Statement to the Wageningen Research Seminar from

Graham M. S. Dann

 

(To be taken in conjunction with the paper “Old and New Media of the ‘Language of Tourism’: Crises of Credibility and Research Opportunities”

 

How adequate is your paradigmatic approach for tourism, when tourism is developing from a predominantly Western phenomenon to a globalised blend of western and non-western cultures and structures

 

Do your tourism studies contribute to sociological theoretical advancement?

 

It has already been shown that the “language of tourism” paradigm is implicitly contained in those four major “theories” of tourism that respectively deal with authenticity (MacCannell; Graburn), strangerhood (Cohen), play (Urry) and conflict (Bruner; Hollinshead). However, not only are their enduring insights embedded in the western discourse of the 1980s and 1990s; they may additionally be discovered in much earlier sociological prototypes, such as the perspectives of Durkheim, Marx, Schutz and Simmel, a rhetoric that is cumulatively framed within the western political ideology of modernity. Consequently, it was inevitable that “the language of tourism” would also assume the modernistic qualities of monologue and social control that pervaded the industrial society of that time and which in some respects are also evident today. This monological, unilateral communication from western senders (tour operators) to western receivers (tourists) in the majority of mass tourism generating countries still continues in the traditional media of “the language of tourism”, leaving little or no voice for the demanding visitor or the visited. This quasi-silent situation of dependency on the tourism supplier is reinforced by coterminous crises of credibility that affect these media, crises that become consolidated with the linguistic processes of gendering, othering, hyperbole and jargon.

Even so, beginning with word-of-mouth, and its electronic equivalent, Word-of-Web, it is clear that the foregoing scenario is at present rapidly undergoing substantial change. Not only is the tourist now better able to answer back, but also destination people have seemingly greater say in deciding whether or not to accept tourism and, if so, what type and how it should be promoted. Attention thus shifts from the time-cast printed word of guidebooks and travel writing to their mutable and constantly updated Internet equivalents in order to ascertain the extent to which tourists and tourees are beginning to assume more and more power over a situation where they previously enjoyed little autonomy. Nevertheless, before such a case can be fully demonstrated, it has to be established whether or not the crises of credibility observed for the traditional media of “the language of tourism” carry over into electronic channels of communication. It is by conducting a critique of this nature that “the language of tourism” paradigm may have to be substantially modified as it moves from monologue to dialogue and trialogue.

At the same time, such a transformative exercise surely raises questions about the need for change in those theories of tourism from which “the language of tourism” emerged. In other words, the following paradox needs to be confronted: Are the four major theories of tourism so perennial in nature that they solely relate to a reality that is similarly recurring and essential? If the answer is yes, have tourism studies reached a theoretical cul-de-sac? If the answer is no, why have there been so few successful attempts to replace or modify the foundation on which tourism studies rest? Whatever the response to this dilemma, precisely because it refers to an applied field within the discipline of sociology, there must surely be implications for sociological theory writ large.