Image, Aesthethic and Tourism in postmodern times

              © PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural. ISSN 1695-7121
Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural
PAS S
www.pasosonline.org
Vol. 11 Nº 3. Special Issue. págs. 3-5. 2013
Image, Aesthethic and Tourism
in postmodern times
Maximiliano E. Korstanje*
Guest Editor
University of Palermo Argentina
International Society for Philosophers, United Kingdom
The present special issue was a personal
challenge because the existent maturity of
research respecting to destination image was
evident. Over years of investigation a valuable
conceptual framework was accompanied with
high-quality empirical studies. Nonetheless,
image should not be circumscribed to the
perceptual traits perceived from destinations.
There are many forms of images that have not
been explored. Following this reasoning, I posed
the theme of image to be developed from an
interdisciplinary field ranging from psychology
to anthropology, from management to geography
and so forth.
Image plays a pivotal role in the configura-tion
of tourism beyond what can be said on
the attractiveness of a destination. And this
happens because image is an important facet
of human life that not only is limited to the
ocular-centrism. The Greek legacy posed a seri-ous
question respecting to how the image is con-structed,
and of course perceived for reminded.
Symbolically, the presence of founding parents
was of paramount importance to illuminate com-munities
in turbulent times. In ancient times,
some tribes crafted masks of their ancestors so
that their legacy not to be lost. Whenever a king
dies, some communities copied his/her face in a
mask. This master-work served as a religious
and political instrument of indoctrination to
gain further legitimacy. As the previous argu-ment
given, image and death seems to be inex-tricably
intertwined. Nowadays, things seem to
be changed a bit. These relics have been stored
at museums and technologies facilitated the
times and efforts to design landscapes and expe-rience.
The world of photography sets the pace
to a new revolutionary way of creating digital
landscapes from a PC terminal. As a social con-strue,
image represents our attempt to control
not only the time, but also the life. One might
speculate that many tourist destinations have
made from their image their primary resource to
success. Undoubtedly, image and aesthetic are
of paramount importance to grant the growth
of this industry. Tourist destinations appeal to
create a meaning, and this meaning evokes an
image. Understanding how this image is built
and negotiated, we would expand how in diverse
contexts tourism works.
As above noted, a discussion of image not only
should be limited to what can be seen, interest-ing
research has recently conducted in anthro-pological
field respecting to other additional
* Korstanje is associate professor of Tourism at Palermo University and researcher of International Society for
Philosophers, Sheffield UK and Editor in chief of the first journal dedicated to safety in tourism and hospitality
(International Journal of Safety and Security in Tourism/Hospitality). With more than 500 peer-reviewed papers and
20 books published in the field of tourism, risk, disaster-studies and mobility he takes part of 20 specialized journals
as editorial board member. In 2012 earned the award to excellence given by Emerald Publishing group *UK by
the performance as outstanding reviewer of the International Journal of Disaster Resilience and Built Environment
– which is hosted University of Salford. In 2013 earned the same award for the Journal of Place Management –
Manchester Metropolitan University. Besides this recognition, Korstanje was nominated to three honorary doctorates
for his achievements and contributions in the field of tourism.
4 Image, Aesthethic and Tourism in postmodern times
PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 11 Nº 3. Special Issue. Julio 2013 ISSN 1695-7121
themes such as patrimony, heritage, sustain-ability,
development, literature, customer loy-alty,
branding, event-management, governance,
risk, modernity, movies, cultural entertainment,
technology-TICS, and so forth. Most likely, in
these digital times, the camera captivates and
puts events in any corner of the globe in min-utes,
but this acceleration generates a great
dependency of the media. Any event, whatever
its nature, does impact on tourism … Policy
makers and governments devote considerable
time and spend money in designing the image of
tourist destination, but their failure depends on
the lack of uncertainty of how it evolves. More
important, we strongly believe in the needs to
open a new debate in tourism-studies to expand
the current understanding of image from an
interdisciplinary viewpoint.
Readers who want to inspect this volume will
find the paper of Geoffrey Skoll who traces the
role of arts preventing the alienation of spaces
in the process of gentrification in Riverwest
city, US. Capital in post modern times has
been expanded to the extent to make from
consumers consumed goods. This is exactly the
point addressed by Korstanje and Tarlow in the
second paper. Authors recognize that disasters,
such as the quake whipped Japan a couple of
years back, may be commoditized to provide a
message to a broader audience. In context of
disasters, nationalism arises in order to avoid
the identity to be fragmented. Mass-death and
suffering wake up the best of our instincts to
strength the social bond. The problem is that
sometimes this is manipulated by the mass
media.
As the previous backdrop, Juan Carlos
Monterrubio presents a valuable research where
the key factors that influence in the formation
of organic image are analyzed. Based on the
precautionary principle of warning, he examines
the connection of risk, image and attractiveness.
Babu George, Tony Henthorne, Alvin Williams
place the contributions of S. Plog under the lens
of scrutiny. The outcome of this work shows that
even if allocentric tourists prefer for nascent
destinations, others in the end of the cycle are
chosen too. The philosophical sense of image and
aesthetic is given by Maximiliano Korstanje to
expand the current understanding of Immanuel
Kant’s account. Rather, R. Rajesh developed
a dichotomy between destination image and
tourist satisfaction. Equally important, four
key factors are introduced in the formation
of destination image: tourist perception,
infrastructure, satisfaction, and loyalty. Shorter
but no less important, the notes authored by
Margarita Barretto not only shows why she is
still the most prominent lucid mind in tourism,
but also combines the sociological view of W.
Benjamin with studies of mobility as John Urry
and D. Maccannell. She insists in finding the
anthropological roots for tourist-consciousness
beyond the hegemony of any discipline.
I strongly recommend the eighth manuscript,
where Agustin Santana Talavera explains
that attractiveness depends on the previous
development of image-distinction. The existent
specialized literature, Santana adds, seems to
be focused on the process of image-control. This
work discusses the benefits and limitation of
such a view-point. By the way, Matthew Smith
ad Ericka Amorim argue that the attractiveness
of tourist destinations are determined by the
aesthetic factors but further investigation is
needed on the dilemma the industry poses. At
some extent, policy makers devote considerable
attention to the factors that attract people
but at the same time, this saturates the
landscape. Questions of risk perception and
crisis management are widely managed by
Bingjie Liu, Lori Pennington-Gray and Ashley
Schroeder. If we, as analysts, understand the
psychological effects on risk over destination, we
will strength the existent capacity of mitigation
to avoid serious damage to the destination. Past
travel experience is of paramount importance to
build predictors of crisis.
Over years, the constructing of romantic gaze
has been prioritized in Europe and Western
civilization. Susana Gastal unearths the legacy
of Roland Barthes to re-visit the social and
economic factors that form the landscape. As
a social construe, landscapes signal to the
hospitality and welcoming garden. In view of
that, Gastal finds the roots of modern tourism
in the romantic texts and pictures of XIXth
century.
Dolors Vidal Casellas, Silvia Aulet Serrallonga
and Neus Crous Costa exhibit the potentiality of
Catalonia to offer religious tourism. What seems
to be important to debate here is the connection
between cultural heritage and branding logic.
Evidently, though government has struggled
to pose Catalonia as heritage destination, a
growing segment of demand linked to religion
is surfacing. This poses a good question on how
organic image is formed. Top-down policies
sometimes are not enough, as researchers our
duty is to know why.
Jaime Alvarez de la Torre and Diego Rodriguez
Toubes Muñiz delve into the current positive
stereotypes on Brazil based on egalitarianism
and happiness. Nonetheless, negative assets as
Maximiliano E. Korstanje 5
PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 11 Nº 3. Special Issue. Julio 2013 ISSN 1695-7121
insecurity, crime and violence have not declined
in the social imaginary of tourist-delivering
countries. To balance the coherent adequacy of
the country as venue of the next World-cup and
Olympic Games, it is necessary the articulation
of an all encompassing plan of risk-reduction.
Unless otherwise resolved, Brazil’s image would
be negatively affected. Last but not least, Olga
Araujo Perazzolo, Marcia Maria Capellano Dos
Santos and Luciane Todeschini Ferreira develop
a psychological model to understand image. The
pleasure –and displeasure- as emotional drives
alter the frames of perception to produce specific
Mnemic records. The importance of tourism as
a social activity is not given by business but its
hospitable nature and success to re-signify the
sensoriality of tourists. This research stimulates
a hot discussion on tourism epistemology simply
because it considers the self in the quest of
disrupting events to inspire discovery but at
the same time returning to the secure-place of
hospitality.
The fourteen papers gathered for this issue
consist in high-quality approaches that deal
with the aesthetic nature of leisure and tourism.
First and foremost, I would like to thank Editor
in Chief Agustin Santana Talavera who kindly
invited me to take part of this project but this
would never have been possible without the
participation of authors, who have made a
substantial contribution that will initialize the
debate in next years. Let me clarify though the
language in this special issue is English, we
respected other texts, because of their academic
profundity, in other language as Portuguese and
Spanish. Certainly, we feel that the issue should
remain in its original version.