Remodelling a changing language of tourism: from monologue to dialogue and trialogue

              © PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural. ISSN 1695-7121
Vol. 10 Nº 4. Special Issue. págs. 59-70. 2012
www.pasosonline.org
Remodelling a changing language of tourism:
from monologue to dialogue and trialogue¹
Graham M. S. Danni
Finnmark University College (Norway)
i E-mail: dann_graham@yahoo.co.uk
Abstract: When the “language of tourism” was initially articulated, tourism formed part of the modernist project, wherein
its unilateral, monological discourse was framed within the parameters of social control. However, there is evidence today
that it has now been transformed on account of the digitalised communication of the Internet. Indeed, there is currently a
more egalitarian, postmodern ethos of dialogue, or even trialogue, between the key players of tourism: the industry, the
tourist and the touree. Consequently, a new heuristic framework becomes necessary, one that refl ects the changes that are
rapidly occurring. With examples, a cell-by-cell approach is adopted in three constituent models which together illustrate a
shifting paradigm in terms of the media that are now open to greater democratisation.
Keywords: language of tourism; monologue; modernism; dialogue; trialogue; (re)modelling
Título: El cambiante lenguaje del turismo: del monólogo al diálogo y al triálogo
Resumen: Cuando empezó a desarrollarse el “lenguaje del turismo”, el turismo formaba parte del proyecto “modernista”,
cuyo discurso unilateral y monológico había surgido bajo parámetros de control social. En la actualidad, sin embargo,
tenemos pruebas de que este discurso ha sufrido una transformación, debido a la difusión de la comunicación digital en
Internet. En efecto, existe hoy un espíritu “postmoderno”, más igualitario, abierto al diálogo e incluso al “triálogo” entre los
principales interlocutores del turismo: la industria del turismo, el turista y la comunidad receptora. Por esta razón, resulta
necesaria una nueva perspectiva heurística, que refl eje los cambios en tan rápida evolución. A continuación, se abordará
un análisis sistemático de tres modelos constitutivos, que ilustran conjuntamente el paradigma cambiante de los medios de
comunicación, hoy abiertos a la mayor democratización.
Palabras clave: lenguaje del turismo, monólogo, modernismo, diálogo, triálogo, remodelación
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Remodelling a changing language of tourism...
ISSN 1695-7121
60
Introduction: Changes that have occurred within
tourism and the societies from which it is gener-ated
At the time when The Language of Tourism fi rst ap-peared
in the mid-1990s (Dann, 1996) much of the West,
whence the majority of international tourism originated,
was still under the political infl uence of a prevailing mod-ernist
ideology. Whether they were Republican or Dem-ocrat,
Conservative or Labour, Christian Democrat or
Communist, many of these tourism-generating societies
were rationally organised along managerial lines. Statis-tical
targets were typically set for health, education, the
economy, and so on, to the extent that almost every facet
of human existence became centralised under the over-arching
power of the State or, in the case of the European
Union, the Super-state. In spite of the corresponding lip
service rhetoric of a “me too” individualism associated
with Thatcherism and Reaganomics, and a few cosmetic
changes in partisan thinking, such a top-down monologi-cal
situation, though arguably to a lesser extent, in some
respects still continues today.
Tourism, too, tended to be structured in a similar mod-ernist
fashion by defi ning it as an industry in the form
of self-fulfi lling prophecy. Following its initial emergence
in the wake of the supreme rationalist project of the In-dustrial
Revolution, it became a logical escape valve for
workers who were transported to preselected locations
by trains travelling in straight lines as the shortest dis-tance
between two points. It was thus no coincidence to
fi nd Thomas Cook appearing at this juncture as the fi rst
provider of factory- to-wholesome destination-and-back
excursions for the proletariat (Brendon, 1991). Nor was
it surprising to discover that his underpinning modernist
ideology continued with the same evangelical fervour as a
logo-centric legacy (Wang, 2000) for over a century in the
package tour, holiday camp and Club Méditerranée under
the believed, though unsubstantiated pretext of a great-er
democratisation of tourism. Block bookings, charter
fl ights, standardised all-inclusive resorts, McDonaldiza-tion
(Ritzer, 1993) and Disneyfi cation (Fjellman, 1992)
constituted the order of the day, and their orders were in
turn issued by tour operators and their uniformed holiday
representatives.
Under such a quasi-dictatorial, total institutional sys-tem,
mass tourism proliferated, and with it came its own
version of monological communication (Dann, 2001a).
Here there was a unilateral, unidirectional conveying
of messages from a typically anonymous transmitter,
thought to possess a monopoly on truth, to a correspond-ingly
faceless and homogeneous public, through a variety
of publicity vehicles at every stage of the vacation experi-ence
(pre-trip, on-trip and post-trip). There was precious
little turn taking or turn signalling, (as would be evident
in a discussion or telephone conversation, for example),
hardly any feedback, and scant interaction between send-er
and receiver. It was thus an asymmetrical process in
which an often unidentifi ed persuader provided selective
information for viewers or listeners cast in the passive
mode of persons with enviable wants, (rather than needs).
The largely promotional text was an euphoric, ideologi-cally
laden, cliché ridden discourse (Dann, 2001b), whose
prophetic utterances became tautologically fulfi lled. Just
as touristic interactions could be considered as associa-tions
of distrust between persons of wealth encounter-ing
individuals with knowledge (van den Berghe, 1994),
once a third player entered the scene – the tourism in-dustry
– both power and affl uence became concentrated
in its hands. It was no doubt for this reason that Hol-linshead
and Jamal (2001: 64) spoke of tourism as bol-stering
“restrictive, monological and heavily capitalised
worldviews which tend[ed] to help concretise pseudo-colo-nialist,
urban-industrial and pungently North-Atlantic /
Judaeo-Christian certitudes upon alterity.” Whatever the
medium, whether written, auditory, visual, or a combina-tion
of all three, the same monological quality was in evi-dence.
Depending on the channel, one party wrote, spoke
or performed; the other respectively read, listened or ob-served.
In those days, the ex cathedra pronouncements of
the tourism industry were imparted from on high without
fear of challenge, safe in the knowledge that there was a
negligible chance of the addressee answering back.
However, there are now many signs on the horizon
that such a monological situation has begun to change, if
indeed it has not already been partially transformed and
sociologically theorised (Denzin, 1986). The modernist
project, while still mainly the preserve of target-driven
politicians and dictators, has given way to a postmod-ern
ethos of the people that rejects authoritarianism and
rigid scientifi c distinctions based ideologically on capital-ist,
positivist, functionalist and consensual hierarchies
of class, gender and age, as many a despot has recently
learnt to his cost in such countries as Egypt and Libya, for
instance. In this new topsy-turvy, de-differentiated world
of the age of the image, the simulacrum has transformed
reality into hyper-reality (Baudrillard, 1983) and the re-cent
language sciences and games of postmodern commu-nication
of the media (Lyotard, 1984) have undermined
the tyranny of the earlier meta-narrative of the natural
sciences speaking as an infallible, predictable discourse
that promised illusory freedom and unity of knowledge.
Here the distinction between the developing or developed
world becomes fuzzy as the modern “other” becomes a
postmodern “ex-primitive” (MacCannell, 1992). Here also
the previous verticality of knowledge is being, or has been,
substituted by horizontal egalitarianism, and the pro-verbial
(hu)-man-in-the-street is at last able to have his
or her say. This replacing of political voicelessness with
voice has now reached the world of info-entertainment.
In the UK, for example, the BBC television consumer
programme, Watchdog, has been broadcasting for over 30
years, and elsewhere on that network there are now, more
than ever, greater opportunities for on-air viewer and citi-zen
journalist, image-fi lled, blog-like reactions to the un-balanced,
pseudo-professional coverage of television news
(e.g., Newswatch) as well as the exposure of bias in drama
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and documentary programmes (e.g., Points of View), with
simultaneous responses from producers to their critics.
Within the last fi fteen years, and thanks to the ad-vent
of the Internet, this electronic medium of worldwide
communication has ensured that it has become a key
location for the pleas of consumers to be heard. Compa-nies,
in turn, have the opportunity of responding to their
dissatisfi ed clients, and the latter can provide additional
feedback as to how their complaints have been addressed.
All this verbal to-ing and fro-ing is moreover conducted
in the public domain, so that those similarly affl icted can
join in the discussion with accounts of their own related
experiences.
As regards tourism and how it is handled by television
can be gauged from the previously mentioned Watchdog
programme. Here issues are often taken up on behalf of
vacationers and those responsible (e.g., tour operators,
airlines) are confronted on a live show about the non-ful-fi
lment of their promises. Typically, matters such as the
inadequate pitch of plane seats, the misrepresentation of
a hotel by a brochure, unanticipated construction work at
a resort, food poisoning, etc. are highlighted. Often these
vignettes of disappointment and frustration are accompa-nied
by consumer video and mobile phone coverage of the
alleged service failures with voiceovers by the aggrieved
parties. TV holiday shows, too, incorporate some of this
Schadenfreude material into their popular transmissions,
again using video footage supplied by the customer. In-deed,
tourists are positively encouraged to take camcord-ers,
cameras and mobile phones with them on their trips,
(sometimes the equipment is supplied by the television
station), if only to provide photographic evidence of their
disenchantment.
In relation to the Internet, and for the past decade and
a half (Buhalis and Law, 2008), there have been several
avenues for word-of-mouth to assume the digital features
of “Word-of-Web” (or perhaps, more appropriately, “word-of-
mouse”). Here the voice of satisfaction (“word-of-wish”)
can be registered, as also that of dissatisfaction (“word-of-whinge”).
The channels for such communication are also
quite varied, ranging from e-guidebooks (e.g., the chat-rooms
and travel forums provided by the likes of Lonely
Planet (2004, 2011) and Rough Guides (2004, 2011)) to
general (e.g., Planet Feedback (2011) (“complaint”, “com-pliment”
“question”, “suggestion” of most consumer areas,
but also inclusive of hotels, resorts, airlines, airports,
travel agencies and cruise lines) and Complain Domain
(2011) (featuring 19 countries and 7 online solicitors), or
specifi c (e.g., Holiday Travel Watch (2011) (with guide-lines
on how to “prepare” (pre-trip), “take action” (on-trip)
and “resolve” (post-trip), as well as “Crow’s Nest”
for complaints, “Calling Card” to obtain assistance while
overseas and “Ceeviews” with comments), Holiday Com-plaints
(2011) (dealing with initiated complaints; free
initial advice and thereafter legal drafting in order to ob-tain
“breakthroughs”), complaint sites that implicitly or
explicitly include holidays in their list of grudges.
There are additionally plenty of online locations that
feature travel diaries or travel “blogs”, (a subset of fre-quently
updated accounts, e.g., business blogs, political
blogs), wherein individuals with similar interests can
communicate with one another (Dann and Liebman Par-rinello,
2007). In this instance, the “travel(bl)og” is a sort
of amateur, interpersonal e-travelogue using such sites
as My Trip Journal (2011), (to capture memories, explore
the world, plot journeys, post stories, with maps and pho-tos),
Travel Pod (2011) (the Web’s original travelblog with
“quick links” to destinations, guided tours, playing travel-ler
IQ challenge and exchanging tips in forums; as well
as “partners”, e.g., cheap fl ights, cruise reviews and tips
on travel with children), and I GoUGo (2011) (with over
1 million reviews and photos and 3 million+ world trav-ellers,
relating to destinations, hotels, photos and over 1
million points of interest). However, perhaps the most in-fl
uential of all these sites is Trip Advisor (2011) (which
helps people “plan the perfect trip” by identifying fl ights,
restaurants, things to do, cruises, holiday rentals, photos
and forums). The last all important category relates to
destinations, along with accommodation and restaurants,
as well as to air travel, cruises, family travel, timeshares,
outdoor travel, and other Trip Advisor causes. This no
holds barred site, (which attracts some 40 million users
per month to its website, thereby making it “the largest
and most powerful travel guide in the world” (Channel 4,
2011), can make many an hotelier extremely nervous and
occasionally quite ill, on account of its candid evaluations
and reviews, which, like its print media counterpart, can
promote or demote. Since all these interactive channels
provide collective evidence of the greater democratisation
of the language of tourism, surely the time is now ripe
for providing updated models that incorporate the change
from one-way to two-way and three-way communication
between the tourist industry, the tourist and the touree,
(the last term being coined by van den Berghe (1994).
At this point, it should also be mentioned that, just as
such a framework can help fi ll a theoretical void, so too
can it establish an agenda for future empirical investiga-tions.
Indeed, it can act as a storehouse for the growing
evidence which supports the contention that the adequate
responses of businesses, (including travel companies), to
customer grievances can achieve higher levels of satisfac-tion
than if there were no complaint in the fi rst place (e.g.,
Tyrell / Woods, 2004). It can also encourage contributions
to domains where there is otherwise little research, and
extend related inquiries to areas where even less atten-tion
has been paid (Lee / Hu, 2004; Schoefer / Enew, 2004;
Shea / Enghagen / Khullar, 2004). Here one thinks of the
vast amounts of unanalysed emails, digital photographs
and text messages that tourists send to one another or
which they transmit to potential tourists in the form of
friends and relatives.
However, and in spite of the impressive gains made
through online communication, it is still a two tier system
with haves and have not’s. Due to such inequalities as
differences in access, broadband speed and expense, there
is inevitably a “digital divide” that roughly follows the
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graduate levels would also fall into this category. An
example of the industry addressing tourees in a similar
monological fashion (cell 7) is the a priori survey. Here a
checklist of industry identifi ed, close-ended questions is
imposed on respondents without giving them the a pos-teriori
opportunity to reply in their own open-ended, self-defi
ned terms (ipsissima verba) to issues that they, rather
than the researchers, consider to be important.
However, it is cell 4, (where the industry speaks to
tourists), that comprises the most familiar and frequent
occurrences of monologue. Here the traditional media of
“the language of tourism” are employed, (i.e., print, audio
and visual media, either singly or in combination), without
any feedback from the targeted audience. Brochures, for
example, direct verbal and pictorial messages to potential
tourists – images that are predominantly supply-driven
and featuring the pull factor attributes of destinations se-lected
by tour operators. Such one-way communication,
(that can also be found in advertisements, travelogues,
videos, etc.), is facilitated by other allied properties of
“the language of tourism” – tautology, euphoria, sender
anonymity and the assumption of receiver homogeneity
(Dann, 1996). All such monologue forms part-and-parcel
of the modernist project.
An example of tourist-industry monological com-munication
(cell 2) lies in the domain of non-publicised
complaints where visitors vent their feelings orally upon
tourism personnel working in various sectors of the in-dustry
ranging from transportation to entertainment and
hospitality, without allowing signifi cant response to rem-edy
the situation. Replies to hotel guest questionnaires,
where there is no industry feedback to the visitor, rep-contours
of centre and periphery (Minghetti and Buhalis,
2010) and, in some cases, social class.
Remodelling the language of tourism
Model 1: The language of tourism as monologue
In order to become aware of these opportunities for
exploring dialogue and trialogue in “the language of tour-ism”,
as also to establish their theoretical underpinning,
it is necessary to provide a consecutive series of three
models that encapsulates the transition from monologue
to more open forms of communication.
It can be seen from table 1 that here there are nine in-stances
of monological communication. They are predicat-ed
on three types of participants addressing themselves
and each other singly, without response or signifi cant
feedback. Hence the direction of such messages is top-down
from sender (arranged horizontally) to addressee
(positioned vertically). Examples of each type of discourse
contained in the nine possible cells are intended as illus-trations
that are not claimed to be either exhaustive or
comprehensive. A brief cell-by-cell commentary follows,
one that describes the various situations. The limitations
of each implicitly suggest a potential for change.
Cell 1 is where the industry talks to itself. An instance
of this type of discourse is in-house training. Here the em-phasis
is on information and how facts are passed down
from management gurus having the necessary knowledge
and experience to novices lacking such essential require-ments.
Teaching and research programmes standardized
by the likes of the World Tourism Organisation and de-signed
for tourism students at the graduate and under-
Table 1: The Language of Tourism as Monologue
S E N D E R
ADDRESSEE INDUSTRY TOURISTS TOUREES
INDUSTRY (1)
In-house training sessions;
Standardized tourism degree
programmes
(2)
Complaints;
Guest questionnaires;
Servqual inquiries
(3)
Local newspapers
and magazines;
Local radio and
television
TOURISTS (4)
Traditional media of the
language of
tourism:
e.g., brochures,
guidebooks,
travelogues
(5)
Lectures;
Slide shows
(6)
Unofficial notices;
Graffiti
TOUREES (7)
A priori surveys
(8)
Orders
(9)
Instructions
resent the written analogue to
this type of unilateral commu-nication,
as are the responses
to those “servqual” (service
quality) inquiries (Weiermair
and Fuchs, 1999) that purport
to measure differences be-tween
expectation and reality
without doing anything suffi -
cient to remedy the resulting
dissatisfaction. Here, even
though the initiative has been
taken by the industry, atten-tion
focuses on the unheeded
discourse of the consumer.
Monological tourist-to-tourist
messages (cell 5) are
more in evidence when the ad-dressee
is a potential tourist,
ready to be persuaded by the
authoritative discourse of the
sender (actual tourist). Per-sons
who attend the lectures
of returning travellers, (in the
tradition of those Victorian
audiences who listened in po-
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lite silence to the exploits of imperial explorers sponsored
by prestigious scientifi c societies), illustrate the situation,
as do their contemporary equivalents who attend the
uninterrupted slideshows of their unchallenged, though
knowledgeable and experienced, friends and relatives,
thereby allowing the latter to gain status points at the ex-pense
of the former. Of course, these types of communica-tion
may not be entirely monological, particularly where
their imaginative speakers encourage debate. However, if
they are structured more formally in the framework of a
prepared or even spontaneous question and answer ses-sion,
the direction of communication is still vertical from
sender to addressee without much opportunity for the lat-ter
to participate.
Cell 8, tourist-touree monologue, is typifi ed by tour-ists
issuing orders to members of the host population.
Here such asymmetrical communication depends on an
assumed role of super-ordination in the tourist and a cor-responding
imputed role of sub-ordination in the touree,
which together indicate expected compliance from the lat-ter.
Where the host also forms part of the tourism indus-try,
this type of communication is of the cell 2 variety,
(cf. Mayo and Jarvis, 1981 for an example of a belliger-ent
hotel guest shouting commands at a bar tender). Only
where it extends to residents more generally, is it of the
cell 8 variety.
Turning to touree-initiated monologue, cell 3 com-prises
those cases where the visited address the industry.
Typical media for such communication are the local press
and radio call-in programmes, particularly where mem-bers
of the host society are well educated and articulate
and where their informed observations are frequently met
with disdainful sullen silence from the tourism authori-ties.
Cell 6 relates to touree-tourist monologue. An example
of such communication is the unoffi cial notice. This is a
written, and sometimes illustrated message that does not
necessarily emanate from the industry (cf. Dann, 2003),
but rather from members of the host community. Like
tourism notices (cell 4), however, it can range from a sim-ple
request, for example, “please do not park in front of
these gates” to a more threatening order, (e.g., “penalty
for improper use £1,000), the main difference being that
the implied sanction of the former lacks the authority of
the latter. Graffi ti also constitute an instance of touree-tourist
monologue, where typically a message denotes ex-tremely
unwelcome attitudes towards visitors (e.g., ‘Yan-kees,
go home!’). Yet of this rarely studied unobtrusive
measure, it is diffi cult to think of any cases where tourists
have answered back (Kilroy, 1983) by inscribing their own
“writings on the wall” as similarly insulting counter-mes-sages.
That is why the nature of this type of communica-tion
is essentially monological.
Finally, cell 9 relates to touree-touree monologue.
Here an example is the unidirectional instructions that
residents leave for one another as they go about their
daily lives. Like the unoffi cial notices of cell 6, these mes-sages
do not have the offi cial backing of the industry.
Model 2: The language of tourism as dialogue
Here in model 2 (Table 2) it is evident that the major
difference between dialogue and monologue is that the
three key players of the industry, tourist and touree, in-stead
of being considered separately and solely as either
senders or addressees, are now regarded as combining
both roles, if not simultaneously, then at least consecu-tively.
As a result, and because it is not always possible
to identify the initiator of the communication, it means
that, in table 2, three of the former nine cells from table
1 are reiterated, i.e., cells 2, 3 and 6 respectively repeat
information contained in cells 4, 7 and 8. For that reason,
illustrative examples and commentary are correspond-ingly
reduced.
First there are the instances of internal dialogue – the
industry, tourists and tourees communicating as both
sender and addressee among themselves.
In cell 1, where message and response are limited to
the industry, increased egalitarianism can lead to con-versations
among equals, as in the brainstorming associ-ated
with advertising campaigns, the designing of logos,
branding exercises and discussions of the results of cus-tomer
surveys. True, there has been relatively little aca-demic
research of such dialogue, (apart from occasional
mentions in such texts as Morgan and Pritchard, (2000)),
but missed opportunities do not render the topic any less
important.
When it comes, in cell 5, to tourists “talking” to fel-low
tourists (e.g., via e-mails, “blogs”, word-of-mouth), it
is important to acknowledge that the sort of dialogue that
takes place between equals can occur in any of the follow-ing
stages of a holiday:
 Pre-trip: potential tourists consult actual tourists who
have already experienced a given destination. A good
example would be Cruises. Co. UK (2011). According
to its website, with approximately 21,000 members in
its “all aboard” forum, future passengers can get in
touch with persons going on the same ship as them-selves
as well as compare notes about previous voy-ages.
 On-trip: actual tourists communicate with fellow trav-ellers;
such tourists speak to friends and relatives
back home, e.g., by sending digital photos, e-mails and
text messages. The recipients, in turn, can become po-tential
or actual tourists, or, in cases where the mes-sages
are indicative of dissatisfaction, may be dissuad-ed
from travelling to a particular place.
 Post-trip: actual tourists give accounts of their experi-ences
to friends and relatives (cf., on-trip above).
There is thus a constant dialogue across the three
timeframes, a process that is as iterative and circular
as the phenomenon of tourism itself. To the channels
of communication previously identifi ed from cells 2 and
4, can be added inter alia the contents of conversations
(word-of-mouth). A sub-set of the latter comprises “over-heards”,
picked up by “systematic lurking” (Dann, Nash
and Pearce, 1988: 28) and often on location. There are also
confessions, more intimate one-to-one conversations that
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are often conducted between strangers (e.g., in an airport,
on a plane). Here reciprocal anonymity, and occasionally
common fear of fl ying or mutual love of alcohol, often en-courages
the uninhibited sharing of secrets, thereby pos-sibly
contributing to greater discourse validity than if the
two parties are merely responding to researcher-driven
items on a questionnaire. Finally, cell 5 comprises what
have been called “virtual tourist communities” (Wang, Yu
and Fesenmaier, 2002). As the name suggests, these are
online tourist communities that serve the consumer needs
for communication, information and entertainment, by
supplying travel information, tips, transactions, relation-ships
and even possible travel companions. Members are
connected via the four basic needs of interests, relation-ships,
fantasy and transaction. By way of summarising
the foregoing analysis, Wang et al (2002: 416) conclude:
‘it is clear, however, that because of the experiential na-ture
of tourism, virtual tourism communities will provide
a substantial foundation with which to foster communica-tion
among and between travelers and the industry.’
Cell 9, where tourees communicate among themselves,
has received a certain amount of attention from scholars,
especially in academic research into tourism’s impact on
destination communities. However, the focus tends to be
behavioural rather than sociolinguistic. Rarer examples
of the latter are Crick’s (1989) study of schoolchildren’s
descriptions of tourist hippies in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and
Gamradt’s (1995) investigation of Jamaican students’
drawings of visitors to that Caribbean island. Interest-ingly,
both inquiries deal with young people, who can be
considered more likely to provide responses of greater
validity than their supposedly more sophisticated elders.
“Out of the mouths of babes…”
Second, there are instances of external dialogue:
 Industry-tourist / tourist-industry: cells 2 and 4,
 Industry-touree / touree-industry: cells 3 and 7,
 Tourist-touree / touree-tourist: cells 6 and 8.
As far as industry-tourist-industry dialogue is con-cerned,
instead of content/semiotic analyses of the top-down
monological discourse of such media as brochures
S E N D E R A N D A D D R E S S E E
SENDER AND
ADDRESSEE
INDUSTRY TOURIST TOUREE
INDUSTRY (1)
Advertising/
Brain storming;
In-house discussion
of analysed data
(2)
As (4)
(3)
As (7)
TOURIST (4)
Telephone; Letter;
Internet feedback
sites;
Online guidebook
forums;
Communication with
holiday reps;
TV consumer
programmes
(5)
Conversations;
Consultations;
Word-of-Web:
overheards;
confessions; blogs; e-mails;
word-of-mouth
accounts of
experiences;
Virtual tourist
communities
(6)
As (8)
TOUREE (7)
Focus groups;
Local print media;
Local radio and TV
with responses;
A posteriori survey
(8)
Home-stays;
Tribal TV;
Jungle tours;
Marginal people,
e.g., beachboys
(9)
Children’s essays;
Children’s drawings
Table 2: The Language of Tourism as Dialogue. Model 2: The language of tourism
as dialogue.
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Graham M. S. Dann
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65
and NTO catalogues, attention can now centre on the
dialogical responses that the industry offers to the com-plaints
of tourists. Such replies can be by letter, by phone
or via digital communication. Since the fi rst two channels
are not normally accessible to the public, (except respec-tively
via letters to the editors of newspapers or radio/
television call-in programmes), it is mainly through the
Internet that such dialogue is in greatest evidence.
Verbal feedback by tourists to holiday tour representa-tives
(reps) also allows an operator to identify instances of
service failure with a view to correcting them. The previ-ously
mentioned TV consumer programmes additionally
provide sectors of the tourism industry with the oppor-tunity
to respond to areas of tourist dissatisfaction in a
live setting. However, there is an added risk here, in that
the victim’s poorly stated case on account of accompany-ing
incoherent rage is often mediated by the programme
presenter who is typically a journalist eloquently putting
forward that side of the argument with the further hope
of a newsworthy story.
Once tourist-industry communication is digital, the
addressee becomes even more exposed, since the Inter-net
has potentially a far wider audience than a local, re-gional,
national, or even international television station
or broadcaster such as the BBC or CNN. Yet those fi rms
which do deal adequately with tourist complaints often
witness increases in customer satisfaction, retention and
loyalty (Tyrell and Woods, 2004: 183-184). Typically,
bottom-up e-communication puts tourists in touch with
operators, airlines, hotels, etc., via third party sites whose
drop- down menus contain such options as compliment,
complaint and comment. Depending on the sector, each
of these components has a series of sub-aspects that can
accommodate most grievances and areas of satisfaction.
Thus Planet Feedback (2004) for instance, after identi-fying
the relevant company, (e.g., Hilton hotels), used to
allow selection from frequently encountered topics, (e.g.,
check-in, checkout, food service, front desk and house-keeping).
However, while this sort of feedback was com-mendable,
the agenda were still a priori and not as dia-logical
as if they had been articulated by the customer in
a posteriori terms.
Some tourist board Websites also provide potential op-portunities
for tourists to communicate with the industry,
as do online guidebooks. The latter are highly sophisti-cated
and thoroughly democratic. Indeed, almost a decade
ago, Lonely Planet (2004), for example, (even then avail-able
in English, French, Spanish and Italian), allowed
travellers to communicate via e-mails, letters and travel
blogs. Its interactive Thorn Tree Forum was open to dis-cussions
of experiences, and the rating of accommodation
and restaurants, etc., whose assessments could provide
current appraisals long before the appearance of the next
published edition of the printed guide bringing informa-tion
that might well be out-of-date by the time it reached
the bookstores. Indeed, these various types of communica-tion
were so comprehensive that they were classifi ed by
country and region. Potential travellers who had yet to
visit a given destination could also post queries and re-ceive
answers from others who had recently been there or
were actually in situ (e.g., news about the latest Maoist
attacks in Nepal). As a matter of fact, these voices of ex-perience
might well have had greater accuracy than such
alternative offi cial sources as the Foreign and Common-wealth
Offi ce (UK) or State Department (USA).
Today, Lonely Planet (2011) with over 500 travel
guides covering some 195 countries, (with downloadable
pdf chapters), can boast that its Thorn Tree Forum is now
“the oldest travel community on the Web”. Its material is
currently arranged in fi ve broad categories or “branches”:
Departure Lounge (countries), Lobby (e.g., travel technol-ogy,
travel on a shoestring, travellers with disabilities),
Check in (all about LP, community FAQs, guidebook
updates), Tree House (culture vultures, travel bloggers,
women travellers), Sell, Swap and Meet Up (house sitting
and swapping, travel companions). LP has the following
words of encouragement for potential members of the fo-rum:
‘Join fellow travellers to exchange travel informa-tion,
advice, hints and tips. Get help, get connected, get
inspired and have your say. Our community guidelines
and community FAQs will help you get started. When
you’re ready, sign in and start posting by choosing the
right forum branch for you.’ Seven years ago, competitor
Rough Guides (2004), with similar offerings, even had a
chat room discussing the merits and disadvantages of its
own publications when compared with rival guidebooks.
Possibly more high tech than LP, Rough Guides (2011) to-day
claims to comprise some “700+ travel guides, e-books,
apps, maps and phrasebooks”, as also access to millions of
digital photos. It has 200 travel destinations described as
“ultimate travel experiences” and a corresponding escha-tological
sounding book entitled Make the Most of Your
Time on Earth. It additionally carries other “life is for liv-ing”
titles that are not necessarily travel related such as
Babies and Toddlers, Conspiracy Theories, Future, Chick
Flicks, Happiness, and Next Big Thing. Digital offerings
include RG mobile, travel podcasts and e-books, as well
as inevitable links to Twitter and Facebook. A similar
facility for digital counselling can be found in the previ-ously
mentioned Trip Advisor which can sometimes give
unprejudiced (?) reviews of tourist accommodation, trans-port,
etc., with many money-saving tips. Often these re-views
can be found on hotel websites that are included
among the offerings of online travel agents such as Expe-dia
and Travelocity.
Industry-touree dialogue is found in cells 7 and 3.
Now, where the monological accent was previously on im-posing
industry led concerns on host communities, there
is currently extra scope for listening to the voices of des-tination
residents. Here, instead of the old stimulus-re-sponse
quantitative surveys, grounded theory qualitative
issues can be tackled via an a posteriori approach that
can be accommodated via ethnographic research and fo-cus
groups. One area that is particularly appropriate for
this type of treatment is the self-imagery that destination
people would like to project of themselves, their aspira-
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Big Brother), is that the latter, focusing on pain suffered
among equals, deliberately exclude locals.
Then there are those situations where tourees take
the initiative in communicating with tourists. At the com-munity
level, they are exemplifi ed by such “fair trade”
practices as visitors shopping for souvenirs in Patan’s
Jawalakhel Handicraft Centre, thereby helping elderly
and poor emigré Tibetans in Nepal (Reed, 2002: 164).
They are likewise evident in Kathmandu’s Ladybird Gift
Shop retailing dolls and paper products in support of an
organisation for girls at risk (Reed, 2002: 165). Touree-tourist
communication is also illustrated by locally organ-ised
jungle tours in Chiang Mai, Thailand (Cohen, 1989).
Here the asymmetry of the discourse between tourists and
indigenes has been analysed by Cohen and Cooper (1986).
At the one-to-one individual level, host-guest dialogue is
epitomised by tourist-beach boy encounters in Barbados,
an interesting example of negotiated role reversal and
corresponding imputation of motive (Karch and Dann,
1981). Like other instances of sex tourism also falling into
this category, in beachboy tourism there is a dialogical
trade-off between wealth (tourists) and knowledge (tou-rees)
(van den Berghe, 1994). However, such communica-tion
is far from symmetrical, and is ultimately based on
First World / Third World disparate power relationships
(Karch / Dann, 1981).
Model 3: The language of tourism as trialogue
Finally, there is trialogue where three types of com-munication
are envisaged according to the initiator of the
discourse, but ultimately relying on self-refl exivity com-bined
with the responses of the other two parties taken
together. In some instances the direction of the depend-ency
is reversed, as in the role switching between sender
and addressee. Whatever the situation, however, it man-ages
to unite internal and external communication into a
three-way process. Hence a change in numeration from
the previous two models.
The fi rst case of trialogue is industry driven, the re-sult
of internal debate (need identifi cation) and joint dia-logue
with tourists and tourees. An example (Cell 1) is
a “meet the people” initiative. Jamaica, being one of the
fi rst places to introduce such a programme successfully,
saw the Tourist Board (industry) persuading locals that
it would be to their benefi t to share their common inter-ests
with visitors. Tourists were similarly encouraged to
interact with Jamaicans on an equal footing and soon
“meet the people” became a regular feature of tours high-lighted
in overseas brochures (e.g., The Travel Collection,
2005). The experiment was also conducted, (some would
say “begun”), on cruise-ships where families from upcom-ing
Jamaican ports-of-call joined the cruise prior to the
passengers’ arrival, thereby familiarising the latter with
what lay in store for them. There was also the hope that,
as a result of this one-day “taster experience”, cruise ship
excursionists would at a later date return to the island in
the role of more lucrative long stay visitors.
An instance of tourist-initiated trialogue (cell 2) is
tions, goals and quality of life.
Turning to touree initiated dialogue, here the empha-sis
is also on destination people communicating with the
industry. Usually the relative powerlessness of these resi-dents
means that they only do so indirectly, for instance,
in local newspapers through letters to the editor, or via
local radio call-in programmes. The authorities often re-ply
to these voices of dissent in the same media (in the
latter case they are typically asked to do so by the pro-gramme’s
moderator in order to achieve “balance”). Here
the industry lets the aggrieved tourees know how fortu-nate
they are in deriving the economic benefi ts of tourism
in exchange for relatively lower social and cultural costs.
Dann’s (2004a) analysis of Barbadians’ adverse reactions
to their patronising portrayal in the American TV soap
opera, The Bold and the Beautiful, is an instance of this
comparatively rare genre. In this example, locals rightly
object to their being allocated roles of primitive extras,
as little more than pre-modern natives running around
in grass skirts, living in rickety shacks and drawing wa-ter
from a standpipe. However, and as they vociferously
point out in one of the island’s newspapers, the truth of
the matter is that they have a far higher literacy rate
than their US audience and are quite au fait with the
latest technology. This type of communication, therefore,
is a method of de-othering or self-image projection, what
Hollinshead (1993) calls “dis-identifi cation”. Elsewhere,
and perhaps more traditionally, such communication has
been referred to as “resident responsive tourism” (Ritchie,
1993; Goeldner and Ritchie, 2009). Spanish speakers, on
the other hand, tend to use the expression turismo comu-nitario
(Ruiz-Ballesteros and Hernández-Ramirez, 2010),
albeit conveying a similar meaning. However, in spite of
its merits, there are some disadvantages, namely the ten-dency
to treat local community involvement from a func-tionalist
point of view, and hence as homogeneous and
free from cultural constraint (Blackstock, 2005)
Tourist-touree dialogue (cells 8 and 6) is less frequent-ly
encountered since it is typically associated with the
sharing of accommodation or some other host-tourist ex-perience
(e.g., dining) that previously, under a regime of
mass tourism, was only undertaken with fellow tourists.
Going under the name of “alternative tourism” (or one of
its many forms), more so perhaps when home-stays are or-ganised
by the tourism industry (e.g., agro-tourism), here
the emphasis is rather on direct tourist/host interaction.
An interesting televised variant of such dialogue can be
found in those quasi-anthropological programmes where
intrepid, present-day explorers live with remote “natives”
and share their broadcast experiences with a home-based
audience. Such was the case of a six-part series put out
by the British Broadcasting Corporation (2005) under the
suitable caption “Tribe”. The last of these episodes saw
one Bruce Parry engaging with the Sanema people of
Venezuela and other programmes witnessed him under-going
dangerous initiation rites and partaking of strange
food. Where this type of offering differs from other real-ity
TV shows, (e.g., I’m a Celebrity: Get Me out of Here,
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Graham M. S. Dann
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67
that variant known as “volunteer tourism” (Wearing,
2002). Here worthwhile Third World projects are identi-fi
ed and persons are encouraged to participate in them by
paying their own way and helping disadvantaged others.
Although most of these undertakings are non-touristic in
nature, (often they are environmentally oriented), and all
are located in developing countries, the act of joining in
with local people as equals in a shared effort to improve
indigenous lives (as well as those of the volunteers) can
be considered touristic. For that reason, such “alternative
tourism” is benefi cial to the industry, particularly with
the realisation that it tends to involve the more affl uent
type of patron.
Finally, there is touree-driven trialogue (cell 3) in
which destination people send messages to the industry
and tourists. Often they require assistance if their voices
are to be fully heard and translated into action, as in the
case of Grass Route Tours (2002) (sic) into the South Af-rican
townships of Capetown, for instance. Another ex-ample
of such trialogue was the Boxing Day tsunami of
2004, a disaster in which thousands of south-east Asians
perished, leaving the survivors to address the outside
world, (principally in English, the language of the BBC
and CNN). Although much of the devastated area had
once been dedicated to tourism, attainment of the status
quo ante would now take considerable time and funding to
recover. However, and just as signifi cantly by association,
many of the coastal zones that had not been affected by
the fl oods, were similarly adversely and inaccurately por-trayed
as those that had been ruined. In order to remedy
the situation it was essential that factually accurate ap-praisals
should be transmitted – ones that involved locals
as well as visitors and the industry.
A fi nal instance of this type of trialogue is community
informatics, a form of self-representation over the Inter-net,
as for instance in developing the Maori Heritage Trail
(Kiwi-trails) with its own portal. The community level
contact is accessed by a procedure known as “Web-rais-ing”,
i.e., the community “working together to create a col-lective
asset” (Milne, Mason, Speidel and West-Newman,
2005: 109) by sharing its skills with local businesses and
thereby each party learning about one another. However,
there are problems in such opening up to public gaze, in-cluding
that of over-authenticity (e.g., showing the gory
details of hunting, using the site as a place for religious
conversion and inevitably allowing it to be overtaken by
advertising (the case of Baffi n island – (Milne (2006)).
There are additionally diffi culties in analysing commu-nity-
based tourism if essentially functionalist models are
being employed, along with the assumptions of homoge-neity
and cultural constraints to local control (Blackstock,
2005).
Conclusion
Although it can be a hazardous exercise to predict
future trends in tourism and parallel developments in
theory and method, a general attempt in this direction
has already been undertaken in relation to Toffl eresque,
Simmelian and open-ended versions of reality (Dann,
1999). More specifi c examples provided here follow the
latter approach in relation to one recent paradigm – that
of tourism as language. However, while several scenarios
of likely change have been outlined, along with their im-plicit
potential in research, it should be evident that not
every possibility has been envisaged by the three models.
Nor has it been spelt out, other than by passing references
to modifi cations in the surrounding social ethos, exactly
how the transition is effected from monologue to dialogue
and trialogue. Given limitations of space, that must con-stitute
an area for further inquiry.
For the moment, though, if one takes an instance of
traditional monological communication from the industry
as sender to the tourist as addressee (Table 1, cell 4) – the
package tour brochure – which still exists on account of
its relative cheapness to produce and high conversion rate
– does it mean that this type of print medium will con-tinue
in its present format when there have been altera-tions
in other parallel media (e.g., the interactive nature
of Web-based guidebooks, the transition from travelogue
S E N D E R A N D A D D R E S S E E
I N I T I A T O R
SENDER AND
ADDRESSEE
INDUSTRY TOURIST TOUREE
INDUSTRY
TOURIST
TOUREE
(1)
Meet the people
(2)
Volunteer tourism
(3)
Grass route tours;
Tsunami;
Community informatics
Table 3: The Language of Tourism as Trialogue
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to travelblog)? In other words, why should there not be a
respondent-friendly, interactive brochure that allows po-tential
tourists to take virtual tours of resorts, listen to
what previous visitors have to say about a given place and
even perhaps include the voices of the destination people
as to how they relish having outsiders in their midst? It
is this last area where the least progress has been made,
but it is surely one where, if the foregoing trends to dia-logue
and trialogue develop as outlined, one can expect
the greatest transformation.
That said, it should be remembered that it is also pos-sible
that some of the old monological ways of tourism
promotion may continue to be perpetuated on account of
vested interests and lack of openness to change. Whereas
a few enlightened sectors of the industry now see the ad-vantages
of adequately and publicly responding to their
customers, there are still several die-hards who prefer
to abstain. Apparently they do not see the need to reply
to complaints at all, justifying their myopic position in
terms of unnecessary expense (Tyrell and Woods, 2004:
184-185).
Thus there are two possible scenarios of the future
development of “the language of tourism” – one denying
change, the other promoting it. The former is pessimistic;
the latter is optimistic. The fi rst signifi es even more con-trol
by the industry over those who gaze – tourists (Urry,
1990) and those who make a spectacle of themselves –
tourees (van den Berghe, 1994). The second means great-er
liberation for the visitor and the visited as they free
themselves via resident-responsive tourism from the
shackles of monological publicity to greater dialogical and
trialogical employment of self-imagery.
Ontologically, these two positions are respectively
rooted in the perennial tension between one and many.
Epistemologically they are grounded in the a priori in-nate
ideas of Plato or in the a posteriori, sensory-derived
concepts of Aristotle (Dann, 2004b; (2008)). This article, if
nothing else, should act as a constant reminder that the
meanings structuring tourism as a facet of contemporary
existence represent an ongoing struggle between these
two dichotomous worldviews. However, they can only
be fully revealed by stripping off the manifest content of
messages of “the language of tourism” and by exposing
their latent layers of connotation and the ideologies that
underpin them.
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Notes
1 Substantially revised version of a paper presented to the In-ternational
Academy for the Study of Tourism, Beijing, June
30-July 5, 2005. The original version “Remodelling the lan-guage
of tourism: From monologue to dialogue and trialogue”
is due to be published in William Gartner and Cathy Hsu (eds.),
Routledge Handbook of Tourism Research. London: Routled-ge
(March 2012) and permission for Pasos to publish the up-dated
version “Re-modelling a changing language of tourism:
From monologue to dialogue and trialogue” has already been
granted. Conversely should the special issue of Pasos appear
before the Routledge publication then permission from Pasos
is granted to Routledge to produce the earlier version.