residents. However, the ‘First Fleet’ arrived in 1788 to set up a penal colony, not to establish a new nation (Osuri & Banerjee, 2003: 138). So to celebrate that with a statue of an Australian-born criminal might be seen as quite suitable. It is beyond doubt a sign of the ‘culture’ that non-Aboriginal invasion brought to the country. Leading up to the Mabo ruling and the overturning of the terra nullius doctrine in 1992 (Webb, 2005), the bicentenary celebrations in 1988 were among the first large national anniversaries where ‘the superiority of whites over blacks was no longer “natural”’ (Horne, 1989: 32) and could, therefore, not be acted out. As such, the erection of the statue can be regarded as ‘an expression of a growing loss of identity in a rapidly changing world’ that ‘reflected an anxiety about unregulated remembering’ (Osborne, 1998: 434). The ‘regulated’ remembering that a statue allows for might be an indication of the non-Indigenous population’s fear of falling (Harrill, 2003), discussed in Chapter 6, ‘Forging TAs’, from the privileged position it has constructed for itself. Morris pointed out that ‘a society that has, like modern Australia, produced its own identity historically by dispossessing and excluding others [found] itself subject in terms to fearsome fantasies of displacement’ (Morris, 1995: 184) by 1988. Thunderbolt represented in those times a ‘safe’ history. He represented the bush legend, which nostalgically was seen as the founding of the modern Australian nation (Rowe, 1993: 256). Close to Thunderbolt’s statue, in Prince Reserve – a small park bordering the creek – was a small commemoration of Constable Walker (no life-size statue of him). I walked over to Prince Reserve in order to see whether the inscription on a plaque and a larger tablet mounted on a low stone would add anything to the Thunderbolt experience. To my surprise, the tablet was headed ‘Thunderbolt Centenary’; the plaque was simply memorialising the centenary of Thunderbolt’s death in Uralla. The tablet showed a branch

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of a tree, potentially an olive branch, and next to that a profile picture of a handsome bearded man’s head and the text ‘1870–1970 – Alexander Binning Walker’. Even smaller text underneath, which I had to bend down to read, informed me that the plaque commemorated ‘the bravery of Constable A.B. Walker’ and that it was unveiled by police commissioner Allan in 1970. In complete reversal of the importance that had been evident in the Thunderbolt statue, where the criminal played the heroic role, and the policeman only got a mention in a secondary sentence, this memorial clearly portrayed the law officer as the hero. This might lead one to think that the monument erected in 1988 suggests that bushrangers – outlaws – are more highly valued than the law enforcer, the crown servant, the representative of England, in modern-day Australia. A dualistic comparison could then claim that the bandit is the ‘better’ representative for the ‘cohesive model of social belonging’ to Australia in this story. That the statue of Thunderbolt was erected in the bicentenary year and unveiled by the local MP seems to pair bushrangers with present-day Australians in modern folklore (Horne, 1989: 28). The essence of the statue as a part of the attraction was therefore its message to the visitor to see the person it is depicting in a larger context, not only as a local bandit but also as an Australian ‘pioneer’. It is also possible to read the erection of the statue as a part of the same historical time that gave rise to the right-wing One Nation Party, which ‘was shaped by paranoid heritage myths and relied heavily on a singular and exclusionary notion of national heritage’ (Healy, 2001: 280).

Tamara and Suspension of Disbelief In order to further clarify how I will use the metaphor of enactment in TAs, I now introduce a play called Tamara (Boje, 1995). The beauty of this play is its multi-dimensionality, which resembles the reality of tourist ex­periences more than ‘regular’ theatre, where an audience sits and watches a play on a stage. In Tamara the audience is forced to follow actors around a built environment and continuously choose which way they want to go when two actors, after a dialogue, split up and continue in separate directions. Audience members need to attend the play several times (which was made possible where it was played in Los Angeles, as the attendees got multiple entry passes) in order to grasp a majority of the dimensions presented. The play is, however, equally enjoyable from just one visit, as friends can follow different characters around and experience totally different stories. I claim that TAs can be viewed through the metaphor of Tamara. The scenes are outlined but not rigidly set. They mean different things to the

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tourists/spectators and hosts/actors, depending on the context they come from. The spectators have the freedom to follow a specific story line and actor throughout the play, or can follow different actors at different times. Just like tourists visiting attractions for the first time, or those who return to them repeatedly, members of a Tamara audience can have favourite episodes that they want to experience more than once and potentially even learn alternative dimensions of those episodes. Another concept, commonly used in cinema, theatre and media studies, that I make use of is ‘suspension of disbelief ’ (Berger, 1997: 144). Suspension of disbelief reflects the willingness of a theatre audience, for example, when enjoying a play, to suppress their conscious awareness of watching actors acting out a play. In a tourism setting, a basic narrative is known, the stage is defined – but is fluid in character, as it might mean different things to different visitors – and the story is acted out around and by the tourist(s), in a virtual play. Some attractions supply the visitors with more cues for them to imagine the narrative, while others provide fewer. At some attractions there are no ‘actors’ in the form of staff members or guides to explain the significance of the site but instead signs, or maybe even guidebooks brought in from outside the attraction. At other attractions, there may be no markers at all indicating to tourists why the site is an attraction. Visitors know only that a site is regarded as a place worth visiting. The only way that tourists can ‘step away’ from the awareness that they are actors and spectators of a tourist act is by willingly suspending their disbelief. Some attractions have lots of markers that signify them as sites that tourists want to visit. Disney Corporation’s theme parks are often-mentioned examples of attractions that have strictly set roles, paths, borders both for visitors and for employees, containing planned experiences that leave little to the visitors’ fantasies (Boje, 1995; Eco, 1987; Hollinshead, 1998; Judd & Fainstein, 1999; Ritzer & Liska, 1997; Rojek & Urry, 1997). Theme parks and other overtly managed TAs ‘free’ the visitors to some extent from the ‘job’ of living out fantasies – everything surrounding them is there to reinforce the theme. Anne-Britt Gran puts forward a dimension of the suspension of disbelief which can explain the theme park example through performance theory. This is done by suggesting that tourist sites can have a ‘hidden theatricality’ or a ‘shown theatricality’ (Gran, 2010: 24). What she refers to is the way theatrical plays can either overtly set up a scene that viewers can recognise as a room, a landscape or similar and thus ‘hide’ the theatricality, or alternatively change scene simply by letting one of the actors, or a stagehand, show a sign stating ‘outdoors’, to ‘show’ the scene’s theatricality. It is, naturally, possible also to experience theme parks in a way that was not initially planned for, owing to factors outside the reach of the

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attraction’s management. Karen Klugman presents a case where she and her family were having an awful time at Disney’s Magic Kingdom; she decided to do an ‘alternative ride’, by ‘constructing visual drama that mocks the vision that is prescribed and stereotyped’ (Klugman, 1995: 164), essentially refusing the hidden theatricality. The way she did this was to concentrate on viewing the surrounding scenes, but not as they were meant to be viewed, in terms of the jovial and hegemonic writing of reality according to Disney, but rather in a deconstructive manner, critically assessing the rationale for how the scenes were constructed. Most visitors to theme parks do not take an ‘alternative ride’. They consume entertainment, and are entertained by their own consumerism to the extent that issues such as pollution, gun control, homelessness, racial issues and social difference – issues that Klugman found on her ride – never enter into the equation.

The rock I drove from the statue five kilometres south to Thunderbolt’s rock, which is the boulder I had passed by on my previous visit. I came this time from the north, and had therefore not passed it on my way into town. I could see that it was still covered in graffiti, just as I remembered (Figure 20). After parking the car and walking towards the rock I realised that, in reality, it consists of several large boulders resting on and next to one another. The boulders are on a small mound seven or eight metres off the New England Highway, dominating the landscape. The rest area has no amenities except for a rusty, graffiti-covered barrel that acts as a waste container, and a wooden table with benches. The air was chilled by the breeze and I was not tempted to sit down at the picnic table. The mound on which the boulders are situated is covered in grass. The grass is short on the side where visitors enter, but long and unkempt behind. The most impressive feature of the boulders is not their size but the graffiti; it covers virtually all areas of the rocks that are easily reachable and flat enough to function as a ‘canvas’. Some of the graffiti dates back to the 1970s according to the years painted, but the majority are from 2000 and later. I did not find any graffiti that referred to Thunderbolt, but one that, in an ironic way, said ‘Souvenirs KODAK film at the gift store’. The graffiti on Thunderbolt’s rock did not follow any ‘graffiti etiquette’ – there were layers painted over what was there before (Goldstein, 2000). A faint ‘Jesus Loves’ could be read in an early layer, but what or whom he loves was not visible anymore. There is historic evidence of graffiti from the earliest times of travel, although it is often seen as degradation of a neighbourhood. Piraino (2002) explains how community groups and local

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Figure 20  Thunderbolt’s rock. Source: By author

councils spend large amounts of money in attempts to stop graffitists from doing their works of ‘art’. Based on this awareness, it was interesting to find that Linda Hailey, in a marketing plan prepared for Uralla Shire Council, discussed the possibility of painting over all the graffiti with a mural of Thunderbolt (Hailey, 2005). Apparently, the idea was that council-funded ‘graffiti’ is more appropriate than spontaneous graffiti. Or perhaps it would be a reflection of the political and cultural investment by the Council, whereas the existing graffiti would be regarded as a failure to care for the mythic status of the bushranger narrative. Some graffiti turns into TAs; the Berlin Wall, for instance, used to be referred to as ‘the world’s longest painting’ (Loshitzky, 1997). For others, graffiti is only a nuisance in previously undisturbed areas such as national parks (Farrell et al., 2001). The graffiti at Thunderbolt’s rock are well known; whenever I have discussed with people familiar with the region the attractions related to Thunderbolt, some comments have been made about the graffiti. Schlunke also mentions the graffiti at Thunderbolt’s rock when she discusses the urge individuals have to use granite surfaces as canvases (Schlunke, 2005: 27). The experience of walking around the rocks while

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looking at the graffiti made me realise that the paintings at least offered something for visitors to look at. The area would, without the graffiti, have been quite uninteresting. I had no feeling of awe when walking around the rock. It simply reminded me of the rocks I used to climb as a child and the games I played around them or on them. It seemed silly to suppose that a well known bushranger would have used such a visible landmark as his hiding place; similarly, the idea that he would have stood on top of it while waiting for carriages to hold up also seemed far-fetched. The boulders were maybe at that time surrounded by more trees than they are today, but to relate them to a criminal who was not captured for six and a half years felt less credible than to relate them to the games I played as a kid, also about outlaws. The whole area was so unkempt with graffiti, uncut grass, no amenities, no information about their significance, broken bottles at the boulders’ bases and the smell of urine between the rocks that it was hard to imagine it as an attraction at all. The feeling I got from the boulders was that they were famous for being famous (MacCannell, 1999: 87). The marker, the name of the boulders in this case, made them famous in their own right. I realised that I had again expected something different from the features I mentioned in my Vorgriff (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]: 191). I had expected some sort of information, amenities, walking paths, a general feeling of care. As these were not present, the whole site felt somewhat insignificant (Light, 1995: 118). As with so many heritage sites, this site does not have an extrinsic value of splendour or scenic features; rather, its value is in its intrinsic being (Wyllie, 2000: 73) – ‘this is the rock where Thunderbolt, the bandit, used to hide and also where he was shortly before his death’, or at least that is what the texts claim. Suvantola comments: Optimally, the experience of places and sights should teach us to recognise the structures, which make us experience something the way we do. If those places and sights do not live up to the expectations the narratives of the tourist discourse have aroused in us, we could still take delight in examining those narratives and discerning the processes in which they are created. (Suvantola, 2002: 271) Suvantola’s suggestion is that we should thus learn to enjoy the texts describing attractions, but realise that they do not necessarily have an underlying structure aligned with them. One could, therefore, imagine that the relationship between the actual attraction and texts describing that attraction is the same as between a book and a film based on that book, or

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potentially as between a film and the critique written about the film. The two entities are separate texts and the way any individual experiences and narrates them is based on the context that narrator comes from. It is clear, though, that if both texts are experienced, then some form of comparison takes place; the experience of the second text will always be influenced by the experience of the first text. So, instead of feeling disappointed or sensing that the rock was insignificant as an attraction, I turned my attention to my own reaction. How and why did I expect more of the ‘rock’? I realised that I had not ‘bracketed out’ enough of my presuppositions which I held when I arrived. Maybe I am simply too used to visiting TAs that are ‘over-narrated’ with a hidden theatricality, so that I, as a tourist, do not have to use any of my own imagination to realise their intrinsic value? Standing next to Thunderbolt’s rock I wondered whether the site would have been better in any way with the staging that is so common at tourist sites, or if its charm was to be found in its non-commercial, unmaintained appearance. The boulders are reminders, in themselves, of their supposed history, but only to people who know the history they refer to. If I had stopped at the boulders on my first journey, I would not have known anything about Thunderbolt except for the physical facts of the site’s appearance. While looking at the granite rocks with the graffiti on all sides I was reminded of the Indigenous artist Lin Onus’s ironical painting Balanda Rock Art – Balanda is the word Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory use for non-Aboriginal Australians. Onus’s painting portrayed an Australian landscape littered with empty drink containers and cliffs covered in obscene graffiti , and it stood as a stark reminder of the ‘culture’ Balanda represents. At a later visit to Yarrowyck rock art site some 30 kilometres north of Uralla – which is presented as one of the town’s ‘natural attractions’ (according to http://www.uralla.com) – I was surprised how the irony of the two ‘rock art sites’ in the town had not occurred to the tourist authorities. The interpretive text at Yarrowyck states: These paintings are probably several hundred years old. The tracks, circles, short lines and dots may remind you of bird’s feet, people, lizards and even bird’s eggs. You may be right, you may be wrong. Un­ fortunately we will never know the true meaning of the site. The text thereafter continues by stating that an Aboriginal elder had given one interpretation of ‘the’ meaning, and also points out that the paintings are typical for the New England area. Finally, a management paragraph is included that explains how the paintings are protected and advises visitors

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to stay behind a barrier and not to touch the art. A similar sign could be made for Thunderbolt’s rock regarding the Balanda rock art there: These paintings may be several hundred days old. The tracks, circles, short lines, and dots may remind you of names, years, and genitalia. You may be right, you may be wrong. Unfortunately we will never know the true meaning of the site. By considering Indigenous rock art as a natural attraction, and Thunder­ bolt’s rock as a historical attraction, the dualist division is again drawn between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal. This is again reminiscent of Harrill’s concept of the fear of falling (Harrill, 2003). The guesswork that the information sign presents underscores the ‘us and them’ mentality. Who are the ‘we’ who will never know a ‘true meaning’? The non-Aboriginal visitors will not. The reason why some events and a meaning of some sites for Indigenous people are not commonly known in the non-Aboriginal community may be that they represent taboo subjects and so are not spoken of outside their own family (Somerville & Perkins, 2005: 5). Non-Aboriginal history writing always relies on written accounts and wants clear-cut reports that give only one explanation of events and objects (Craik, 2001: 108). Indigenous ‘rock art’ is seen, in non-Aboriginal explanations, as an abstract art form, as an artist’s depiction of objects that are separate from the artist’s self and the occasion when the art was created. This type of Cartesian dualism is not applicable in an Indigenous context, where stories, art and people are regarded as a whole (Hulley, 1999: v). The highly essentialist assumption that ‘the true meaning’ exists somewhere is also significant – it shows the positivist emphasis in regular interpretation. If Thunderbolt’s rock were to be regarded in a similar way, then the meaning of the site would have to take into consideration the graffiti as expressions of earlier visitors’ place making. In order to enjoy it, or any other heritage site, I therefore have to suspend my disbelief (Berger, 1997: 144), just as I do when I enter a theatre or a cinema. When I had reflected on my initial reaction and realised what had caused it, I was able to appreciate Thunderbolt’s rock as the scene for a play. I allowed myself to imagine the stories I had come across about Thunderbolt played out in that environment. The experience of the rocks is ingrained in its spatiality – the lived space that had been a part of the Thunderbolt narrative was there in front of me, ready to be explored. But the realisation that it was the spatiality that became the meaning of the attraction allowed me also to enjoy the painted texts covering Thunderbolt’s rock, and thereby enjoy people’s expressions preserved on the rock face.

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Hegemony of Vision While many TAs are fitted with an abundance of explanatory and interpretive material, others, such as heritage sites that contain only ruins without information attached to them, require tourists to imagine the sites as they were in historic times in order for them to become meaningful (Hopkins, 1998). In either case, what the tourists do is to willingly suspend their disbelief and play along in the fantasy world. Some authors claim that this is done ironically by so-called post-tourists who are aware of playing a role but willingly do so because it suits them (Feifer, 1985; Urry, 1990). Others see a political agenda in the way attractions are constructed which reinforces a specific perspective in order for the visitors to suspend their disbelief to feel that they belong there (Aitchison et al., 2000; Bauman, 1995; Edensor, 1998; Edensor & Kothari, 1994; Gruffudd, 1995; Hollinshead, 1999a; Light, 1995; McLean & Cooke, 2003; Morgan & Pritchard, 1998; Penrose, 1993; Schouten, 1995). Travel writers in popular media and books maintain the dichotomy between travellers and tourists. They claim that tourists naïvely take part in the attraction’s constructedness without conscious awareness of it, while travellers stand out from the crowd and regard the spectacle from ‘the outside’ (Dann, 1999). But writing about tourism performance is not to accept the old-fashioned division between travellers and tourists; rather, it highlights the personal choices individuals make to perform and simultaneously, as well as later, narrate themselves into different roles (Desforges, 2000; Elsrud, 2001; Noy, 2004; Sørensen, 2003). This mostly occurs un­consciously. Kjetil Sandvik suggests that TAs augment the experiences tourists have by enhancing the narrativisation of places and attractions. In other words, TAs can be categorised (or even themed) according to familiar narratives, which ‘implies an element of perfomativity: the place comes into being through our performance (actions, movement, navigation)’ (Sandvik, 2010: 142). Therefore, by studying the temporal and spatial dimensions of attractions, by regarding tourism practice through the metaphor of an interactive theatre play like Tamara and by incorporating suspension of disbelief, the ‘scene is set’ for a new way of examining TAs. A TA is a ‘thing’ in the same sense that a theatre play or a movie is a ‘thing’. I claim that the only way to make sense of an attraction, and even tourism in general, is to experience it, while the only way to describe it is to tell its story. The assumption in tourism studies that attractions are things, objects or events is here challenged, as only experiences exist. Descriptions of meanings that tourists gain from those experiences are therefore important to facilitate; only through them are holistic understandings of the attractions possible. Equally, the belief that

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totally objective descriptions of attractions are possible is here challenged, as all descriptions carry traces of their authors. By deconstructing descriptions those traces are highlighted and the reasons for tourists to form certain understandings of certain attractions are similarly explained.

The gallery and museum My final stop in Uralla, on my journey to find my meaning of Thunder­ bolt as a TA, was ‘McCrossin’s Mill & Thunderbolt Gallery’, the local museum operated by Uralla Historical Society. The museum is situated in an old mill that had been restored in the early 1980s. The ground floor of the exhibition space has 10 paintings depicting Thunderbolt’s final hours. The first floor is divided into six separate exhibitions that ‘encompass both local identities and topics’ and the top floor houses both permanent and changing collections on similar topics (Newell, n.d.). The museum was cold when I arrived, as it had been a chilly night and the museum had just opened. While I paid the entry fee to one volunteer employee, another was lighting a fire in the heater that occupied a prominent space in the exhibition room. The atmosphere was relaxed and the warmth from the wood-fuelled heater soon gave the room a homely feel. I was given two booklets, one containing narratives about the paintings on the ground floor (Mayo, 1996), the other a history of the mill (Newell, n.d.). Straightaway I was confronted with a very different narrative about Thunderbolt, compared with the one that is in the public domain in books about bush­ rangers, but also the one presented in the town’s VIC. The paintings to some extent, but especially the narratives in the booklet, describe Thunderbolt as a thief who was not especially courteous, nor especially brave. At the same time as I walked around looking at the paintings and reading the booklet I heard the burning wood crackle in the heater and I stayed happily in front of the paintings closest to the fireplace for a little longer. I went on to explore the rest of the museum, which had smaller sections concentrated on specific topics, with a sense of unease and potentially even some hostility to the author of the texts in the museum. Here the excitement that had been part of the alternative ‘secret’ version of Thunderbolt was crushed by other authors who used the credibility of the museum setting to present their version. The narrative analysis of the attraction, in Chapter 6 ‘Forging TAs’, goes deeper into this point and it is important to note that the narrative was so different that it made me uneasy about my earlier thoughts on Thunderbolt. He was not portrayed as the heroic, mysterious figure who had been described at other places. Barbara Kirchenblatt-Gimblett (1998),

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as well as Deidre Stam (1993), examine museum collections and suggest that the way museums are presented and the ways in which exhibits are described aim to underline a specific authorised discourse. The museum collection is often seen as the true and objective view of a region. This is why there is such a strong link between regionalism/nationalism and museums (McLean & Cooke, 2003). Craik reminds us, however, that local ‘museums are disappointing – and often meaningless – to the tourist. They are often more relevant for local consumption to reinforce a sense of local identity and history’ (Craik, 1997: 115). The third section on the first floor of the museum concentrated on Thunderbolt and the opening divider screen set the scene for how the museum intended the visitor to experience it. On the left of the screen was a big poster with the text ‘The Life and Legend of Thunderbolt’ and a sketch of a man riding a horse. Most significantly, placed next to the poster were two newspaper articles regarding the questions that the member of staff at the VIC had previously raised. The first article was titled ‘Is it Thunderbolt – or someone else – in the Uralla Grave?’, while the second was titled ‘They laugh at the new legend at Uralla’. Neither of the articles had any data source attached. In fact, none of the written exhibits in the whole museum did. It seemed from the font used in the articles that they were from separate newspapers, although this is impossible to know. What the articles had in common is that they clearly crushed any suggestions that it may not have been Fredrick Ward who was shot in 1870 and that any hints otherwise were laughable. I spent plenty of time examining the other exhibits in the Thunderbolt section (Figure 21). There were more newspaper articles about bushrangers in general and some pictures of Thunderbolt, either drawings of him alive or photographs of his dead body. When I walked around the corner to the main exhibition area I faced a dummy, which showed what Thunderbolt would have looked like when he was laid out for public inspection and identification after being shot. The dummy shows a skinny man’s body in dirty clothes, eyes closed and thinning hairline. Neither the dummy nor the pictures gave me an impression of a brave, courteous and exciting person. The exhibits were deflating the image created through the statue, the stories at the cemetery and especially the stories told at the VIC. There was also a short history of Constable Walker and most interestingly some notes from a biscuit tin that used to be by Thunderbolt’s grave. The biscuit tin was apparently placed on the grave for many years and travellers would leave notes in it. The museum has some original notes on display that date back to 1938–39 and has also printed some of them on a larger sign. The fact that Thunderbolt has been a TA for many years was

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Figure 21  Thunderbolt exhibits at the museum. Source: By author

clearly proven here. Also the contradictory feelings about him are shown in one of the notes: ‘We think it’s a lot of baloney – let sleeping dogs lie. Still it puts Uralla on the map which might otherwise be overlooked – two very weary travellers, love and kisses’. The narratives around this part of the exhibition explained that the tin had been removed at some unspecified stage, but no information was offered about what had happened to the majority of the messages, who had collected them – if anybody – and how the museum happened to have some messages written in 1938–39. While walking through the museum, my thoughts were at times deeply focused on the exhibits and what they told me, but at times my thoughts wandered off to my partner, who had decided not to join me in the museum and rather enjoy the sunny, warm day outside with a good book. Time measured on a clock is quite different from time passing while experiencing something. That I was enjoying the museum and probably taking rather a lot of objective time made me aware of temporality, and that she would not have enjoyed the exhibitions for as long as I did.

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The experience happening at that moment was thus interrupted by retro­ spective thoughts about somebody left behind, but also projective thoughts about what I would do after visiting the museum. Most forceful were the prospective thoughts that I had when walking around, taking pictures and scribbling notes and also mentally preparing for writing this text. So much of the tourist experience that takes place in the moment is linked to other ‘tensions of consciousness’ (Lengkeek, 2000), described in Chapter 7 ‘­Experiencing TAs’. The stories we create internally of attractions are anticipations of later moments when we can recount the experience to others. This is something that Husserl had already pointed out by developing the concept of inter-subjectivity that is necessary to give phenomenological accounts relevance (Husserl, 2001[1913]: 91). Another aspect of relational experiences came from the fact that I could hear discussions going on in the entry area of the museum below me, where apparently other visitors were having a heated conversation with the staff about whether or not it was Fredrick Ward who was buried in the Thunderbolt grave in Uralla. I realised that my initial feelings of unease, when confronted with the different texts on display in the museum, came from my tendency to enjoy one version of the Thunderbolt story more than another. The modernist tendency to see the world in polarised terms, where only one answer can be right, is always problematic when history is in question. The phenomenological approach to ‘take a step back’ from the experience is useful in cases like this, as the experience is valid and pleasant regardless of which historical outlook is adopted. Therefore, after reflecting on my feelings in front of the displays, I understood that my meaning of the museum had been coloured by the other texts in the town. It was as if the two interpretations competed with one another and produced discomfort and agitation among visitors.

The Thunderbolt Experience Becker quotes Romanyshyn (1982: 153) in characterising the psychological reality that is found in human experiences as metaphorical: A metaphor is not essentially a way of seeing how one reality is like another. It is a way of seeing one reality through another. Its resemblance, if we should call it that, is the resemblance that a reflection bears to the reality of which it is a reflection. It is not a real (factual) resemblance but a resemblance where likeness is a difference. (Becker, 1992: 20)

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By describing the tourist experience of Thunderbolt I do not claim that all experiences from that, or any other, attraction are going to be similar to mine or even that they will include the same features. Just like attending Tamara, different tourists will chose different scenes and different actors and will thus end up with different meanings. What I want to do is to illuminate it as a metaphor for other experiences. The method used in this section has been to distinguish existentials that enable the reader to perceive my meaning of the separate parts of the attraction. The experience of the cemetery described in Chapter 7, ‘Experiencing TAs’, was to see the tombstone as corporeal evidence of Thunderbolt’s existence, something the cemetery without a physical marker for Thunderbolt would not have provided. It was also to underline Uralla’s ‘right’ to claim the Thunderbolt story as its own, rather than being a generic story shared with other places in the region. Similarly, my meaning of the statue was its message to the visitor to see Thunderbolt in a larger context as an Australian ‘pioneer’, where the heroic statue served as the mythology’s material evidence. My meaning of the VIC was the relational space it provided. The relational experience between tourists and information personnel made the narrative appear as a shared secret, while the official account was open and public. I also analysed the linguistic tools used in the stories available at the VIC and showed how they contained several narrative ‘hooks’ intended to prove to their audience the veracity of the narrative. The spatiality of Thunderbolt’s rock reminded me mostly of boyhood games and made me realise that play was an important aspect of the attraction. Thunderbolt had apparently visited the place at some stage, but so had thousands of other visitors who had left much more tangible memories of their visits than had the bushranger. In order to understand the enjoyment of experiencing the rock I referred to the concept of suspension of disbelief (Berger, 1997). My suggestion was that tourists visiting heritage attractions are involved in experiences that are similar to being an audience in a theatre, either with ‘hidden’ or ‘shown’ theatricality. The value of the attraction is understood as a feeling, which is mostly dependent on the tourist’s willingness to suspend disbelief. This suggestion may also be supported by the contrast between the historical site’s intrinsic value and the ‘Balanda rock art’ that was ‘decorating’ the scene. Finally, that I was enjoying the museum for an objectively long time made me aware of the temporal and relational experiences inherent in exhibitions. A tourist is never alone in the world; there are often other tourists and employees around. A site is visited alone or with other people – friends, relatives or tour groups. Significant others may be waiting, or not present at all, even if they, in the tourist’s mind, would enjoy the phenomenon. The

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way any person experiences any place is dependent on factors that are hard to pinpoint, as they refer to thoughts that do not have anything to do with the actual site, but still shape the experience of it. However, the way the attraction texts correspond to one another in the different elements of the TA will ultimately shape the final narrative.

9 Remembering TAs

In this final chapter concerned with constructing attractions I will show how the two new ways of analysing and understanding TAs come together while the tourist is performing the experience, and also at the stage when the experience is over and the tourist is remembering the attraction. The chapter will discuss pictures and souvenirs and how the concrete memories help construct the attraction long after the experience is over. The reason why memories are of such importance is that it is, in temporal terms, often the longest component of a journey: neither the planning nor the actual trip is generally as long lasting as the reminiscence afterwards. It is also in the memories that narratives, performances and experiences intersect.

Memories It is important to point out that narratives can be studied and used in many ways. There is no set way to use narratives. What is important is that the method is appropriate for the study (Bal, 2002). One of the initial problems with forming an understanding of how narratives are used in tourism studies comes from the multiple meanings narratives can have. Polkinghorne explains that ‘“Narrative” can refer to the process of making a story, to the cognitive scheme of the story, or to the result of the process – also called “stories,” “tales,” or “histories”’ (Polkinghorne, 1988: 13). Edward Bruner (2005) posits that narratives surround all tourist ex­ periences, even from before the journey has started, in the form of advertising, travel portrayals by the mass media and personal accounts of people who have made a journey. Following on from that, narratives are consumed during the journey in guidebooks, brochures and tales exchanged between travellers or in social media. Bendix suggests that a ‘destination 210

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receives customers through the narrative morsels it plants itself or that are put in circulation by others’ (Bendix, 2002: 476). Narratives are also constant ‘companions’ to travel experiences, as even the most unpleasant travel experience is endured with the travel tale that can be told afterwards in mind (Caesar, 1999). Finally, when one returns from a journey, the narratives of the experience are remembered in many ways, such as the photographs taken, the souvenirs purchased and the recounts of the events to other parties (Stewart, 1993). Simone Fullagar discusses the identity constructed, longed for and at times forced upon the female traveller, in an article where she reflects on her own travel narratives from travelling in a ‘phallocentric culture’ (Fullagar, 2002: 57). She refers to Hegel in suggesting that the ‘desire to know [which urges many young people to travel as backpackers for a period in their youth] is always bound up with the question of identity – of who I am in relation to others and the world’ (Fullagar, 2002: 62). Backpacking is, therefore, a search for identity. According to this explanation, individuals need to dissociate themselves from the familiar environments of their upbringings in order to construct their own identities in relation to others.

The Big Banana After having spent some hours and many dollars on the surrounding attractions, my travel party and I were finally ready to visit the actual Big Banana and have our photos taken in front of it. There are fences between the Big Banana and the road, as well as concrete walkways and staircases that lead up from the road to the construction so that visitors can get to the site easily and have their pictures taken there. The walkways and fences are laid out so that people cannot walk straight up to the Banana: they have to go around a fenced-in area of lawn, in the middle of which are the words ‘visitors welcome’, written in large concrete pavers. The impression I got, when walking around the main building and looking at it, was that there was a high level of upkeep. The paint was reasonably fresh, the grass around it was cut and the flowerbeds were well tended. The Big Banana is truly big – when it is viewed from the road it looks big, but when I was walking up towards it the size became even more apparent. The Banana sits upon what looks like a wooden structure and it was towering over me as I walked in front of and, to an extent, under it. The feel of the Banana was a little surprising. I must have expected something, as I sensed that the cold smooth concrete surface under my hand was not what I had thought it would be. I tried straight away to

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delineate what I had not bracketed out from the phenomenon: what type of expectations I had the moment before I touched the Big Banana. I realised, a little embarrassingly, that I had expected the feel of a real banana – a somewhat soft and rubbery texture and, as it was in the sun, lukewarm temperature. The sculpture felt, instead, the same as anything made out of painted concrete – smooth, cold and lifeless. I felt a sting of disappointment; not that I had expected for a moment to experience a naturally grown banana in giant form, but this big thing in front of me essentially was just a surface, a vision, a non-entity. We all took several pictures of ourselves and one another in front of the Big Banana. One such photograph was the classic pose of holding up one’s arms so that the picture portrays the person ‘carrying the banana’. We laughed about the urge my partner has to always be in the foreground of the pictures, with the view behind, while I always enjoy taking my pictures without anyone in them (Figure 22). The urge to prove to later viewers of the pictures that one has truly been at the attraction that one claims to have been to, by literally being part of the picture, is strong for some people (Markwell, 1997: 141–142, 148–149). My partner’s family is part of every picture they take on holiday journeys, with very few exceptions – taking photographs is always a performance

Figure 22  ‘Artistic’ view from the Big Banana lookout. Source: By author

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both in front of and behind the camera lens (Bærenholdt et al., 2004: 101). I have instead ‘inherited’ my family’s tendency to concentrate on ‘artistic’ photo-compositions (Edensor, 1998: 66–67), and very few – if any – people are visible in them. Jonas Larsen explains how the process of tourism photography should be regarded as an embodied practice in which families perform choreographed roles well beyond the stereotypical roles of mindless photographers (Larsen, 2005: 416) normally associated with the practice. I must, however, admit I think that pictures containing at least glimpses of familiar faces are nicer to look at when I am going through my old holiday photos. This is particularly the case as so few of the ‘artistic’ pictures truly live up to their ‘artistic’ ambitions and instead appear as dull, out of focus or lacking content (Albers & James, 1988: 136–137). The point of taking pictures of Big Things is also to show how big they are in comparison with people. I guess the urge to take ‘artistic’ pictures comes from an unconscious tourist angst, which to me identifies people and attractions in pictures with stereotypical tourist behaviour, while uncluttered pictures of nature alone, or attractions on their own, are reminiscent of travel programmes and tourist guidebooks that feed my feelings of exploration and experiences out of the ordinary (Urry, 1990). The staircase on the right-hand side of the Banana leads up to a terrace surrounding the gift shop and it is possible to enter the shop directly from there or, alternatively, to walk into the Big Banana. I tried to sense what the experience meant to me as I walked through the Banana. I stopped and looked at the pictures that were mounted behind ‘windows’ on both sides of the walkway in order to indulge in the experience more intensely. The pictures contained information about banana farming and plantations, but the visibility was low, as the glass protecting them was reflecting the sunlight. I realised later, when I reflected on the empty feeling and where it came from, that I was constantly trying to draw some type of linear story line between the different elements of the Big Banana site – as I had been able to do when experiencing Thunderbolt the bushranger in Uralla, where all the different parts of the attraction worked together to construct a deeper narrative. John Cross suggests that ‘to underscore the importance of this quest to get inside reality, many of the architectural Big Things have inside them, images, dioramas and texts that detail the facts, figures and “inside information” of the produce and industry celebrated by the building’ (Cross, 1995: 51). When I looked back upon my experience later, in light of Cross’s text, I recognised that I probably had had this type of Vorhabe of learning more about the meaning of the attraction by being inside it, but I realised the futility of that expectation.

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The walls were made of concrete blocks lower down, while the display windows upper walls and roof were made of hardboard. The relatively narrow walkway gave me a somewhat claustrophobic feeling, even though it is open at both ends, while the presence of other people in the Banana made this feeling even more tangible. The sense of decay seen in parts of the whole site was here again evident. The meaning of the walk through the Banana was not as empty as the feeling of touching its outside, but rather unpleasant in another way that I could not identify. There was an overwhelming feeling that I had not reached my meaning of the attraction, even though I had reached the physical core of the Big Banana. I realised also that I somehow had expected this final visit to the structure to be ‘putting the pieces in place’, as in a puzzle. I felt quite dissatisfied, however, with the emptiness that I had experienced at the Big Banana. I was trying to think about whether I had somehow experienced it in the ‘wrong way’, if I maybe should have come to the site alone and thus experienced a deeper meaning of it all, as I now had been there with other people and I had maybe not taken the experience ‘seriously’ enough. It would, of course, be possible to read some psychological meanings into physically entering the Big Banana; for example, Stockwell and Carlisle (2003: 4) point out that the banana is the shape of a bent phallus and King, in Stockwell (2004: xi), highlights that all Big Things are developed by men, with the rationale ‘if big is good, then bigger is better’. Following these ideas one could suggest that the experience of entering the Banana has homoerotic connotations. To enter Big Things is something Clark highlights in his encyclopaedic description of Australian Big Things as a positive highlight, when for example he states: ‘What we like about this bottle compared to its counterparts is that you can actually walk inside’ (Clark, 2004: 91). I do not think, however, that it was the feeling of returning to the ‘womb’ of the Banana that left me dissatisfied; it was, rather, that the visit to the actual Big Banana had not presented a linear narrative of the whole site to me. Some weeks later I was watching an old episode of The Simpsons on television, probably from season 1 or 2, when many of the scripts were still built in a linear fashion. I wondered why the episode was not as entertaining as I usually find them, and realised that I was not enjoying the fantastic array of intertextual jokes that the writers manage to write into each episode of the later series more than a single story line – if there is one. The pleasure of watching The Simpsons for me is thus not in following the main narrative as it unfolds, but rather in spotting the popular-culture or political phenomena that the text refers to and, in most cases, makes fun of. The Simpsons family is often regarded in cultural studies as the ultimate postmodern entertainment: all surfaces, hardly any core (Barker, 2000: 285–286).

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Based on this insight, I revisited my writings about the Big Banana and realised that the attraction acts as a postmodern narrative as well, but that this fact is not understood by a wider audience – probably not even the management of the site, as they are not taking advantage of the fact. Stockwell misses this point when he states: ‘Everything about a banana is an invitation to laugh and one can’t but think that the locals were always in on the joke’ (Stockwell, 2004: x). For the wider community it stands only as a marker of something embarrassing, a point that I have highlighted earlier. This is similar to other destinations that are struggling with public perceptions of their locality, and tourism entrepreneurs’ attempt to entice tourists, to their financial advantage, but at the expense of the humiliation of locals (Larsen, 2010). The fact that the Big Banana does not have a meaning beyond it being a sign for itself was probably one of the main points that made the experience feel empty. I was, in a typically modernist way, searching for an essence where there was none. If I had instead regarded the attraction as a postmodern joke ‘open to playful readings … [then] the diversity of tourist responses, and the potential for parodic consumption’ (Barcan, 1996: 37) would have been evident.

Souvenirs An etymological investigation of the word ‘souvenir’ reveals that is comes from the French word for ‘memory’ with a meaning of ‘to come back to myself ’ (Smith & Reid, 1994: 855). One could thus crudely suggest that a souvenir is a memory made tangible from somewhere or something. The range of objects that can be classified as souvenirs ranges from food objects (common in Confucian cultures) to textiles, cultural artefacts, postcards and different commercially produced mementos like snow globes. All that these objects have in common is that they act as reminders of somebody having visited a location or event that would not be classified as ordinary, and is thus worthy of being remembered. Gordon (1986) divided souvenirs into five categories – pictorial images, piece-of-the-rock, symbolic shorthand, markers and local product – and Timothy (2010) added practical examples to these categories (see Box 1). Souvenirs have received a fair amount of interest over the years, mainly within academic tourism research but also from fields related to art (Hume, 2005), anthropology (Crouch & Lübbren, 2003), cultural studies (Gordon, 1986; Stewart, 1993) and sociology (Britton, 1991b; Franklin & Crang, 2001). However, the fact that souvenirs are often regarded as symbols for popular-culture consumerism, and thus connected to mass tourism, rather

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Box 1  Types of souvenirs Pictorial images Posters Books Cards Photographs Pieces-of-the-rock Rocks Shells Plants Wood Fossils Bones Pinecones Symbolic shorthand Replicas of famous attractions Miniature images Manufactured items that represent images of the place where they are purchased

Markers Items not representative of the place but marked with words and logos: Coffee mugs Coasters Shot glasses Spoons Local products Foods Drinks Cooking utensils Clothing Textiles Handicrafts Source: Timothy (2005: 100)

than to the more prestigious status of exploration and travel, has led to a relatively narrow research perspective. Research focused on souvenirs has mainly fallen into one of three categories. Firstly, many researchers have investigated the authenticity ­ of souvenirs and tried to categorise different objects according to levels of authen­ ticity in an ethnic or national setting (Anderson & Littrell, 1995; Asplet & Cooper, 2000; Bleasdale, 2006; Blundell, 1993; Graburn, 1982; Hashimoto & Telfer, 2007; Shenhav-Keller, 1995). These studies are concerned with the concept of reality and the possibility that some objects are more real or authentic than others in representing a specific tradition or region. Whereas these discussions have value, they often err on the side of conservative essentialism, assuming that souvenirs possess object-bound authenticity, rather than looking at the meaning tourists assign to them after purchase. The objective of many of these studies is to examine the meaning the souvenirs hold for the sellers, not for the consumers. In looking at the local population’s images of the items that are sold, the studies follow

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lines of tradition and how items that were originally made simply for practical purposes may take on a new and ‘diminished’ meaning as ‘airport’ or ‘tourist’ art for ­travellers (Graburn, 1982). An important finding of these studies is that they recognise that tourists are more satisfied when they can purchase souvenirs with a tangible connection to the area they are made in (Timothy, 2005). The second category of research focuses on the retail setting of souvenirs (Ariel de Vidas, 1995; Hu & Yu, 2007; Kim & Littrell, 1999, 2001; LeHew & Wesley, 2007; Littrell et al., 1994; Oppermann, 1998; Swanson, 2004; Swanson & Horridge, 2002, 2004, 2006). The main focus of these papers is tourism behaviour in retail environments and they make managerial suggestions about how to better serve tourists as consumers in the commercial setting of travel. Again, the value of this type of research is evident from a managerial perspective, as it allows for a better understanding of how to enhance tourists’ experiences at TAs. As I already mentioned in Chapter 3, ‘Maintaining TAs’, tourism is a commercial enterprise and tourists are consumers. Consumption is, in consumer studies, not seen (pessimistically) as people trying to fill an ‘inner void’, but rather about ‘intensifying the present moment’ (Knudsen & Waade, 2010a: 4), the tourist as Homo consumericus travels for consumption to experience and to remember. The final category of research distinguishes souvenirs as the mementos the name originally refers back to. The interest here is in how souvenirs can be fruitfully investigated as symbols in travellers’ construction of their identities (Bendix, 2002; Cohen, 1993; Love & Sheldon, 1998; Lury, 1997; Morgan & Pritchard, 2005; Neumann, 1988; Shenhav-Keller, 1993; Smith & Reid, 1994). The foremost of these studies is Morgan and Pritchard’s personal reflections on what different souvenirs they own, have received from others or have given as gifts mean to them (Morgan & Pritchard, 2005). The suggestion they make is that souvenirs can have three different meanings. Firstly, they can act as items aimed at constructing, enhancing and reinforcing the tourists’ self-identity – an extension of ‘you are what you buy’ and ‘you are where you travel to’. This makes travel tangible in the form of objects that serve to strengthen the way tourists want to be perceived by themselves and by others. Secondly, souvenirs act as touchstones of memory, evoking reminiscences on tourist experiences. Souvenirs can, as Box 1 indicates, take a multitude of forms. This means that objects purchased while travelling can be items such as music, art, clothes or food, to name a few. When music, for example, acts as a touchstone for memories it can refer to a specific mood, a specific moment or a specific sense that the owner associates with a moment when that music was initial purchased. The final category Morgan and Pritchard refer to are the souvenirs’ material

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transformations and trajectories. This category suggests that souvenirs’ meaning changes and is transformed over time, as they become household items or become gifts (received or given). While the meaning of a souvenir at the time of purchase may be one thing, this meaning can fluctuate and new meanings appear, through, for example, association with other objects they are close to (Morgan & Pritchard, 2005). A matter little researched, but which is referred to frequently in texts simply mentioning souvenirs, is their association with cheapness and kitsch. Love and Sheldon (1998) created a scale on which the type of souvenirs tourists bought depends on how experienced they were. Their suggestion was that inexpensive ‘trinkets’ are bought by inexperienced t­ravellers, whereas more sophisticated travellers tended to buy objects that are common in the area they travel to, rather than focusing on what is ‘exotic’. While this, to a degree, resembles tourist angst, it holds some value in the descriptive categories the tourists studied tended to purchase. The perception created through lay understanding of what tourists are is commonly associated with the actions tourists take (McCabe, 2009). Let me, therefore, return to two descriptions of the Big Banana from guidebooks in order to contextualise my experience in the gift shop at the site.

Focalised narratives forging tourist performance and memory The two travel guidebooks chosen were from the Footprints series. These guidebooks are aimed at a slightly different clientele from the ones analysed in Chapter 6, ‘Forging TAs’, focusing on baby boomers and educated people. The publisher’s presentation of the philosophy for the books was as follows: ‘All of us feel passionately attached to the Footprint approach to travel – choice, adventure, intelligent, sensitive and fun. And although, for much of the time many of us remain desk-bound, there is undoubtedly a Robinson Crusoe inside us all’ (from the ‘About us’ section in 2003 of the website http://www.footprinttravelguides.com). The publishing house wants to set a tone in its marketing material that it believes reflects the type of customers who want to purchase their products. The description of Coffs Harbour in Footprint Australia Handbook: The Travel Guide resembles that of the Rough Guides and has the same type of focus on natural attractions and, thereafter, short notes related to other attractions. Roughly halfway between Sydney and Brisbane, and the only spot on the NSW coast where the Great Dividing Range meets the sea, Coffs Harbour is a favourite domestic holiday resort…. The main activities are centred around the town’s attractive marina … and, in complete

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contrast, the distinctly kitschy Big Banana complex, on the northern edge of the town…. Coff ’s [sic] best known attraction is, rather worryingly, the Big Banana … which fronts a banana plantation that hosts a number of activities from a train plantation tour to a lookout, toboggan rides, ice skating and lots of souvenir kitsch. (Swaffer et al., 2002: 162–163, original emphasis) The text manages to include the word kitsch twice in two pages when describing the attraction, while the town’s natural setting is given a very positive image. Except for the mention of kitsch, the texts leave it unsaid why the attraction is ‘worrying’. The focalisation of the text is clearly perceptible, announcing the authors’ contempt for the attraction. Stewart explains why Big Things are regarded as kitsch: ‘Just as the location of the pop object in space makes it vulnerable to symbolization (e.g., the town mascot), so does its particular form of iconography, as well as its accompanying manifestoes (or lack of them), make it vulnerable to “dating” … the nemesis of pop is the nostalgia for novelty which we find in the contradictions of kitsch and camp’ (Stewart, 1993: 92–93). The authors of the Footprints guidebook are only expressing their own urge for current, updated and modern attractions, and think that it is kitsch and worrying that a destination has not followed this same urge and, in one way or another, reinvented itself as something more contemporary. A different focalisation is produced through a similar text in the other Footprint travel guidebook analysed: Footprint East Coast Australia Handbook. This is essentially a shorter version that concentrates on the east coast. This different focalisation is especially surprising as the author also co-authored the other book. Finally, it’s incredible that by building an oversize banana next to the main highway, you attract people like bees to honey. Coffs [sic] famous icon and monument of marketing genius, the Big Banana, located just north of the town on the Pacific Highway, fronts a banana plantation that hosts a number of activities from a train plantation tour to a lookout, toboggan rides, ice skating and lots of souvenir kitsch. It is, however, perhaps entertainment enough to sit in the cafe and watch people posing for photos in front of the main attraction. (Darroch, 2003: 197) The text preceding the description of the Big Banana is mostly the same as in the other guidebook, and some of the text in the paragraph above – such as the descriptive section of the different activities at the Big Banana in the middle of the paragraph – is familiar from the other guidebook. But the

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interesting thing about this text is the focalisation that is created in the first and final sentences. Donald Darroch writes that the ‘oversize banana’ is attracting ‘people like bees to honey’, thereby highlighting the popularity of the attraction. This could be regarded as something positive – popularity is often utilised in marketing as evidence of quality and superiority. However, it could also be an indication, for readers suffering from tourist angst, of an attraction that is ‘too’ popular (McCabe, 2009). The inherent meaning of ‘like bees to honey’ is that the object is irresistible and that people flock to it, the attraction is ‘sweet’ and enticing, but that it has the negative property of being mobbed mindlessly by too many other travellers or, even worse, ‘tourists’. He continues, however, by calling the Big Banana a ‘famous icon’ and a ‘monument of marketing genius’. Both of these statements are very positive and, like ‘bees to honey’, refer to the success of the attraction in marketing and tourism terms. The Big Banana is not just a worrying kitsch object in contrast to the beauty of nature there; it is an ‘icon’, and a ‘monument of … genius’. When he then uses the same wording as the other guide and refers to objects for sale in the gift shop as ‘souvenir kitsch’, this does not produce the same effect as it did in the other guidebook. It is a generally accepted fact that souvenirs are regarded as kitsch, but that is part of their attraction. People seldom buy souvenirs for their monetary value or even for their utility value but for their narrative value. Stewart explains: ‘The souvenir distinguishes experiences. We do not need or desire souvenirs of events that are repeatable. Rather we need and desire souvenirs of events that are reportable, events whose materiality has escaped us, events that thereby exist only through the invention of narrative’ (Stewart, 1993: 135). So when Darroch here combines ‘souvenir kitsch’ with an ‘icon’ and ‘monument of … genius’ we can clearly read the narrative of the Big Banana as an enjoyable experience, which is so enjoyable that people flock to it ‘like bees to honey’. It almost sounds like he would enjoy the ordinary souvenirs, mirroring something Mark Gottdiener (2001: 83) called ‘Ye olde kitsch’. The last sentence in the extract sums up the way the author experienced the attraction itself and is also descriptive in terms of the fact that he did not see the Big Banana only as an object, but more as a stage for performances: ‘It is … entertainment enough, to … watch people posing for photos’. The sentence highlights yet again the mentality with which the attraction was visited and maybe even how it should be visited. Viewed as an object, the Big Banana is potentially only a gigantic sculpture reminding people of bad taste, kitschness or a historical era. But it can also be viewed as a stage for people to perform on; it is entertainment and a creator of experiences that are remembered happily.

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The Gift Shop Our final stop at the Big Banana site was the gift shop. I was surprised to see how small the gift shop was when I entered it. A quick reflection made me realise that I had expected the shop to be larger and more elaborate in its supply of products. As I walked around and browsed through the products I realised that the produce was of the same quality as much of the rest of the site, that is, rather cheap and following conventions of a souvenir shop just about anywhere where Western tourists are expected. I was not welcomed or greeted in any way by the cashier, who was going through some inventory lists. Britton (1991a: 463–464) points out that to a large extent tourism is a practice developed around capitalist consumerism. Not only are the attractions and destinations consumed by the tourists in terms of bodily, visually or emotionally loaded experiences but there is also an intrinsic link to capitalist consumption of items for sale at the location. Susan Fainstein and Dennis Judd claim, for example, that ‘[b]oth the masses and the classes … will pay their respects to the most famous monuments, will take their children to the theme parks, and will shop for souvenirs’ (Fainstein & Judd, 1999: 267–268). A visit to a TA is often seen as incomplete if no tangible evidence is available for later re-consumption of the experience. This is not only the case for modern-day Western travellers; Dann (1996: 11) explains that it has been a custom in Japanese tourism for at least 350 years. However, in destinations that are not proud of their tourist icons the perception may be that ‘the wrong type of tourists’ are attracted by the TA – just the ones who want to ‘buy cheap t-shirts’ (Larsen, 2010: 102). Photographs taken at the attractions may function as one such form of tangible evidence (Hume, 2005), even though it can be questioned how tangible this evidence is now that photography has become digitalised. Does the fact that pictures are not unquestionably tangible lead tourists to request more tangible items? This is a thought developed by Jonas Larsen when he states that in the case of ‘digital photography, if the “image” does not charm instantly on the camera’s screen it can be erased and a new one can be made at no extra cost. The affordances of digital photography ­potentially de-materialise, and make erasable and instantaneous, photographic practices and images’ (Larsen, 2006: 27). Few items in the shop were uniquely produced for the Big Banana. Some postcards, stubby (beer-bottle) coolers, t-shirts and similar items had the name or logo of the Big Banana printed on them. Several of the items available for sale I recognised from other Australian attractions, only with a different name printed on them. Most items were imported and there was

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no sign of the shop aiming to be a showcase for the Coffs Harbour region. The dried banana chips that were for sale were, for instance, imported from the Philippines, and no fresh bananas were for sale when I visited. As I studied the items on offer I felt very disappointed and I realised, as I reflected on the reason for that disappointment, that I was looking for gifts that I would be able to send overseas to my family for future Christmases and birthdays. The strength of the link between tourism and consumerism can be examined in terms of the fact that places of capitalist consumption, such as shopping malls, in themselves become tourist destinations, in which case the attraction is nothing more than the shopping experience (Ritzer & Liska, 1997: 103). Celia Lury refers to mass-produced souvenirs as ‘tripperobjects’ – a category of objects that achieve their meaning by their final ‘resting place’ (Lury, 1997: 79) in a highly personal relationship that may not be publicly valued. Whereas visitors laugh at the kitsch character of souvenirs, they still buy them for the intrinsic value they possess, not the object per se, but the experience they remind the owner of. It is the souvenir industry that has most prolifically reconciled tourist experiences with the consumption of commodities … the wearing of a t-shirt is a proof for one’s experience. In some ways, it lets others know who you are, what you have seen or done…. It is a piece of evidence of personal narrative. (Neumann, 1988: 26) This is possibly the reason I felt dissatisfied in the souvenir store: it ‘robbed’ me of the chance to retell the experience I had been a part of by not offering souvenirs that would be distinctly from that specific site. The lack of souvenirs for sale in Uralla relating to Thunderbolt may be explained by Jon Goss when he, quoting Stewart (1984) and Boyer (1994), suggests that sites of nostalgia ‘depend upon a narrative of loss…. Shopping centres are examples of “hypernarrated” spaces’ (Goss, 1999: 47). The reason tourists visit Uralla is often to learn about the narratives surrounding Thunder­bolt, and so souvenirs are potentially not necessary – the narrative is enough in itself. Visitors to the Big Banana, on the other hand, fill their experience with souvenir shopping, as the narrated components of the site do not offer visitors a closure of the attraction fabula on their own. Another reason for this dissimilarity between what is for sale at the sites may be suggested by Craik, who asks the reader to ‘compare the product on offer at theme parks with that offered by local history museums: certainly the former recreates impressions of the real while the latter preserves the authentic, but often the latter are immensely disappointing, under-resourced, lacking

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appeal or diversity’ (Craik, 1997: 115). The Big Banana was created as a site of consumption and that is what people expect of it. The attractions surrounding Thunderbolt have, on the other hand, developed organically over time and commercial memories of them might feel out of place. ‘What is this narrative of origins? It is a narrative of interiority and authenticity. It is not a narrative of the object; it is a narrative of the possessor … as experience is to an imagined point of authenticity, so narrative is to the souvenir’ (Stewart, 1993: 136). The narrative of the Big Banana is epitomised in the souvenirs or photographs travellers take home with them from the site. Coffs Harbour is remembered for the Big Banana or maybe, rather, some place on the coastline is remembered for the experiences the traveller had at the Big Banana situated there.

A meaning of the Big Banana In naming this part of the experience ‘a meaning’ rather than ‘the meaning’ my intention was, right from the start, to highlight that the meaning I gained from experiencing the Big Banana at that specific time is always going to be different from how other visitors will experience it – regardless of whether they were doing the same type of tour of the site as I was or whether they did it on another day in a different way. The ex­perience I had is also different from any other time that I will visit the same site, not only because the site has been redeveloped now and thus has a different overall emphasis, but also because the reflections I had when visiting the different components of the attraction built, in a hermeneutic way, on under­standings that in many cases came from my personal experiences earlier in my life. The next time I experience this attraction, many of the meanings and memories that will be triggered will then refer back to the earlier visit or visits, combined with other meanings. No visit to any attraction is ever final. The reading of the attraction and the understanding of the experience are ongoing processes. A linguistic reading of the way different elements are presented and performed suggests deeper meanings in the experience that are available only through a conscious deconstruction of the elements. Another, and even more holistic, reason why the experience described is only a meaning, rather than the meaning, is the fact that the Big Banana is a postmodern attraction. If I were to name an essence of the attraction, then I would be trying to compare the experience to a regular modernist phenomenon. The many layers of meanings, the many intertextual links that the site overtly, and at times covertly, builds on, all work together to

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produce an endless number of possible readings. I have attempted to draw out different existentials at different stages of the experience and, through this, show the many dimensions that were experienced. To focus on only one dimension would be almost impossible. The fact that the site offers so many different experiences also diminishes the rather colonial narrative presented in the train ride in which plantation work was shown and some type of history was presented of banana plantations in the area. The only allusion to Indigenous culture at the site was the ‘Bunyip in the Billabong’ (a mechanical ‘monster’ rising out of a pond when tourists pass it on the scenic train ride). Indigenous history or narratives were otherwise not built into any aspect of the site. This may be a reminder of what Ruth Barcan proposes in her article about Big Things, namely that the big statues were built by white, often first-generation, settlers who were aiming to institute a symbol for the area they inhabited in order to establish a feeling of home (Barcan, 1996: 36). This urge comes from the fact that the non-Indigenous settlers are aware of the place having been Indigenous land, and having had a very specific meaning to that population, but the new population does not want to be reminded of that history and therefore creates a new history and symbolism that better suit them. According to this reading, the Big Banana is yet again establishing a touristic terra nullius; by asserting its own essence and history, it claims that no other important history existed before it (Barcan, 1996: 36–37). There is, however, a point that Barcan (1996), Negus (2003) and Stockwell (2004; Stockwell & Carlisle, 2003) repeatedly argue: namely that the Big Things should not be taken too seriously, but rather as postmodern jokes, playful elements meant to entertain. Based on that interpretation, the only meaning that the phenomenon could wholeheartedly entail is the notion of playfulness and performance. All the different elements of the attraction are attempts to entertain the visitors, and hopefully get the visitors to part with as much of their travel budget as possible while the visit lasts. It is a series of consumption opportunities, all built around the largely free experience of taking one’s picture next to a giant banana. In the end, not even the picture-taking moment can be counted as totally free. The equipment for taking the picture has to be purchased and if the traveller decided to develop a copy of the picture – which is not always self-evident in these days of digital cameras – then additional money has to be spent to obtain the print. Cross writes: Not so long ago if you visited any fair-dinkum Aussie home you were certain of finding two standard images. One was a picture of the Queen.

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The other, a holiday snap of a Big Thing…. Nowadays the picture of Liz is getting harder to find; but the photo of the Big Thing is still there. After all, the power that these kitsch structures wield is immense. Big Things have the power to make real the stuff of dreams. (Cross, 1995: 50) The way different visitors perform their picture taking in front of the Big Banana, the decisions made over to whether to stop for a longer break or not at the attraction at all, and the subsequent series of consumption options offered to the visitors all build into the meaning constructed by the individual. None of the consumption options can be regarded as essential in any way. Each is only competing for the same amount of money set aside by the traveller for entertainment purposes. This correlates with Feldman saying ‘[a]n event is not what happens but what can be narrated’ (quoted in Löfgren, 2002: 95). The methods I have presented follow an avenue set out by Bærenholdt et al. when they claimed that places ‘suffer from a “hegemony of vision” … neglecting how places are sensed, used, and practised’ (Bærenholdt et al., 2004: 5) and additionally pointing out that the ways tourism is performed are seldom studied. Guthrie and Anderson (2010) claim that the way tourism is studied at present essentially abstracts the practice from the experience and thus misinterprets what motivates people to visit different places. It is naturally possible to ask how many people visit the theatre and count how much money they spend, or what motivated them to attend through a pre/ post-experience questionnaire, but none of this information would in the end yield any new knowledge about the experience. So, in order firstly to explain the experience, and secondly to deconstruct the story ‘told’, I chose to use linguistic-hermeneutic phenomenology and poststructural narrative analysis as the two methodologies that underpin my project. This is where the point about postmodernity is highlighted. Zygmunt Bauman claims that in a postmodern society only the poor are left out or ‘redundant’, as they are ‘flawed consumers’ (Bauman, 1997: 14). The Big Banana is essentially for people with enough money firstly to travel and secondly to spend on activities along the way. Whether these consumers then read their experiences as being educational, entertaining, aesthetic, escapist, a political statement or plain bad taste is totally up to the individual. What managers of TAs, however, need to keep in mind is the potential for all these separate meanings and to plan for the inclusion of a suitable framework for all the meanings to co-exist purposefully.

Epilogue

My aim, explained in the prologue, was to show how new ways of seeing things will complement rather than substitute the old ways. I set out to offer a ‘new way of seeing’ TAs, by showing their connection to cultural change more broadly in society. The scope of the book was to analyse the type of research done so far and to introduce two new methodologies that might allow TA research to evolve in a new way. My suggestion was to learn how to read the texts constructing TAs as narratives and to ‘get back to the things themselves’ (Husserl, 2001 [1913]: 88), by experiencing and performing being a tourist.

Every TA is a New Narrative The poststructural narrative analysis I have used had as its aim to deconstruct texts tourists might encounter when experiencing different attractions and, rather than accepting the attraction as an object with stable attributes, redefine it as a construct – as a narrative or, rather, as a fabula. Every experience of a TA is a new narrative and every tourist’s collation of different texts leads to the construction of a new fabula. The suggestion by Bal, that an analyst comes into contact only with different texts that recount different stories that ultimately form the abstract entity called a fabula (Bal, 1997), was tested in the empirical case studies. I chose a set of texts available to tourists and showed how the texts told different stories about the same tourist entities and how these stories, in combination, produced different fabulae, depending on how the texts were presented. The fabula remains, to a large degree, an enigma, as it is only an abstract construct in the tourist’s mind and the closest I have come to describing it in my analytical sections is as an allusion. The question that may be asked is, 226

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therefore, whether this enigma is of any importance to future studies. My answer is that it definitely is important, even though it may not be possible to reach a final understanding of any one fabula. The point was to show that attractions are not so much understood as objects, but rather as narratives. This is important because then studies like this can show how those narratives can be researched, and analyse what elements and what textual constructs lead tourists to understand the narratives in their personal way. I deconstructed the attractions by outlining the diegesis or narrative world they were constructed within and their links to extradiegetic features. I analysed how that diegesis was described and what was included in that narrative world. The diegesis of Thunderbolt was the sites and attractions connected to the original story about the bushranger, and an extradiegetic feature was the nation’s pioneer myth referred to by the attraction fabula. The diegesis of the Big Banana was the attraction site and opening hours. It was a shallow diegesis, possible to enjoy almost only by reading it as an ironic postmodern story filled with intertextual links to other popular-culture texts. I thereafter described diachronic features of the texts, the narrative voice and the focalisation they were told in, and discussed their narrative tempo and author, but in the end I was, in both cases, left only with descriptions, not with an essence. While this initially disappointed me, I realised that it was the only possible outcome of the study. The fabula could not be grasped. Only the process by which it is formed can be grasped. The lesson for scholars and managers trying to learn more about the attrac­tions they are concerned with is, therefore, not to concentrate on the fabula per se. Rather, by concentrating on analysing the texts surrounding the attraction, an understanding will evolve of the elements shaping the narrative, thus allowing for alterations of the fabula tourists construct, if wanted.

Every Tourist is a Phenomenologist I introduced, in an attempt to capture the experience a tourist has of attractions, first-person linguistic-hermeneutic phenomenology. The descrip­ tions are unashamedly subjective. They are descriptions of one person’s experience at one particular moment. The rationale behind this choice was to offer a deep understanding of the attractions examined, by allowing the reader intimate access to the meaning the attractions had for me when I experienced them. While I acknowledge that similar ex­periences and associ­ations would probably not be found in any other person’s descrip­ tion of the same phenomenon, I actually claim that to be the greatest evidence of the relevance of the findings. If no experiences are ever alike, and

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no two persons experience a phenomenon in the same way or build on the same assumptions, then one singular description of an actual experience is more valuable for a reader learning about the attraction than is any number of approximations. Rather than seeing one description as the only truthful description in existence, it should be viewed as a metaphor that outlines the main features and meanings the attraction offers a visitor. As I was writing my book and discussing its methodologies with my colleagues, my family, other postgraduate students and my own students, I increasingly came to realise that every tourist is ultimately a phenomenologist. My descriptions of my visits to attractions simply put into writing the thoughts and emotions experienced when acting as a tourist, in order to uncover a meaning of the experience. I initially wanted to learn the meaning of Thunderbolt, and travelled to Uralla to experience the sites connected to that attraction. I also visited the Big Banana and tried my hardest to understand the meaning of that attraction, but neither of those quests for understanding was particularly different from the quest any tourist sets out on when visiting attractions. The reason people read guidebooks, watch travel programmes, follow tour guides and read signs at attractions is to get a deeper understanding of the site visited. I walked around at the Pioneer’s Cemetery in Uralla looking for Thunderbolt’s grave and when I found it I sensed that the grave was not what I had expected, based entirely on my preconceptions. Similarly, when I experienced the Big Banana close up, touching the smooth cold ‘skin’ of the Banana, I felt a sting of dis­ appointment. I analysed my thoughts and my method of experiencing the site in the light of Heidegger’s modes of Dasein (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]). The mode in which any tourist experiences TAs could be regarded as Heidegger’s readiness-to-hand – Zuhandensein – that is, the attractions are there ready to be used and experienced for what they are, simply as stories or events among other similar stories and events. But at the very moment the tourists detach themselves from the practical involvement they have with the experience, the attraction turns into a present-at-hand – Vorhandene – something about which tourists can consciously think and in connection with which, they can understand their own feelings of enjoyment or disappointment. I have aimed to give readers a good understanding of the complex data that become available to the researcher through an awareness of the experience by applying linguistic-hermeneutic phenomenology to the two cases. The hermeneutic part of the phenomenology used referred back to earlier events and parts of my life that have shaped the understanding of the attractions for what they meant to me. I am fully aware of the fact that my background as a Finn living in Australia makes for a strange combination, and the associations I have – when, for example, experiencing fake

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snow slopes in the subtropics – are naturally different from the experiences another person from any other background would have had at that moment. The point is, therefore, not to look at what I discovered as the only possible meaning of the event, but rather to incorporate the methodology in other personal experiences. The intention is for the reader to build that same form of understanding of experiences based on subjective elements in their personal hermeneutic circles.

Limitations of the Research It could be argued that my cross-disciplinary approach is a limitation inasmuch as it is a necessity. Rather than taking as the object of my study actual texts produced in tourism studies, and deconstructing them in the empirical section, I have studied TAs and applied my critical analysis based on cultural studies of those texts, thereby aiming to show what would be left unexamined in plain managerial texts. My hope is that apart from being illustrative for people interested in TAs, this study may function as a bridge between two fields that have much to offer one another. Tourism is firstly an under-researched area in cultural studies, which is a great loss, as the pursuit of travel has a tremendous amount of important data to offer academics interested in cultural and cross-cultural understanding. The fact that much cultural studies research is currently focused on daily activities in individuals’ home environments should not close out the pursuits they have away from their homes. Tourism studies practitioners, on the other hand, have much gain from taking on more of the critical methods and practices that cultural studies practitioners have developed. The significant political messages highlighted in this book, showing hegemonic constellations with regard to nationalism, race, gender and sex politics, as well as class and sub-cultural politics, are all evidence of the need for tourism studies to be more critical of the agenda inherent in the field. A separate limitation is the fact that this study was conducted by a researcher analysing an environment that is not his original habitus. A criticism that could be raised is that the examinations are of events, activities, texts and objects that have a totally different meaning to individuals from the region. I am aware of this, and I have never suggested anything contrary. My aim constantly has been to open up understandings of common-sense texts and to critically suggest alternative readings of these texts. The power of polysemy is that the range of alternative readings is unlimited. My reading of these Australian texts is only one among many. I

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do not intend to hide behind a cloak of relativity, insisting that ‘anything goes’. My findings are intended to be read as a reasonable alternative to the common-sense one, from the point of view of an ‘outsider’. Where this leads the reader is to an understanding of how texts produced for any one specific audience may contain conscious and unconscious biases that further establish a hegemonic view in society. Writing from the position of a middle-class, educated, heterosexual, Caucasian male naturally leads me to acknowledge my own position as the norm in the Western academic and social community. The political discourses that I highlight never negatively influence my position in society but rather they establish that position. But that may be the reason why I, as an outsider, can analyse the common-sense texts of Australian tourism with ‘fresh eyes’, and suggest what type of political discourse is hidden in them. A similar analysis of Finnish tourism texts might prove to be harder for me to do, as I would then read texts produced by individuals with a similar cultural background to mine.

Where to Now? Throughout this book I have shown examples of how linguistichermeneutic phenomenology and poststructural narrative analysis can be used to examine TAs and, to some extent, tourist destinations. But this is only an initial step in how the methodologies could be applied. The fields of leisure, tourism, hospitality and events, to the extent that these are separate from one another, all contain many examples of texts – produced by policy makers, private entrepreneurs, community organisations and nations – that desperately need to be analysed more critically. Regional events and carnivals, heritage listings of ‘natural and manmade’ areas, Indigenous tour operations, hotel construction and restaurant experiences offer just a few examples of texts that in themselves contain traces of the societies that have constructed them. The texts are simultaneously clues to the hegemonic social values influencing people’s spare time, time that is supposed to be devoid of politics, ideology and other ‘serious’ matters. Replications of this study can naturally be undertaken, but the intent of those replications should not be to validate the findings of this study. They should instead offer alternative readings of the texts examined here. If this research is applied to other attractions, then I am sure that the transformation of those objects into narratives would yield much new information about the contexts they are set in and of the meanings that tourists visiting them receive from the sites.

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Index

Aboriginal heritage dreamtime stories 103 neglected in tourism texts 101, 117–118, 152–153 presented as tourism product 125 rock/cave art 139, 152, 201–202 of Thunderbolt’s wife, influence on character 126, 190 accessibility, as factor in TA success 42 acculturation 35, 36–37 advertisements in brochures, influence on narratives 118, 121 funding of promotional material 113, 133 imagery, stereotyping 86, 91, 98, 155 see also marketing aesthetics, as factor in TA success 43–44 air traffic deregulation 72 alcoholic drinks production, as tourist attraction 70 anachronism in narratives 115, 149–151 angst (tourists’) see tourist angst Arc de Triomphe, Paris, iconic status 102 architecture, aesthetic perceptions 44 Australia bicentenary celebrations 194–195 maps of locations xv, 89

authenticity interpretations of concept 36, 185–186 object-bound 186–187, 188, 216–217 of texts, influence of narrative voice 127 tourists’ search for 108, 173 backpackers 112, 146, 211 Bal, M. characteristics of synchronic narrative events 115 poststructural narrative analysis 24, 27–28, 85 Balanda Rock Art (painting) 201 bananas, humorous and derogatory associations 91–92, 215 Barthes, R., semiotic analysis of text 96–97 behaviour (of tourists) as basis of TA categorisation 13–14 stereotypical, and tourist angst 128, 213 studies of consumers in retail 217 benchmarking 60, 76–78 best practice comparisons 75 Big Banana analysis of visit experience 178–181, 211–215, 221–225, 228 focalisation in guidebook accounts 143–147, 156, 219–220 253

254 Index

management failure analysis 46, 161 narrative scope of attraction (diegesis) 104–109, 155 pictures, implicit messages 129–134, 156 postmodern narrative aspects xvi, 120, 155, 161–162, 223–224 recent overhall and plans 163 structure and location xv–xvi, 108–109, 211 synchronic activities and marketing image 120–122 Big Things association with post-colonial nations xv Big Things (book), as generating text 106 ‘collection’ by tourists 103–104, 160, 224–225 connotations of masculinity 214 Lonely Planet itinerary and cultural bias 145 symbolic meanings 90, 103, 121, 156, 160–161 blogs 87, 113, 118–119, 123 body-subject concept (Merleau-Ponty) 169, 170 bracketing, in phenomenology 53, 56–57, 166–167, 179 branding 70, 92 brochures available at destination 50, 87 leaflet illustrations 129–131 manipulation of tourist experience 113 regional 86, 97–98, 131–133 stories included, anachronic elements 150 synchronic elements of text 116–118 Bugg, Mary Ann (Thunderbolt’s wife) 101, 126, 154, 190 ‘bush myth’ (romanticism) 125, 141, 151, 160, 195 bushrangers xiv, 140, 160, 192

capital investment needs 47, 73 Captain Thunderbolt see Thunderbolt, Captain (Frederick Ward) Cartesian dualism 168–170, 202 cartoons, understood contexts 96, 116 categories of tourist attraction 9–14 catering facilities 80, 81 cemeteries, interest for tourists 173–177 character narrative voice (CN) 122–124 clustering of attractions (precincts) 13, 15, 18, 69, 122 cocooning 68–69, 71 Coffs Coast, official tourism 92, 105–106, 131–133 Coffs Harbour, NSW banana production industry 90–91, 143 connection with Wallabies rugby team 108, 109, 132 guidebook texts, focalisation and style 143–144, 145–146, 218–220 location xv, 89–90 official coat-of-arms 104–105 recognition of Big Banana as place icon xvi, 92, 107, 132–133 see also Big Banana cognitive dissonance 180–181 collections museum exhibits 204–207 of pictures of visits to Big Things 103–104 commercialisation 61, 78, 90, 221–223, 224 competitiveness 65, 69 Constable Walker see Walker, Constable A. B. consumers acceptance of planned experience 197–198 links between tourism and consumer­ism 221–223 rising expectations 68 contiguous texts (markers) 21, 87, 102, 120, 141

Index 255

corporate use of TAs, as revenue source 80 counterstructure concept (Lengkeek) 45, 48 culture change stimulated and resisted by TAs xi, 35, 36–37 as context of tourism xvi–xvii, 20, 164, 229–230 diversity of backgrounds in tourist market 67–68, 114, 192 image of sport 109 power of dominant national norms 137, 148 social and political narratives 28–29, 88–89, 111 traditional products 41 dark tourism 44 day-trip visitors 5, 7 deconstruction of attractions as narratives 87–88, 104, 153 as distinct from destruction 81–82 purpose and aims 83–84, 111 definitions of ‘kitsch’ and ‘camp’ 133 of marketing 63 of tourist attractions 4–5, 14–15, 16–17, 24, 31–32 of travellers, tourists and visitors 5–8 value and interpretation in texts 29–30 demand, reasons for changes 66–69 deregulation impacts 72 Derrida, J., deconstruction of Husserl’s texts 177 Descartes, R. 28, 166, 168 design see planning diachronic elements of narratives 115–116, 120, 122 diegesis concept explanations 97, 104 narrative worlds of single-frame pictures 96–97

spatio-temporal scope for Big Banana 104–109, 227 Thunderbolt diegesis, available texts 97–102, 227 disabled access 67, 72–73 disclosure, phenomenological see essential themes, in phenomenology diversification impacts 70 ecotourism 35, 38 Edensor, T. challenges to hegemonic presentation of TAs 114 tourists as performers 192–193 education, requirements for TA success 42, 43 employment, effects of legislation 72 entertainment home, impacts of new technologies 69, 71 as part of tourist experience 198, 220, 224 requirements for TA success 42–43 entrance fees 78–79 Entrikin, N., on places as narratives 24, 93–94 environment impacts of external factors on TAs 36, 38 positive and negative impacts of TAs on 35–37 epoché see bracketing, in phenomenology escapism, as motive in tourism 45 essential themes, in phenomenology 57, 167–168, 172 ethical tourism 38–39, 145 events place in attraction classifications 9 as source of revenue 81 existential authenticity 186–188 experience as alternative concept to TA as object 18–19, 203–204

256 Index

co-production by participants 45, 187, 189, 220 elements of reality in tourist ex­ periences 207–209 not matching expectations 174–175, 200–201, 211–212, 213–214, 228 personal meaning xvii, 22, 48–49, 223 recording for future consumption 88, 207, 222 sought by heritage site visitors 135–136 external narrative voice (EN) 122–124, 138 fabula alternatives in Thunderbolt narrative 154–155 as element of TA narrative 24–25, 27–28, 85, 150–151 individual construction 84, 226–227 failure, reasons for 46–49, 70, 74 families narrative voice in story-telling 127 posed in tourist photographs 128, 212–213 structural changes and impacts 68 Family Stories (Captain Thunderbolt booklet) 102, 119, 189 fear of falling (metaphorical) 147–149, 195, 202 films analysis of ideological sub-texts 116, 140 Australian, racially incorrect narratives 117, 125 use of TAs as sets 80 first person narrative see character narrative voice focalisation concept, as tool of narrative analysis 137–138 in guidebooks, Big Banana region 143–147, 156, 219–220 Thunderbolt narratives 138–143 Footprint guidebooks 218–220

Gadamer, H.-G. 171–172, 177 gay/lesbian connections 118–119, 144 generating texts (markers) 21, 22, 86, 106 pre-travel consumption 111–112 globalisation impacts 67–68 gold-mining, history at Uralla 99, 117, 142, 152 governments control of visible cultural symbols 148, 194–195 legislation, effects on tourism 72–73 promotion of official national image 114, 119 requirements in planning decisions 73 graffiti 50, 198–200, 201–202 grand narratives (positivist approach) 30–31 grave (Thunderbolt’s) 139, 141, 172, 174–177, 189–190 guidebooks content 98–99, 116 functions and reasons for purchase 79, 86, 113 types and styles of narrative 113, 123–124, 143–147, 218–220 see also Lonely Planet guidebooks guided tours 80, 114, 192 Hall, C.M. 18–19, 29, 149 hegemonic practices messages in heritage attractions 136–137, 148 political agendas in TA narratives 114, 153, 229 resistance to, by indigenous peoples 190–191 Heidegger, M. 52, 167, 170–172 terms used for philosophical concepts 170, 171, 174, 175, 228 heritage attractions cemeteries 174, 175–177 imposed cultural viewpoint in presentation 135, 136–137, 147–149

Index 257

intrinsic value 200, 201 national and cultural significance 90 tourist motivations to visit 22, 203 hermeneutic phenomenology 55–56, 162, 170–172, 228–229 Hunter Valley, Upper, NSW xiv Husserl, E. explanation of bracketing and essential themes 166–167 ideas compared with Cartesian dualism 168–169, 177 rationale for phenomenology 52, 164–165 icons Australian examples xvi implications of word use 220 importance in national identity 102 as primary attractions (nuclei) 15 indigenous peoples counter-hegemonic stories 190–191 degree of recognition in tourist publications 124, 125, 152–153 depiction in natural settings 101 marginalised by terra nullius assumption 118, 154–155, 157, 224 see also Aboriginal heritage industrial tourism 70 information impacts of changing technology 20, 69, 71, 113 interpretation provided at sites 43, 80 reliability 146, 204 used by tourists (TA markers) 21–22, 26, 86–87 infrastructure components, benefits and drawbacks 39–40 legal requirements for construction 72–73 inter-subjectivity 138, 181, 207 introspection/intuiting 165, 166 ISO standards 75 Kelly, Ned xiv, 140

kitsch 92, 133–134, 218, 219, 220 language(s) abstract and concrete nouns (reification) 6–7 derogatory associations of ‘banana’ 91 linguistic dimension in phenomenology 55, 177–178 translations of the word ‘attraction’ xiii, 4–5 use of words in promotional material 98, 107–108 see also narrative voice larrikins, condoned as Australian identity 127–128, 140, 154 Leask, A. definition and classification of attractions 5–6, 12, 15 model of effective management factors 74–75, 76 Leiper, N. case study of management failure, Big Banana 46, 161 meanings and derivation of terminology 4, 7, 15, 21, 171 tourist attraction system (model of TAs) 16, 20–26, 86–87 leisure activities available at TAs 130–131 changing demand patterns 68–69 growth in supply economy and facilities 71–72 Lengkeek, J. counterstructure concept 45, 48 phenomenological analysis of experience 183, 206 Lew, A. A., inventories (typologies) of TAs 9, 12 linguistic phenomenology 55, 177–178 local communities impacts of infrastructure development 39–40 interest in TAs in everyday environment 173

258 Index

sense of identity 118, 156–157, 195, 205 unease with regional branding (Coffs Harbour) 92, 161, 215 value added by local produce 40–41 logo design, Coffs Coast 105–106 Lonely Planet guidebooks choice of narrative voice 123, 124, 138 coverage of Uralla area TAs 99, 138–139 intended readers and focalisation 144–146 positive portrayal of Thunderbolt 139–141 maintenance planning and challenge awareness 64–74 proactive approach 59 quality and competitiveness 75–78 revenue creation 78–81 see also marketing management challenges and risk awareness 60 paradox (protection vs. promotion) 33, 34–38, 39, 81 reasons for failure 46–49, 70 success factors 41–46, 66, 74 usefulness of TA classifications 12–13 value of outsider’s viewpoint 55, 82, 217 Manen, M. van see van Manen, M. maps function at TAs 179–180 location of Australian case studies xv, 89 style, in publications 100, 120, 121, 131 markers of tourist attractions 21–22, 24, 26, 86–87 marketing elements (‘4Ps’) 62–63 logo design 105–106 narrative consistency 63, 93

as need-satisfying process 61–62, 64 risks of generalisation 48, 121–122 see also advertisements mass tourism 7, 215 McCrossin’s Mill Museum 100, 139, 204–207 meaning created by dialogue 177–178 individual construction by tourist 23–26, 48–49, 213–214, 223 social and political dimensions 28–29 subjective understanding (in phenomenology) 54–55, 163, 167–168 memories as components of a journey 210, 211 souvenirs as tangible reminders 215, 217, 222 message(s) conveyed by pictures 129–133 distinction from ‘text’ 30 hegemonic 136–137, 148, 230 implied in synchronic texts 118–119 left by visitors (Thunderbolt TA) 205–206 promotional, in marketing 63, 98, 109 methodologies construction and deconstruction xiii–xiv, 159 limitations and opportunities 229–230 narrative analysis xvii–xviii, 26–29, 83–84, 226–227 phenomenology xviii–xx, 51–58, 163, 181–183, 227–229 miniatures, symbolic meaning 103 Moran, D. analysis of phenomenological critiques xix, 182 explanation of Husserlian terms 169 museums Captain Thunderbolt displays 100, 204–207 entrance fees, pros and cons 79

Index 259

historical paintings, interpretations of 141–143 provision of disabled access 73 sale of souvenirs 222–223 service and business aims 34 simulation of historical experience 135 myths Australian larrikin, bush and pioneer myths 140, 141, 154, 160, 195 construction and reinforcement 88, 125, 137, 149, 199 role in shaping national identity 87–89, 127–128, 160 narrative analysis constructivist approach xvii–xviii, 23, 226–227 elements of meaning in TA narratives 24–25, 210–211 poststructural development of methodology 26–29, 83–84 in synthesis of place image 92–95 terminology, for theoretical concepts 95, 97, 114–116, 137–138 narrative tempo 149–153 narrative voice external and character narrators 122–124 in pictures at Big Banana 129–134, 156 in Thunderbolt texts 124–128 national identity cultural consensus viewpoint 136–137, 148, 149 importance of icons 102, 195 role of narrative fictions 87–89, 95, 127–128, 160 natural environment, management of positive and negative impacts 37 New England tablelands, NSW xiv, 49–50 Country Way Touring Guide (brochure) 99–100 Regional Visitors Guide 141, 151

newspapers articles displayed in museums 205 comments on tourism ‘spin’ 119–120 journalists’ depictions of place identity 101–102, 107–109 political cartoons 96 use of illustrations 133–134 noematic/noetic features of experience 51, 169 nucleus of tourist attractions 21 object-bound authenticity 186–187, 188, 216–217 objectives, in TA management 47–48, 66 objectivity limitations of positivist studies xx, 52–53 reflected in use of external narrative voice 122–124 ‘opened and closed’ tourist sites (Schlunke) 51, 175 paintings, focalisation of interpretations 141–143, 204 performance as aspect of tourist experience 187–188, 192–193, 197–198 presentation of TA as stage for 220, 224–225 performance indicators 77 personal identity 211, 217 Pet Porpoise Pool, Coffs Harbour 132, 143 phenomenology hermeneutic and linguistic aspects 55–56, 170–172, 177–178 importance of personal experience 51–54, 163, 227–229 key concepts and terminology xviii–xx, 164–168 methodology applied to TA studies 54–58, 181–183 related to Cartesian dualism 168–170

260 Index

photographs narrative voice and interpretation 128–134 numbers taken at Big Banana 146, 224–225 personal collections as souvenirs 104, 211, 221 as single-frame narratives 96 typical composition at TAs, visitor behaviour 128, 212–213 pioneer myth 160, 196, 208, 227 Pioneers’ Cemetery, Uralla 172–177, 228 places, image construction and users 92–95, 105–106 planning future developments for Big Banana site 163 importance and design of TA content 47–48, 64–66 lack of, for small and medium-sized TAs 76, 77 of visitor experience 197–198 podcasts 113 politics impacts of tourism development 37 involved in heritage site interpretation 136–137, 196 related to popular culture xvii see also governments popular culture associated with tourist/traveller distinction 7–8, 215–216 criminals as heroes 191 increasing sophistication 121–122, 219 jokes and irony xvi, 91–92, 214 local and everyday practices xvii population, structural changes 67–68 positivist approaches contrasted with phenomenology xix–xx, 52, 165 verification of grand narratives 30–31 power maintenance of status quo 82 political/social aspects in TA narratives 28–29, 135, 137

primary attractions 15, 22 public funding 69–70, 194 purpose-built TAs feasibility studies 65 social and environmental impacts 35–36, 37 quadruple bottom-line thinking 33, 38–40, 73 quality assurance 60, 68, 75–76 Queensland, popular association with low culture 90, 91, 143–144 racism in texts 142, 154 recreational pursuits 71 reduction, phenomenological see bracketing, in phenomenology religious attractions, revenue generation 34, 80 retrospection, in phenomenology 56, 165–166 revenue generation necessity in attraction management 34, 78 sources and methods 78–81 Richards, G., critique of Leiper’s TA system 21–22 rock art Aboriginal cave paintings 139, 152, 201–202 graffiti 50, 198–200, 201–202 Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland 25 Rough Guides (book series) 143–144, 218 Saukko, P. xx–xxi, 55–56 Seamon, D. on learning and practices in phenomenological triad 166, 168 rationale and qualities of phenomenology xix–xx, 165 secondary attractions 15 shops advertising imagery, Uralla bookshops 118 Big Banana gift shop 213, 221–223

Index 261

‘quaint’ description, Coffs Harbour article 107–108 as source of revenue 79, 81 signage, at tourist attractions 49–50, 172, 176, 179, 202 Simpsons, The (TV series) 47, 96, 214 single-frame narratives 95–97, 120 skills, required for successful management 47, 58, 147 slogans 105–106, 121, 130, 180 social construction of attractions (Rojek) 23 social media 87, 123–124, 210 souvenirs 215–218, 220, 221–223 sponsorship funding 81 stakeholders, multiple expectations of 73–74 statue of Thunderbolt analysis of visitor experience 193–196 portrayal in texts 99, 151 statues, ideological significance 90, 127, 148 stories definition as element of TA narrative 26, 27–28 fictional, and theme park construction 111–112 multiple meanings of 210 subjectivity awareness of influence on research xx, 54 in reading of texts and signs 30 use of character narration (narrative voice) 122–124 value in tourism studies xii, 53 success factors 39, 41–46, 47–48, 74 suspension of disbelief 187, 197, 202, 203, 208 sustainability conflicts with tourism development 35 resource creation and maintenance 64, 66 synchronic elements of narratives 115–116, 119, 120, 122

Tamara (play) 196–197 terra nullius assumption 118, 125, 140, 195 touristic application 155, 157, 224 tertiary attractions 15 texts definition as element of TA narrative 24, 26, 27–28, 85 interpretations and ambiguity 29–30, 200–201 used in destination image synthesis 92–95 theatrical performances 187, 196–197 theme parks 7, 47, 112, 197–198, 222 third person narrative see external narrative voice Thunderbolt, Captain (Frederick Ward) character and family 126–127, 190 grave 139, 141, 172, 174–177, 189–190 historical facts xiv, 50, 87, 99 information for tourists 49–50, 86–87, 97–102, 188–192, 204–207 myths and focalisation of accounts 127–128, 139–143, 151–153, 154–155, 160 statue of 99, 151, 193–196 synchronic narrative elements in publications 116–120 Thunderbolt’s rock 49–50, 198–202 tourism constructive and deconstructive study approaches xiii–xiv postmodern attitudes xvi, 120, 122, 186, 225 scope and focus of research 3–4, 33, 94–95, 181–183, 229–230 sustainability 35 tourist angst experienced during TA visits 175 interactions with travel writing/ images 112, 113, 145–146, 152, 220 search for meaning and reality 51, 108

262 Index

shown in different attitudes to photography 128, 213 traveller/tourist dichotomy 8, 9 tourist attractions (TAs) categories and attributes 9–14 definitions of 4–5, 14–15, 16–17, 24, 31–32 management paradox 33, 34–38, 39, 81 structuralist model (Leiper, and adaptations) 20–26, 86–87 temporal and spatial dimensions 193–196, 202 transformation in meaning of souvenirs over time 218 model of tourism elements 19–20 transit texts (markers) 21, 86–87, 97–98, 119 transport, infrastructure development 40 travel writing Eurocentric/Western perspective 114 narrative voice 123–124 pre-travel consumption 112–113 reinforcing traveller/tourist dichotomy 144–146, 203 travellers etymology and connotations 7–8, 98 photography strategies 128 UNWTO classification 5, 6, 7 treasure, as narrative hook 190, 191

town history, brochure texts 50, 117–118, 124–125 use of Thunderbolt as symbol 50, 160, 176–177 USA (United States of America) Big Things 160 tourism industry and attractions 7, 67, 148

uniqueness local produce and distinctiveness 40–41 over-emphasis, national agendas 149 as requirement for success 41, 65, 112 Uralla Historical Society museum and gallery 204–207 plaque on Thunderbolt’s grave 141, 175 Uralla, NSW location 89–90 tourist information sources 99–102, 188–192

Walker, Constable A.B. 50, 142, 195–196, 205 Wallabies (rugby union team) 108, 109, 132 Ward, Frederick see Thunderbolt, Captain websites as generating texts 107 official Uralla tourism site 100–101, 102, 190 ‘white elephants’ see failure

validity of alternative Thunderbolt accounts 190, 204, 207 multiple nature in different methodologies xx–xxi van Manen, M. description of phenomenological orientations 170, 178 lifeworld themes (existentials) 57 suggested methods for phenomenology 56 systematic and self-critical nature of phenomenology xx Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Service (VAQAS) 76 visitor attractions (VAs), meaning and use of term 5–8 Visitor Information Centres (VIC) Coffs Harbour 121 Uralla 50, 100–101, 188–192 visitor number projections, overoptimism 47