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MIT O AUTENTINOSTI?

alibi the general tendency of a culture to convert history into nature. The task of the
semiotician is to penetrate the alibi and identify the signs. (Barthes, Elements of Semioloogy,,
1967, p. 41; as cited (qtd.) in Culler, The Semiotics of Tourism, 1990)

As MacCannell points out, the touristic codean
understanding of the world articulated by the moral injunctions
which drive the tourist onis the most powerful and widespread
modern consensus, yet the effect of these shared values is not to
create solidarity within the international community of tourists
but hostility, as each wishes the other tourists were not there.
The idea of a consensus which sets members of the group against
one another is a remarkable feature of modernity which demands
further analysis. (Culler, 1990)

As MacCannell points out, the touristic codean
understanding of the world articulated by the moral injunctions
which drive the tourist onis the most powerful and widespread
modern consensus, yet the effect of these shared values is not to
create solidarity within the international community of tourists
but hostility, as each wishes the other tourists were not there.
The idea of a consensus which sets members of the group against
one another is a remarkable feature of modernity which demands
further analysis. (Culler, 1990:5) The Medterranean as it once was (VS)

Moreover, the sight/marker relation in the sign structure of
the touristic attraction is responsible for the phenomenon that
Boorstin and others deplore when they complain that the
American tourist in Japan looks less for what is Japanese than
for what is Japanesey.

The authentic is not something unmarked or
undifferentiated; authenticity is a sign relation. Even the sights in
which the most snobbish tourists take pleasure are not unmarked;
they have become for these tourists the real Japan by a process
of semiotic articulation, only their markers are more recondite and less tacky than the plastic
reproductions or souvenirs of the
most famous sights.

The paradox, the dilemma of authenticity, is
that to be experienced as authentic it must be marked as
authentic, but when it is marked as authentic it is mediated, a
sign of itself, and hence lacks the authenticity of what is truly
unspoiled, untouched by mediating cultural codes. We want our
souvenirs to be labeled authentic native crafts produced by
certified natives using guaranteed original materials and archaic
techniques (rather than, say, Made in Taiwan), but such
markers are put there for tourists, to certify touristic objects. The
authentic sight requires markers, but our notion of the authentic is the unmarked.

MacCannell notes that analysis of the touristic attraction demonstrates the interchangeability
of signifier and signified: the Statue of Liberty, originally a markera sign welcoming
travelers to New Yorkhas become a sight; but then as a celebrated tourist attraction it has
become at another level a marker, used on posters and travel displays as a marker for the
United States as a country for tourism.

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The semiotics of tourism
Theorising on tourism has been done within a variety of frameworks, among them
neo-Marxism (MacCannell) and semiotics (Guller, Urry and Harkin). It is less interesting
to present a list of possible motives for tourist behaviour (such as nostalgia, the
quest for the unknown, breaking the daily routine, rediscovery of the self, etc.5) than
to inquire into some of its formal, systematic aspects. Recognising that there are several
different types of tourists or 'modes' of tourist exprience (cf. Cohen 1979: 183),
it might be possible to identify some of these formai aspects. In this respect we follow
some leads of Michael Harkin's very interesting semiotic approach (Harkin 1995).
From a semiotic perspective one can say that the tourist exprience is initially
marked by an 'anxiety about authenticity' (ibid. 653). Tourists expect a kind of credibility
and genuineness about the objects, places and people they visit; they expect the
latter to be contained in a System Vhereby a set of signs marks the object as authentic',
so that their attention can be focused. The tourists can thus be given an orientation
vis--vis their own framework of familiarity related to their 'centre', i.e. their own
society. In other words, the alterity of the other landscape or the other people should
be appropriated (ibid. 655). This implies a hegemonie strategy, domesticating the
exotic (ibid. 656). This semiotic enterprise, of course heavily supported by photography
(see below), is vidence of the search of tourists for predictability in the new context
of meaning. Culture diffrence as such is not problematic in such a scheme, but it
should be marked clearly. The tourists expect such a minimal semiotic frame wherever
they go.
(JON ABBINK Tourism and its discontents.
Suri-tourist encounters insouthern Ethiopia)

The authentic sight requires markers, but our notion of the authentic is the unmarked...
The authenticity the tourist seeks is at one level an escape from the code, but this
escape itself is coded in turn, for the authentic must be marked to be constituted as
authentic (Culler, The Semiotics of Tourism, 1990:8-9)

7 worst tourism slogans
Nury Vittachi: http://archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=140696



I once visited Indonesia and saw a massive tourism slogan in bright lights on a rooftop: "Visit Jakarta." The sign
was IN Jakarta, so everyone who saw it had either: (a) already complied, or (b) already lived there. Well done,
guys.
People always have trouble creating intelligent tourism campaigns. Andalucia has a slogan: "Andalucia. There's
only one."
This is short and neat, but it could apply to any location.
"Hell. There's only one."
"Malaysia's Kundang Landfill. There's only one."
"My toilet. There's only one."
See what I mean? Also, it's too easy for graffiti artists (like me) to add to.
"Andalucia. There's only one. Thank God."
A country which makes a similar mistake is New Zealand, which uses the slogan
"100 Percent Pure New Zealand."
I mean, Satan could use the same line:
"Hell. 100 Percent Pure Hell."
Journalists attending the European Union summit recently were handed black T-shirts bearing the slogan: "I feel
Slovenia."
I think most people mis-read it as "I feel slovenly." Journalists (a species which tends to dress badly) probably
thought it was aimed at them.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board used to use: "Hong Kong will take your breath away."
Until scientists discovered that it was true. There was so much air-pollution that residents were told to go to
neighbouring Macau every time they wanted to take a deep breath.
Bangladesh used to have an official slogan saying: "Come to Bangladesh before the tourists." It sounded like a
warning: "When you get here you won't find any other visitors and you'll think: Uh-oh. Why am I the only person
here? What do they know that I don't?"
Ireland used to have a slogan which said: "The Island of Memories."
Since Ireland recently went horribly broke after several years as one of the most successful economies in Europe,
this is definitely a good time to revive that slogan, but for the residents, rather than the tourists.
For a long time, the Spanish Tourist Board had a slogan which said:
"Smile! You are in Spain!" This was presumably aimed at unsmiling visitors who stumble around the world and
are never really quite sure which country they are in. (There are quite a few of us around.)
The best "regional" slogan ever, in my book, is "Keep Austin Weird" from a town of that name in Texas.
A librarian named Red Wassenich came out with that phrase spontaneously in a phone call to the local radio
station. What he meant was that his town, which is full of small, independent businesses, differed from other
towns, which were full of boring chain-stores like 7-Eleven and McDonalds and Starbucks. The town promptly
adopted it as its official slogan.
I applaud Austin's way of thinking -- especially since I live in Asia, a place where small, independent businesses
are being driven out of business at astonishing speed by boring chain-stores such as 7-Eleven and McDonalds
and Starbucks.
So readers, skip the franchise stores and buy a rice lunchbox at your local caf today.
Keep Asia Weird.
For more welcoming slogans visit our columnist at: www.vittachi.com.

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