Minor Destination Development
Swen Waterreus
Colorado State University – Content Analysis writing guide
▪ See PDF or https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm?guideid=61
Saunders et al (7th edition): Ch 13.12 p.608-613
Govers & Go (2005) – Projected destination image
online: Website content analysis of pictures and text.
(Dubai Case)
Hunter, W.C. (2008). A typology of photographic
representations for tourism: Depictions of groomed
spaces.
Kim et al (2009). Web Marketing in Food Tourism:
A Content Analysis of Web Sites in West Texas
See BB
Analysis of contents of this course ☺
Let me introduce…
To work!
1.
2.
1.
Don’t believe me! Think for yourself!
What’s in a theory?
3.
1.
Examples of Content Analyses
The Assignment
To work!
4.
5.
1.
Just do it! (start on assignment) – bring laptop!
The aim of this lecture & assignment is twofold:
To analyze secondary material (images, text, video, etc)
in a systematic, analytical, structured and detailed way
To gain more knowledge about the way your
destination is communicated to tourists in existing
material made by the tourism industry
▪ Link to the Individual Assignment
Content analysis is an analytical technique
that codes and categorizes qualitative data
in order to analyze them as if they were
quantitative (Saunders, 2016: p.608)
Defined as a research technique for making replicable
and valid inferences/conclusions from texts (or other
meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use
(Krippendorf, 2004).
The focus can be on texts, but just as well on data in
the form of: works of art, images, maps, sounds, signs,
symbols, websites, video, speeches, etc!
Important is the relation between content & context.
Context = purpose of the document
Also useful in the interpretation or analysis of products
of communication, for example:
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Newspapers
Television
Radio
Books
Letters
Diaries
Public documents – minutes/annual reports
Can be useful for analysis of both primary and secondary
data
Useful tool for understanding how destinations, but also
(tour) organizations ‘see’ and ‘present’ themselves, their
products/services, etc
By looking at images & textual material
Understanding the meaning attached to pieces of
information
Understanding the purpose of the text/images
▪ Tour operators’ offer of travel products in
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
catalogue or website
Destination promotion material or entire
campaign (by either DMO or TO)
Travel articles in newspapers or travel magazines
Travel guide books
Travel programmes on television
But NO social media! (random!)
Imagine…
Central Question =
“What is the image of Amsterdam among
Chinese tourists?”
1.
2.
What kinds of data could help answer this question?
Specify how to analyze each of them
Imagine…
Possible Sub Questions =
“What is the image of Amsterdam as portrayed
through Chinese:
- travel guide books
- postcards
- tour operator catalogues / etc ?
1.
Develop/come up with an analysis strategy for analyzing
these data
Colorado State Uni
Saunders
Article Govers & Go (Dubai)
Article Hunter (Photographic representations)
Article Kim (Food tourism websites)
QUANTITATIVE
▪ the purely quantitative
where frequencies are
counted within
categories >
Conceptual analysis
We will focus on a
combined approach – why?
QUALITATIVE
an approach that focuses
on meaning in which
interferences are drawn
from data and the data is
considered in a qualitative
approach >
Relational analysis
Photographs are a powerful and plentiful
medium for tourism destination promotion.
It could be said that their representational
power functionally transforms a place into a
destination—a commodity.
Only too late do some realize that short-term
economic gain can confiscate a social identity
and a way of life.
…helping promotional agents to be more
conscious of the intended and accidental
effects of photographic representations on
tourists and on the destination before it is too
late and local people are left vigorously
struggling to retrieve their already
compromised identities.
… the need for effective food tourism
marketing is evident. However, little research
has been conducted to examine food tourism
marketing on the World Wide Web
…investigate the effective use of Web
marketing in food tourism that would affect
tourists’ destination decisions.
Dubai
Dark tourism in Dutch newspapers
The Aussie outback
Online image Algarve Portugal
20 websites
505 images and 93.000
words combined
Split in motifs and themes
▪ Identif & freq objects
▪ Identif of arrangement
Conclusions:
▪ Dubai fails to reflect true
▪
▪ Identif of context
▪
Results
▪
▪ Images: 8 themes
experiential/non-exper
▪ Mainly on facility/activity
▪ No cultural heritage
▪ Text: Desert, little on senses
▪
identity through imagery
Main focus on physical
aspects of Dubai
No design of experience
Mainly airports focus on
culture/heritage (???)
Even DMO focuses on
‘the gaze’ instead of
experiential
representation!
Research question = “How
is the phenomenon of Dark
Tourism communicated,
portrayed and understood
by Dutch written media?”
Het Parool:
89.000 copies & social
democratic background
Trouw: 91,000 copies &
protestant background
De Volkskrant: 305,000
copies & catholic
background
From all the written and image material
▪ Keywords
▪ Themes
▪ Groupings
Dark tourism:
▪ Disaster / prison / “dark” museums / cemeteries as
attraction / tourism and crime / commemoration
monuments or events
Nr. Category
Nr. of articles
found
1.
Cemeteries as attraction / funerary excursions / sightseeing
40
2.
Disaster tourism
4
3.
Visiting dangerous areas
2
4.
Prison visit
4
5.
Battlefield tourism, incl re-enactments
4
6.
Dark museums
3
7.
Dark destinations
1
8.
Funeral culture general
15
9.
Cemeteries and literature
1
10.
Tourism and crime
1
11.
Suicide tourism
1
Volkskrant
Lemen Voeten
Quest
Roermond cemetery NL
Zentral Cemetery, Vienna
Sapanta, Rumania
Holy Land Foundation NL
Pere Lachaise, Paris
Najaf cemetery, Iraq
Sapanta, Rumania
Staglieno, Genua
Morne l’eau cemetery,
Guadeloupe
Mariners cemetery, Corsica
Capuchin catacombs, Palermo
Colon cemetery, Cuba
Sagada sarcophaguses,
Philipines
Invaliden cemetery, Berlin
Nazca burial site, Peru
Jewish cemetery, Prague
Necropolis of Glasgow
Skogskyrkogarden, Stockholm
San Michele, Venice
Lively interest in dark phenomena in
Netherlands
Lively interest in cemeteries as attractions,
but that in combination with tourism is very
rare
Dark Tourism as such not encountered
Australia: research from Charles Darwin University →
examination of the marketing approaches of State and
Territory Tourism Organizations for outback destinations
Why? → strong outback image, for
example, Western Australia promotes
itself as having “the real outback”
and the Northern Territory is the
“heart of the outback” and also
“Australia’s real outback”
Each region markets itself as
the ‘true outback’ and as having
the best, biggest and most
desirable attractions for visitors.
Analysis of State and Territory Tourism
Organization (STOs) to website content, to
identify the ways in which the outback is
portrayed (or ‘sold’) to potential visitors.
Defining the set of data for analysis (the
specific web pages/brochures) & reading
through the material.
Deciding which criteria to use for the analysis –
themes/elements
▪
❑
❑
In this example:
1. Spirituality and mysticism
2. Exploration and discovery
3. Plentitude/Abundance
4. Exclusiveness
Recording the frequency and combinations of these
themes/elements in different sources & meaning that is
assigned
Comparing across regions – different outbacks - to identify
common layers of meaning and combinations of elements
❑
Exploration and discovery - All regions emphasized the
opportunity for visitors to ‘explore’ and ‘discover’ their
destinations:
Plentitude (overwhelming multitude of impressions).
Language projecting images of vastness, expansive grandeur,
and unbounded spaces filters through in the materials for all
regions
▪ “Visitors are invariably awestruck by the
profound impact of space, the myriad of stars
in the night sky”
▪ “Go camping and see stars which stretch forever…”
Exclusiveness: Within this theme diversity within exclusive elements
(especially landscapes, flora and fauna) was brought forward to enhance
the perception of exclusiveness:
▪ “As well as being home to a huge number and wide variety of bird species...”
▪ “And on its coast lie some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, untouched
coral atolls…”
A further observation is the high frequency use of the words ‘red’ (soils,
rocks, skies at sunsets, and so on) and ‘rugged’ (plains, rocks, islands, and
so on).
All areas were promoted more or less the
same
No distinctive character of each area
New promotion/marketing campaigns were
started
Six destinations – each with their own
character
What is the current image of
destination Algarve as portrayed by
Dutch tour operators?
Introduction
Research questions
Methodology
Results
Conclusion
Recommendations
Selection of sources
Selection of pictures
Identify concepts
Grouping / themes
Frequencies
What can you make out of this?
Any Recommendations?
Slight adjustments. Use these criteria rather than the study handbook.
Individual assignment 3 – Content analysis of image of the destination
• The student has selected a minimum of four different sources for the content analysis
• The student structured the paper in the correct manner: Introduction, central
question, methodology, results, conclusion, recommendations, literature list,
attachments
• The student has formulated a clear objective for this content analysis
• The student explains the content analysis approach using the course material
provided during the classes (combination of quantitative AND qualitative approach!)
• The results are presented in a visualized manner using tables and graphs
• The analysis includes conclusions that explain how the information helped to get more
in-depth information about the destination
• The student has included pictures, signs or other visual materials in the attachments.
Around 1500 WORDS (excl tables used)
Use of tables
Referencing to course literature
Analyzed images in appendices
Destination of your choice
Purpose = online image of destination X
YOU MAY ANALYZE:
Destination of choice
(known to you?)
▪ Enough image material
▪ DD related or not
Anything else! > discuss
with me
WHATEVER SOURCE (4)
▪ Tour operators’ offer of travel
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
products in catalogue or
website (whatever language)
Destination promotion
material or entire campaign
(by either DMO or TO)
Travel articles in newspapers
or travel magazines
Travel guide books
Travel programmes on
television
social media…….
Promotion videos
You’ve seen by now
that CA can be used for
a number of
applications and has
various theoretical
substantiations.
You may create your
own version for your
own purpose. As long
as….
Justify + explain!
The case studies shown
are just one way of
applying the CA
method. Don’t just
copy, create!
5. To work!
What do you want to
do?
How will you do it?
Objective?
Central question?
What are your steps?
Don’t forget to use
course material on BB
for the theoretical
account of CA.
Start with a schematic outline
of your assignment and define
the parameters
1098-3058/05 $20.00 + .00
Copyright 2005 Cognizant Comm. Corp.
www.cognizantcommunication.com
Information Technology & Tourism, Vol. 7 pp. 73–89
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
PROJECTED DESTINATION IMAGE ONLINE:
WEBSITE CONTENT ANALYSIS OF PICTURES AND TEXT
ROBERT GOVERS* and FRANK M. GO†
*Flemish Center for Tourism Policy Studies, University of Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium
†Centre for Tourism Management, Rotterdam School of Management,
Erasmus University, The Netherlands
This study analyzes how destination identity is projected through the use of photographic imagery
and narratives in an online environment in the context of marketing a fast growing tourist destination such as Dubai. Twenty Dubai-based websites, covering various sectors of the industry, were
content analyzed in terms of the photographic material and textual representations presented. Results confirm that there are, as expected, considerable discrepancies in the way the private and
public players project Dubai’s identity. Private sector organizations, in particular hospitality and transport, are product oriented and projected images relate primarily to the specific facilities and tourist
activities on offer. In contrast, the destination marketing organization focuses on the projection of
cultural identity and heritage.
Key words: Destination image; Identity and culture; Content analysis; Online marketing
social activity. However, photography selectively
extracts from this multifaceted expression and reduces it to a series of icons. This distorts the
identity and trivialises the place and contributes
to the consuming nature of tourism. (p. 80)
Introduction
Although only sporadically investigated (Albers & James, 1988; Cohen, 1988; Fairweather &
Swaffield, 2002; Garlick, 2002; Human, 1999;
MacKay & Fesenmaier, 1997; Markwell, 1997;
Sternberg, 1997), the relationship between photography and tourism has received some interesting
coverage, such as for instance by Human (1999)
who characterizes the relationship as “ambivalent.”
Tourism can indeed be categorized as a form
of hedonic consumption, where the experience is
an end in itself (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982;
Leemans, 1994; Vogt & Fesenmaier, 1998). Sternberg (1997) in fact “argues that tourism planning
has as its central challenge the design of effective touristic experiences, and can find conceptual
sources for this task in iconography” (p. 951).
Also Garlick (2002) “takes up this question of
Many destinations visited by tourists have a strong
identity and sense of place, which is embodied
in the history . . . (culture) . . ., physical form and
Address correspondence to Robert Govers, Flemish Center for Tourism Policy Studies, University of Leuven, Belgium, W. de
Croylaan 42, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium. Tel: +32 (0)16 322 794; Fax: +32 (0)2 700 4045; E-mail: RGovers@geo.kuleuven.ac.be
73
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GOVERS AND GO
what role photography plays in determining the
nature of touristic experience” (p. 289). According
to Sontag (2002) this is a critical issue as “photographs, in teaching us a new visual code, alter and
enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at
and what we have a right to observe” and at the
same time, “photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mode” (p. 3).
Hirschman and Holbrook (1982, p. 92) emphasize the importance of multisensory, fantasy, and
emotive aspects of experiential or hedonic products such as tourism (the “three Fs”: fantasies,
feelings, and fun; Holbrook, 2000, p. 178; Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). Consumers build up
emotional arousals and mental multisensory imagery, either historic (i.e., based on prior experiences) or fantasy imagery, based on what they
(expect to) taste, hear, smell, see, or feel when
consuming experiential products. Gretzel and Fesenmaier (2003, p. 51) argue that, in order to improve future tourism marketing strategies, sensory
tourism information should be communicated, either through new emerging technologies such as
virtual tours (possibly incorporating the development of sensors for taste, smell, and touch) or using traditional forms such as metaphors and narratives. Narratives about places are the basis for
creating destination image and are enhanced by
photographic material. Hirschman and Holbrook
(1982) also argue that in the hedonic consumption
perspective “the researcher is concerned not so
much with what the product is as with what it represents. Product Image, not strict reality, is a central focus” (p. 93). For experiential products such
as tourism, consumers try to organize a complex
sequence of events and their reactions to these
events (and the information gathered) into a meaningful whole. Understanding this is the province of
narrative psychology, which contends that people
have the natural propensity to organize information about experiences in story format. It also suggests that people relate their interpretations of experience to others by narrating, or telling stories
(Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; Padgett & Allen, 1997;
Vogt & Fesenmaier, 1998). Ideally, therefore, narratives included in marketing material for tourism
destinations should represent such rich tourism experiences and reflect multisensory, fantasy, and
emotional cues. Incorporating photographic material may contribute significantly to this.
But what is exactly the tourism product or experience that these narratives represent, if not a
flight on a certain day to a certain country, with a
hotel room for a certain number of nights and a
city tour somewhere along the way? When tourism destinations are defined at the level of countries, some help in answering this question is provided by Hall (1996). He phrases the question as
follows. “But how is the modern nation imagined?
What representational strategies are deployed to
construct our common-sense views of national belonging or identity? . . . How is the narrative of the
national culture told?” (p. 613). Of the many aspects that a comprehensive answer to that question
would include, Hall selected five main elements.
First, there is the narrative of the nation, as it is
told and retold in national histories, literatures, the
media, and popular culture; secondly, there is the
emphasis on origins, continuity, tradition, and
timelessness; a third discursive strategy is the invention of tradition; a fourth example is that of the
foundational myth; and lastly the national identity
is also often symbolically grounded on the idea of
a pure, original people or “folk” (Hall, 1996, p.
613). Competing in the tourism market forces
tourist destinations to decide whether and which
elements of national, local, and regional culture
would contribute best to the attraction system of
the destination. And next, which elements of the
attraction system would most appropriately represent through the projected images of the destination in question. This article studies to what extent
these identities and images are reflected in the online narratives and pictures that are used to market
the fast growing tourism destination of Dubai.
In projecting destination identity, “authenticity”
has been a predominant issue. The tourist is said
to enjoy the pseudoevent (Boorstin, 1993), that is,
inauthentic, contrived attractions, and disregard
the real world. “Over time the images generated
within tourism come to constitute a self-perpetuating system of illusions, which may appear as
quaint to the local inhabitants as they do to the
tourists themselves” (Duncan, 1978, p. 277, cited
by Urry, 2003, p. 10). As Urry (2003) indicates,
“the search for authenticity is too simple a foundation for explaining contemporary tourism. There
ONLINE DESTINATION IMAGE PROJECTION
are multiple discourses and processes of the ‘authentic’” (p. 11), which are likely to expand further in the future as a result of the continuous
contest between the Internet revolution and the
evolution of the cultural identity of a destination.
This aspect of destination image can be examined
through the content analysis of online publications
about destinations. Amongst others, it can provide
destinations better insight into the way in which
they incorporate the authentic in relation to the
identity of place in the online image projection to
enhance the experiential nature of tourism.
However, a priori, we can identify that in marketing a destination there seems to be a tension
between the desire to project imagery that provides an authentic identity of place, but at the
same time commoditizes it for tourism consumption, reflecting desirable experiences (or staged authenticity) (Cohen, 1988, p. 371). As Fairweather
and Swaffield (2002, p. 293) put it: “When visitors
encounter settings of experiences that differ markedly from their expectations, created through projected images . . . (through marketing, media, social
interaction, arts and literature) . . . , their evaluations can be very negative” (p. 293). Therefore, to
guarantee a satisfying comprehensive tourist experience, what is projected should be in line with
what is really there (i.e., a reflection of the location’s “complete real identity,” or in Hall’s terms:
the dominant “narrative of the nation”).
This article examines, amongst other things,
this tension between cultural identity and commerce. In particular, there is a desire within the
cultural community and public sector to project
imagery that represents an authentic identity of
place, whereas commercial interests are keen to
stage authenticity (Cohen, 1988, p. 371) to represent desirable tourist activities, or convenient
commodities for consumption. As a result, the authors expect their investigation into the use of imagery and narratives by the tourism industry in
Dubai to show differences between public and private institutions and different sectors of the industry, in terms if the images that they project online
and the related perceptions of relevant decision
makers. Consequently, the article will build on
“one of the most important questions” already
raised in the early 1980s by Boulding (1983):
“What do our decision makers read? That is, what
75
kind of image of the world do they have?” Investigating what is projected by various actors in the
industry would give us insight into what part of
the image of the world that they have, they want
to “appropriate” (Sontag, 2002, p. 4). If, as according to Sontag (2002, p. 3), “the most grandiose
result of the photographic enterprise is to give us
the sense that we can hold the world in our
heads—as an anthology of images” (p. 3) (i.e., “to
collect photographs is to collect the world”), the
presentation of these collections as assembled by
tourism actors would represent their view of the
world as they would like us, the public, to see it.
As Boulding illustrates: “It may be that a small
nuclear catastrophe, for example, in the Middle
East, would shock people to the point where there
would be a restructuring of the human image and
the national image.” Boulding must have been
anticipating Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations
(Huntington, 1993) using this example, as this article will illustrate the impact recent events in the
Middle East have had on the way the tourism industry in Dubai projects its destination image.
Taking this into account, different actors in the
tourism industry, public agencies versus private
sector-specific companies, are hypothesized to have
different objectives in terms of projecting a destination image that will favorably affect their intended positioning and ultimately their customers’
buying behavior. The authors anticipate that decision makers within public agencies will utilize imagery and narratives that tend to be focused on
authentic cultural identity, while private organizations might in fact try to avoid that, focusing more
on commoditized experiences. As Long (1997)
puts it, “The issue is how actors struggle to give
meaning to their experiences through an array of
representations, images, cognitive understandings,
and emotional responses.”
Purpose
The relationship between cultural identity, projected image, commercialization, tourism experience, and perceived image is depicted in Figure 1.
For a detailed discussion of this model see Govers
and Go (2004). Firstly, any destination image should
be anchored to some extend on a true destination
identity (Go. Lee, & Russo, 2004; Onians, 1998;
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GOVERS AND GO
Figure 1. Tourism destination image formation model. Originated from the basic idea of the 5-gap service quality analysis model
by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985, p. 44) and major contributions from Baloglu and McCleary (1999) and Gartner
(1993).
Van Rekom & Go, 2003). The tourism development strategy formulates a tourism product, commercializing the offering using this identity and
the authenticity of place (staged or real), which
results in a projected tourism destination image.
This is done through the use of planned marketing
and communication, using narratives, as well as
produced imagination and expressed meanings beyond the control of destination management, such
as for instance in the media, literature, arts, or
computer-mediated environments. In all these cases
the use of photographic imagery is essential in order for these, what Gartner (1993) calls “induced
destination image formation agents” (“overt” as
well as “covert”) (pp. 197–201), to be effective.
As discussed earlier, the importance of photographic material also seems to be increasing, and
rightfully so, considering the fact that they are representing an experiential product. Urry (2002)
clarifies and extends the argument that tourism
experiences have a fundamental visual character,
drawing an analogy with Foucault’s concept of the
gaze. Particularly the interactive nature of the Internet adds whole new dimensions to the possibilities of projecting destination images. However, the
importance of textual descriptions in this environment should still not be underestimated. This is
illustrated by the role of literature and written
media.
In Figure 1, this projected destination image
forms the basis for a perceived destination image
in the mind of the consumer, which is mediated
by the person’s identity (i.e., self-congruity; Baloglu & McCleary, 1999; MacKay & Fesenmaier,
2000; Sirgy & Su, 2000), potential temporal environmental or situational influences (Gartner &
Hunt, 1987) (or Autonomous Agents according to
Gartner, 1993, pp. 201–203), and the direct or indirect interaction with other consumers (word of
mouth/mouse; Riedl, Konstan, & Vrooman, 2002;
or Solicited or Unsolicited Organic Agents in Gartner’s terminology, 1993, pp. 203–204). What re-
ONLINE DESTINATION IMAGE PROJECTION
sults is a set of personal expectations that the tourist formulates about a particular destination. The
level to which these expectations are met or
exceeded during the actual tourism experience is
what is referred to as tourist satisfaction (Govers
& Go, 1999).
Lastly, during the tourism experience, where
the guest consumes the tourism product and interacts with the host, the perceived destination image
is also affected (through what Gardner. 1993, pp.
204–205, refers to as Organic Agents). In other
words, tourists will adjust their perceptions of
places if what was experienced consuming the
tourism product did not correspond to their perceived destination image, even if the latter turned
out to be realistic. The lack of understanding of
the experiential nature of tourism amongst the
tourism industry decision makers (Gretzel & Fesenmaier, 2003) can easily lead to a mismatch. This
means that the way the tourism product is delivered is often not a true reflection of a destination’s
identity (or just a poor abstraction of all its multisensory, fantasy, and emotive aspects) and fails to
incorporate the full potential of the prospective
rich tourism experience. This article in particular
will address issues related to the image as communicated by the host (the top half of Fig. 1) by
examining how destination identity is projected
through the use of photographic imagery and narratives in an online environment.
Background
This study investigated the case of Dubai, one
of the seven Emirates comprising the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), which is strategically positioned
on the northeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula,
South of the Arabian Gulf. As a Gulf state, like so
many other nations in the Middle East, the UAE
has faced many challenges trying to maintain its
impressive economic prosperity over the last few
years following recent events, which dramatically
impacted its geopolitical environment. Particularly, the second Gulf War has shown the tremendous impact that the spread of global media has
on projecting destination image. Everyone will recall the rivalry between regional and international
(read American/European) news broadcasters and
their differences in the way in which events were
77
reported. Huntington’s (1993) Clash of Civilizations seemed to have turned into reality.
Two Gulf Wars, September 11, and the ongoing destabilization of the Middle East have probably not improved the Gulf region’s image in the
West. But Dubai and its leadership have wisely
taken advantage of this raised level of attention,
illustrating to the world the rapid development of
the Emirate, the high level of modernization, but
at the same time not shying away from its identity
and heritage. In fact, Dubai is using the focus of
attention on the region, the renewed global interest
in Islam and Arabic culture, and the attention that
Dubai gets as a rapidly modernizing global hub in
the Middle East as a means to maintain and publicize its identity and heritage. It raises a key issue:
namely, how Dubai might be able to maintain its
Islamic identity and heritage while globalizing its
economy at the same time? In fact, tourism development in Dubai is not a matter of tourism dollars
supporting the rest of the economy at the cost of
losing the identity and authenticity of place. Quite
the contrary, the oil dollars and income from trade,
which are reinvested in a tourism infrastructure in
order to diversify the economy, has created the opportunity to preserve the local heritage for the sake
of tourism in a state that was rapidly globalizing
anyway. Tourism in Dubai has only recently expanded, rapidly gaining significance over the last
5 years, as the oil to non-oil ratio of the gross
domestic product has decreased from almost 36%
in 1990 to less than 10% in 2001 (Government
of Dubai-Department of Tourism and Commerce
Marketing, 2002).
Dubai was the fastest growing tourism destination in the world in 2002, with growth rates of
over 32% (growing 10 times faster than the rest of
the world). Even in 2003 the UAE realized 10%
growth despite the Gulf War, welcoming close to
6 million international tourist arrivals (AbdelGhaffar, 2004). Since the 1990s hotel capacity in
Dubai has quadrupled (UAE Ministry of Information and Culture, 2001), and in 2003 “the tourism
sector’s contribution to Dubai’s GDP exceeded 17
per cent and its indirect impact reached a whopping 28 per cent” (Rahman, 2004).
To sustain its growth, Dubai is in full swing
to implement a well-orchestrated long-term vision,
which includes all major components needed to
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GOVERS AND GO
fulfill the tourism industry growth strategy aiming
for 15 million visitors by 2010 (Jenkins, 2004).
One of the most remarkable projects is The Palm.
The Palm involves the creation of the world’s
largest two man-made islands known as The Palm,
Jumeirah and The Palm, Jebel Ali, at a cost of
US$1.5 billion each. Located just off the coast of
the city of Dubai, the two palm tree-shaped islands
will increase Dubai’s shoreline by a total of 120
km and create a large number of residential, leisure, and entertainment opportunities. The significance of the concept of designing the islands in
the shape of palm trees is that it was inspired by
Dubai’s own heritage, with the date palm and water long considered to be the most important sources
of life, providing the UAE people with food, shelter, and simple boats, laying the foundations for
trade, which has eclipsed the oil industry as the
major source of Dubai’s prosperity. Also, Arab
Eclectic will be the signature architectural style on
the Palm (Dubai Palm Developers LLC, 2003).
To attract the additional visitors, second home
owners and residents to Dubai, other major investment projects are under way. Among them are
mix-use mega-projects such as:
• Dubai Festival City, which spans over 1600
acres on the banks of Dubai’s historic Creek.
• Dubailand, a US$5 billion project to create the
region’s 2 billion square feet tourism, leisure,
and entertainment capital, host to the Global
Village fun-fare, which, with over 3 million visitors in 2003, is the biggest attraction at the
annual Dubai Shopping Festival (Stensgaard,
2003b).
• Dubai Marina, a cluster of towers along a 3.5km man-made marina.
• The World, 260 islands protected by an oval
breakwater and positioned to form the shape of
the world map.
Among the 67 new hotel properties that are
planned for the UAE in the next few years (Stensgaard, 2003c), the most remarkable ones are:
• Madinat Jumeirah, a 900-bedroom Arabian resort designed using local UAE architecture and
interior design.
• Hydropolis, the world’s first underwater hotel.
• Al Maha Desert Resort expansion in Dubai’s
new desert conservation reserve.
• Atlantis The Palm, a US$1 billion copy of the
same resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas
to be located on the cresent of Palm Island.
Anticipating increased travel demands, intermodal transport systems have also been taken into
account. Besides a rapidly expanding modern road
network infrastructure, a luxury cruise terminal,
planned railway connections across the Arabian
Peninsula, and a magnetic monorail public transport system in Dubai, the government of Dubai
has committed to a major expansion plan of US$4
billion for Dubai International Airport and its affiliated divisions (Rahman, 2003). In line with this
projected growth of the Dubai travel hub, Emirate
Airlines announced the largest ever aircraft order
at the 2003 Paris Air Show on top of the orders
already registered in 2001 at the Dubai Air Show,
bringing the total order book to US$26 billion
(Stensgaard, 2003a).
As Cooper (2003) puts it: “This vision of modern Arabia is somewhat different from the view
often presented by the Western media which understandably focuses on regional tensions rather
than regional success stories.” In an effort to try
to change this situation, the Dubai Department of
Civil Aviation has embarked on a campaign reflecting the contrast between modern Dubai as an
attractive global business hub and the respect for
tradition, heritage, and local culture at the same
time. In 11 roughly 1-minute Cultural Voyage Vignettes that precede the Dubai Duty Free and International Airport advertisements on CNN International, the government tries to create a global
awareness for the rich cultural identity of the UAE
people. Short interviews with real local Emirati reflect traditions such as: henna body painting; incense burning; pearl diving on a dhow; falconering
in the sand dunes by Emirati men; the building of
dhows; calligraphy; the traditional liwa band consisting of local Emirati men dancing to live music;
Arabic poetry and song writing; existing traditional Bedouin herding camels in the desert; and
lastly a small episode on the Bastaqya, the restored historical buildings along the Dubai creek,
which was where trade originally began (Mansson, 2003).
Particularly with respect to the “conservation
of local architecture” and the “harmonious urban
ONLINE DESTINATION IMAGE PROJECTION
development that combines authenticity and synchronism” (Anonymous, 2003), the government of
Dubai and the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, and Dubai Municipality in particular, have made considerable efforts by restoring many of the typical barasti houses. These
houses are characterized by the square wind tower
or baadgeer, open on four sides to catch gusts of
wind and funnel them inside as a form of air conditioning, with the highest of these located above
the bedroom. Registration of the historical buildings as world heritage sites with ICOMOS Unesco
is also “followed up with urgency . . . as it will
raise the importance of these buildings to the international level and help boost tourism” even further
(Anonymous, 2001).
All these examples of tourism development
where heritage and the “sense of place” have been
taken into account, in terms of building the infrastructure and product development, as well as the
marketing, are a good example of tourism being a
vehicle for preservation (Go et al., 2004). Also, it
instigates some level of appreciation for the local
culture with tourists whose primary reason for visiting a location is not for the local culture (but
often the sun, sea, sand, & shopping in the case of
Dubai). As Van Rekom and Go (2003) argue, this
form of “staged authenticity” (McCannell, 1973),
“is a strategy that can work, both in publicity campaigns designed to foster identification with (and
of) a distinct local community and campaigns to
promote active citizenship” (supported by Onians,
1998). As Van Rekom and Go (2003) indicate, the
staged or emergent authenticity therefore seems to
“fit with the way in which the local identity is
constructed, imagined and experienced by the local community members” and is at the same time
used as a way to react to recent geopolitical events
in a positive way to promote Dubai’s rapid development as a global hub, but at the same time not
denying its roots. This article analyzes to what extent these efforts are also reflected in the projected
imagery of Dubai online.
79
adult Web surfers have shopped for travel-related
services on the Internet in the last 6 months, according to Nielsen//NetRatings (2004). Although
the Middle East has a relatively small but growing
online population (5 million, less than 1%), the
UAE has the highest penetration rate in the region
with close to 28% of its residents having online
access, compared to 24% on average in Europe in
2002 (Greenspan, 2002). Lacking regional data for
2003, NUA Internet Surveys & Nielsen NetRatings even reported close to 40% penetration in the
UAE in 2002 (CyberAtlas, 2003; NUA Internet
Surveys, 2002)). Therefore, the many recent regional and local initiatives to bring the tourism
industry into the online marketplace (such as my
travelchannel.com on MSN Arabia, online booking at emiratesairline.com, reserving your dinner
at diningindubai.com, or booking your tour with
one of the online local tour operators) are timely.
This is supported by the Emirate’s drive to take
up a strategic position in the new economy, endorsed by the creation of Dubai Internet City, an
e-commerce free zone. The observations above
show that it is bearing fruit. However, much more
pertinent in this context is Dubai’s dependency on
international visitors when it comes to sustaining
its tourism industry’s growth. European tourists
constitute a large and growing market segment,
being the number one source market, representing
25% of the total market in 2002 (Bin Sulayem,
2003) and having generated over one third of the
total number of 9 million guest nights in 2001
(UAE Ministry of Information and Culture, 2003,
p. 152). On average, these tourists spend a whole
day longer in Dubai, compared to any other visitor. As illustrated above, many of these Europeans
are online and using the web for travel and tourism purposes extensively. Therefore, considering
the advancement of Dubai in the online market
place and the importance of the European market,
it is timely to study the destination image that Dubai is projecting online internationally.
Data Collection
Methodology
Particularly in tourism, and its related information-intensive industries and products, the potential of the Internet has been proven. Nearly 60% of
To sample the data, an online search was conducted to locate Dubai-based tourism company
websites, by screening the links detailed on local
portals containing tourism directories, such as: the
80
GOVERS AND GO
government of Dubai’s Department of Tourism
and Commerce Marketing (www.dubaitourism.
co.ae); the Dubai E-Government Portal (www.
dubai.ae); AME-Info (www.ameinfo.com); UAE Interact (official website of the Ministry of Information and Culture in the UAE at www.uaeinteract.
com); and Emirates Internet & Multimedia (the
national Internet provider at www.emirates.net.ae,
part of the national telecommunications company
Etisalat). Lastly, a search on the keyword “tourism” was conducted on the complete list of websites registered in Dubai as provided by the Abu
Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (www.
adcci.gov.ae/pls/uaesites/uae_web_sites_emirates.
search).
Twenty websites were located and saved in a
Favorites folder, using Microsoft Internet Explorer’s “Offline Web Pages” tool. The maximum
number of three links deep from the websites’
homepages was downloaded to hard disk, following only links within the same website, without
specifying a disk space usage limit and including
downloading of images. From the 20 websites, a
total of 3600 JPEG and GIF files were collected;
2,550 small images of less than 10 kilobytes were
immediately deleted under the assumption that
those would include only thumbnails, buttons,
icons, lines, banners, and other design elements.
Of the remaining 1050 images, 74 were doubles
of the same image on the same website and were
therefore overwritten during cataloguing. Of the
976 viewed images, still another 38 images were
deleted as they consisted of banners, backgrounds,
and navigation menus. Another 433 images were
excluded from the analysis for various reasons.
These included: 11 images of bad quality, which
were difficult to analyze; 5 images of cargo at an
airport or seaport, irrelevant to the locality; 8 images representing irrelevant business settings, not
showing specific related facilities available in Dubai; 11 images of irrelevant objects not related to
tourism in Dubai; 84 images consisting of logos,
banners, and ads; 48 geographic maps; 6 images
of nonbranded aero planes in flight and cars on
non-Dubai roads; 83 images of other countries; 72
images of other Emirates; 42 press-related images;
44 images representing text; and 19 images of unknown individuals without context or within an irrelevant non-Dubai-related context. The remaining
505 images included in the analysis were distributed as depicted in Table 1.
Subsequently every page on every site was
manually browsed and superficially scanned for its
textual content. All full text paragraphs of two or
more sentences were cut and pasted into a separate
word document for every website. Most web
pages were included, except for: pages that relate
to other Emirates; press sections; listings of hotel
information, if not on the hotel website itself; listings of brief destination-related facts (e.g., exchange rates, telephone numbers, seasonal temperatures, holidays, languages, visa information, etc.);
and bullet pointed sections, unless part of a larger
piece of text.
From the 20 websites, a total number of 92,485
words was collected, distributed as depicted in
Table 1. In total: 15 tour operators, 3 hospitality
management companies, the Dubai destination marketing organization, and airport website were analyzed. Only the destination marketing organization
is a pure government organization, but two tour
operators, one hospitality management company,
and the airport are semigovernment, part of government control structures, but managed as private
entities. Not surprisingly, the destination marketing organization and the semigovernment hospitality management company had the most text and
images on their websites, which corresponds to
the total website size, being the largest two as
well (16,709 words/48 images/30 MB, and 14,373
words/48 images/74 MB, respectively). The airport website had the most images (56), but not as
much text and an average website with 17 MB.
Apart from one tour operator with a website of 18
MB (and 40 images), all other websites were
smaller than 6 MB, six of them being smaller than
1 MB.
Content Analysis of Pictures
The need for tourism researchers to embrace
image-based research has been contended by
Feighey (2003). The 505 images included in the
analysis were content analyzed in terms of motifs
(objects or appearances) and themes (or focal
themes), as applied in other studies of tourism
photography (Albers & James, 1988; Markwell,
1997; Sternberg, 1997). Content analysis of motif
ONLINE DESTINATION IMAGE PROJECTION
81
Table 1
Sample Distribution
Tour operator
No. of websites
No. of images
No. of words
Air transport
No. of websites
No. of images
No. of words
Hospitality
No. of websites
No. of images
No. of words
Destination marketing organization
No. of websites
No. of images
No. of words
Total
No. of websites
No. of images
No. of words
Private
Semigovernment
13
255
26,075
2
47
16,156
15
302
42,231
1
56
5,398
1
56
5,398
1
48
14,373
3
99
28,143
2
51
13,770
15
306
39,845
was performed at three levels as suggested by
Sternberg (1997, pp. 957–959): first, identification
of the actual objects (setting up what is staged);
second, identifying the arrangement (which objects are shown together, or clustering); and third,
identifying the contextualization (or the surrounding context).
In the first instance, all the motifs appearing in
every image were listed. Then, with each image
being a case, for each object a separate dichotomous variable was created in SPSS to indicate if
the specific object appeared in the picture or not
(0 = no, 1 = yes). This allowed for measurement of
distribution and frequency, but also for analysis of
variance, treating the variable as interval scale. In
the second instance, correlations between these
variables were calculated that would indicate if
objects often appear together (positive correlation)
or not (negative correlation). By doing this objects
were clustered by the level at which they correlate,
identifying arrangement. Lastly, the arrangements
were correlated with contexts (e.g., desert, sea,
creek) to identify contextualization and finally the
focal theme of the image.
In a final note it needs to be emphasized that
tourists appearing in the images, were not treated
as “objects” but as “subjects” (Gallarza, Gil Saura,
4
151
35,927
Government
Total
1
48
16,709
1
48
16,709
1
48
16,709
20
505
92,481
& Calderon Garcis, 2002, p. 64). In none of the
images analyzed were tourists the focal appearance. As indicated above, the few images where
this was the case were excluded from the analysis
as press release-related material (many websites
have a press section). Rather, the appearance or
absence of tourists in images was used as a way
to distinguish between tourist gaze (Urry, 2002) or
experience (or performance) (Fairweather & Swaffield, 2002; Garlick, 2002; Urbain, 1989). Fairweather and Swaffield (2002) propose an interesting metaphor in this respect, using the graded
experience of the Elizabethan theater, “in which
some of the audience become active participants,
some choose to remain detached spectators, and
others move between the two. Furthermore, watching others in the audience perform becomes part
of the experience” (p. 294). In order to operationalize this, for arrangements in which tourists appeared, the focal theme was defined as being experiential, and in case of absence of any tourists, the
focal theme was defined as representations or reflections of objects and activities.
Content Analysis of Text
As Dann (1996) has argued, the visual and textual contents of brochures are important in aiding
82
GOVERS AND GO
a conceptualization of place. It can be assumed
that the same accounts for web pages. To analyze
the textual element of the websites, the authors
made use of CATPAC, which is a self-organizing
artificial neural network software package used for
content analysis of text. “CATPAC is able to identify the most important words in a text and determine the patterns of similarity based on the way
they are used in the text” (Woelfel, 1998, p. 11).
In simple terms, CATPAC produces a frequency
table and proximity matrix for the most commonly
used words in the text. Proximities between the
words are based on their co-occurrences within a
sliding text window chosen by the researcher.
(Standard size is 7 words; i.e., CATPAC moves a
window of 7 words across the text and calculates
word proximities based on the number of times
words are found together within these frames. It
Table 2
Content Analysis Results (N = 505)
Contextualization
Motif
Dining (restaurant, bar, disco)
Airport facilities
Staff
Modern shops/shopping malls
Spa facilities
Old fort
Four wheel drive
Local Emirati men
Camp/picnic area
Camels
Sunset
Artifacts (e.g., Arabic coffee pots, jewelry,
jugs)
Falcon
Mosque
Belly dancer
Henna body painting
Local Emirati girls/women
Skyline
Traditional Dhow boat
Traditional architecture (e.g., Barasti
houses, museum, wind towers, old
Arabic doors)
Hotel exterior
Palm trees
Watersport
Swimming pool
Beach
Gardens
Hotel interior (non-F&B, i.e., rooms/
lobby)
Golf
Golf club
Souq
Horse races
Meeting, incentive, conference, exhibition
facilities
Sport
Wildlife
Limousine
Monuments
Frequency
(% of Images in
Which Motif Appears)
Arrangement
(Average No. of
Motifs in Images That
Include This Motif)
12.5%
10.3%
4.6%
4.6%
2.6%
1.6%
9.1%
8.3%
5.0%
4.2%
1.6%
1.14
1.52
2.22
1.73
1.23
1.25
1.67
2.45
2.24
2.57
2.38
1.6%
1.2%
1.0%
1.4%
1.2%
1.4%
8.7%
4.8%
2.13
2.50
2.80
3.57
3.17
1.43
1.59
2.20
4.8%
7.3%
6.7%
5.5%
3.6%
3.6%
2.0%
1.70
1.76
2.62
1.71
2.44
2.39
2.80
3.8%
3.6%
1.8%
2.8%
2.6%
1.11
1.78
2.56
1.57
1.15
2.0%
1.6%
1.4%
1.2%
0.8%
1.20
1.63
1.43
2.00
2.25
Context in Which
Cluster of Motifs
Often Appears
% of Images in
Which Context Appears
mountains
desert
3.2%
16.0%
creek
9.1%
sea
8.1%
ONLINE DESTINATION IMAGE PROJECTION
83
Figure 2. Focal themes of images through clustering of motifs (italic items are contexts).
would go beyond the object of this article to explain the detailed working of the program here, as
the above explanation is a simplification, but for a
good overview please refer to Woelfel and Stoyanoff, 1993.) Among others, Gretzel and Fesenmaier (2003) and Ryan (2000) have advocated
CATPAC to be a valuable tool for content analysis.
To obtain the results described underneath, five
documents were content analyzed by CATPAC,
one for each sector of the industry and one for
the total population. Those words appearing with
a minimum frequency, covering at least 2.5% of
the analyzed content, were included in the results
(ranging from 24 to 28 unique words, depending
on the specific content of the text being reviewed).
To determine patterns of similarity and central
concepts, several hierarchical cluster analysis methods were applied to the proximity table produced
by CATPAC to test coherence of the several clustering solutions. As a result the name “Dubai” was
excluded from analysis as this was obviously the
most central word in all texts (representing 11.9%
of all words included in the analysis of the total
text, compared to the second most frequent word
representing 3.7%). As Dubai correlated with al-
most every other concept in the text, it distorted
the cluster analysis. Because it is quite obvious
that the analysis relates to the case study Dubai,
there seamed to be no harm in excluding this word
from the procedure, allowing better clustering results on the rest of the data. The outcomes reported are based on Ward’s method.
Results
The content analysis of pictures and text was
conducted separately. Nevertheless, results were
strikingly similar. First reported are the results of
the content analysis of the pictures, followed by
the results of the CATPAC analysis of the text,
after which the conclusion pulls observations together.
Pictures
Table 2 lists the results of the content analysis
according to motifs, arrangement, and contextualization. Motifs are clustered together with other
motives with which they seem to often appear together (Fig. 2). The most frequent appearing motif
was “dining,” followed by “airport facilities.” The
most frequently appearing context was that of a
84
GOVERS AND GO
desert setting. Tourists appeared in 24% of the images, which suggested that in general terms the
experiential nature of tourism was not often reflected in the projected imagery.
Figure 2 shows the clustering of motifs and
contexts using bivariate correlations as well as the
authors’ interpretations. There seemed to be eight
logical focal themes, which could then each be
split into experiential or nonexperiential themes
depending on the presence or absence of tourists
in the images.
Table 3 lists the 14 focal themes (the themes of
“hospitality” and “old & new” had no experiential
dimension), their frequency and significant differences in distribution across sectors of the industry.
Only “cultural experience” was not significant at
all and “reflections of old & new” and “heritage
experience” were only significant at 10%. As earlier suspected, only 26% of images were experiential in nature. Most frequent focal themes were
“reflections of modern Dubai,” “hospitality facilities,” “leisure/recreational facilities & activities,”
“reflections of culture,” and “outdoor activities,”
together making up almost two thirds of the total
number of images. That suggests that what is projected is very much facility/activity based. This
was particularly true for the hospitality and transport sectors. Although they also had many experi-
ence based images, these images show tourists
making use of the leisure/recreational facilities
and modern airport facilities, respectively. In fact,
the hospitality and transport sectors had no images
related to heritage, the outdoors, or contrasts of
old and new Dubai whatsoever, and very few cultural images.
The promotion of the rich culture, heritage, and
identity of Dubai is therefore clearly left to the
destination marketing organization and to some
extent the tour operators. In it (see the Culture
cluster in Fig. 2) we can recognize some of Hall’s
(1996, p. 627) elements of national identity, such
as the emphasis on origins, continuity, tradition,
and timelessness (henna painting, falconry); the
foundational myth (camels and camps in the desert); and the idea of a pure, original people or
“folk” (the Emirate men and women as depicted
in these images), but also the invention of tradition
(belly dancers). The fifth of Hall’s elements, the
narrative of the nation, can partly be found in the
focal theme “Heritage.”
Tour operators, although involved in cultural
activities and the only ones projecting some heritage experiences, were primarily involved in outdoor activities, which represent mostly what is
called wadi- and dune-bashing (the idea of taking
a four wheel drive car to its limits in small river
Table 3
Focal Themes and Differences Between Tourism Sectors in Dubai (N = 505)
Focal Theme
Leisure/recreational facilities & activities
Experience modern Dubai
Reflection of modern Dubai
See, sun, sand experience
Reflections of heritage
Reflections of culture
Outdoor activities
Outdoor experience
Reflections of old and new
Heritage experience
Hospitality facilities
Leisure/recreational experience
Sea, sun, sand facilities & activities
Cultural experience
Reflection of Dubai
Facility and activity based
Experience based
Frequency Hospitality Tour Operators DMO Air Transport
(N = 505)
(N = 99)
(N = 302)
(N = 48)
(N = 56)
11.7%
3.8%
17.4%
3.4%
9.1%
11.5%
10.1%
4.2%
2.2%
2.0%
13.1%
9.1%
8.5%
3.8%
40.2%
43.4%
26.1%
10.1%
2.0%
7.1%
2.0%
0.0%
1.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
35.4%
30.3%
19.2%
1.0%
8.1%
64.6%
35.4%
10.6%
0.3%
16.2%
3.3%
10.9%
15.2%
14.9%
6.6%
3.6%
3.3%
8.9%
4.3%
7.6%
4.6%
46.0%
42.1%
22.5%
8.3%
0.0%
20.8%
10.4%
27.1%
16.7%
12.5%
2.1%
0.0%
0.0%
4.2%
4.2%
2.1%
2.1%
64.6%
27.1%
18.8%
23.2%
28.6%
39.3%
0.0%
0.0%
5.4%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
3.6%
1.8%
0.0%
5.4%
44.6%
26.8%
35.7%
F
p
2.8
45.3
9.3
3.3
12.6
6.2
8.8
4.0
2.5
2.3
20.7
25.6
7.8
1.2
0.04
0.00
0.00
0.02
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.06
0.08
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.33
ONLINE DESTINATION IMAGE PROJECTION
beds in the mountains or on sand dunes). Lastly,
when performing analysis of variance between private, semigovernment, and government organizations, there also proved to be a significant difference in the projection of the “reflections of
heritage” theme (F = 12.3, p = 0.000). This focal
theme was present in 27% of the imagery used by
government, compared to 9% and 4% for private
and semigovernment organizations, respectively.
Text
Table 4 displays the frequency list of unique
words in the total text covering all websites. Based
on the cluster analysis using the CATPAC proximity table, only four small clusters were identified: Arabian Desert Experience, Jumeirah International World(class) Hotel Facilities, Golf Club,
and Shopping Center.
The other 14 most frequently found words
could not clearly be clustered, probably because
they were used in different contexts, in different
Table 4
Frequency List of Unique Words in All Text
Word
Freq.
%
Desert
International
Hotel
City
World
Arabian
Golf
Available
Facilities
Club
Jumeirah
Guests
Experience
Emirates
Day
Beach
Tour
Shopping
Water
Enjoy
Traditional
Group
Resort
Offers
Centre
Service
298
290
280
232
229
222
219
192
178
176
174
172
166
162
155
153
151
147
146
143
142
137
131
130
120
116
6.4
6.2
6.0
5.0
4.9
4.8
4.7
4.1
3.8
3.8
3.7
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.3
3.3
3.2
3.2
3.1
3.1
3.0
2.9
2.8
2.8
2.6
2.5
85
parts of the text, coming form different types of
sector-specific websites. This assumption is quite
plausible as analysis of the website texts per sector
resulted in the identification of clear central concepts within each of the four documents, but different ones for different sectors (Table 5). The
most commonly used word in all the text was, not
surprisingly, the word “desert,” which was also
part of one of the most important central concepts,
the Arabian Desert Experience. Although this can
be interpreted as a reference to Hall’s (1996, p.
627) “foundational myth,” it is at the same time
the only central concept in the overall textual analysis that initially can be linked to Hall’s five elements of identity (two more can be found in Table
5 as being projected by the tourist board: the narrative of the nation of life in Dubai and the Arab
origins). Another important central concept in the
complete text was the combination of Jumeirah’s
International World (class) Hotel Facilities (Jumeirah is the geographical area of Dubai where
most of the resort hotels are situated). More of
interest though was the differences in website content between the various tourism sectors. This is
shown in Table 5.
In line with the results from the content analysis of images on these same websites, it can be
observed that the promotion of the rich culture,
heritage, and identity of Dubai is clearly left to the
destination marketing organization and to some
extent the tour operators. The latter, although involved in cultural activities and the only ones projecting some heritage experiences, were primarily
involved in outdoor activities and incentives. The
transport and hospitality websites primarily focused on facilities and activities. Although it was
positive to observe that the hotels also refer to
guest experiences, this refers particularly to dining
experiences. What was striking is that although
there was limited reference to the experiential nature of tourism; no multisensory references, based
on what we would (expect to) taste, hear, smell,
see, or feel when consuming these experiential
products, were found in the texts. The words “water,” “desert,” and “enjoy” probably came closest.
It must be noted in this respect that, of course,
pictures used on websites are an important part of
the online projected destination image, as visual
86
GOVERS AND GO
Table 5
Central Concepts of Website Content for Various Tourism Sectors
Sector
Central Concepts
Related Words
Transport
(5,398 words)
The airport
Infrastructure
Facilities
VIP facilities
International airport with special facilities available in 3 terminals
Gate(s) & business lounges
Duty free facilities & services located in concourse
Car (parking & limo service) at an X amount of DHS (local currency) cost per day, first-class
lounge & hotel rooms & (business & medical) center
Tourist board
(16,709 words)
Purpose
Heritage
Modern Dubai
Cultural origin
Facilities
Outdoor
With chairman Sheikh Maktoum promote international tourism for the city of Dubai
Traditional life around the desert and the creek
World-class modern shopping centers for visitors
Middle East, Arabian Gulf, United Arab Emirates
Golf club and available tourist facilities
Bird species and water
Hospitality
(28,143 words)
Properties 1
Properties 2
Dining
Health club
Jebel Ali golf resort, shooting club & spa
Jumeirah international hotels & beach club have world-class facilities available to guests
Experience & enjoy dining in the bars & restaurants located close to the rooms or otherwise open
for day visitors
Body & skin treatment
Tour operators
(42,235 words)
Sightsee tour
Incentives
Desert safari
Other activities
Experience city tour: shopping, camels & the desert
World-class hotels & traditional Arabian adventures for groups and your guests
Enjoy sand dunes drive & Arabic dinner at night
International golf club and water sports, tours, and services in the Emirates
Note: italic text was added by authors for clarity of reading.
cues. But even when taking into account the results of that part of the study, there was a general
lack of reference to other sensory cues and emotions. They say that “one picture is worth a thousand words,” but a picture and description of a
hotel room, restaurant, or airport gate, for instance, is not going to tell us much about the actual tourism experience that one can expect at that
particular unique destination, in terms of all the
multisensory emotions that will be generated.
Conclusion
The results of this research clearly show that
the way Dubai projects its imagery as a tourism
destination lacks creativity and “cross border”
thinking between tourism sectors and therefore
fails to coherently reflect its true cultural identity.
Most of the projected imagery is fragmented in
nature and product based, showing facilities and
activities on offer. Those experiential-type images
that are found are those of fragmented experiences
that relate directly to the specific product offered
by particular sectors (i.e., “dining experiences” or
“experience modern shopping facilities”). Therefore, these experiential-type images contribute
largely to the commoditization and consuming nature of tourism. The use of photography to design
effective (holistic) tourism experiences, as suggested by Sternberg (1997) and Garlick (2002),
seems to be very limited. The experiential nature
of the “consumption of place” is almost completely unrecognizable when interpreting what is
projected by tourism websites, and representation
of the identity of place, its culture, and heritage is
left to government, destination marketing organizations, and, in part, tour operators. Although the
government is trying to react to recent events with
projects and campaigns that are meant to illustrate
the rich heritage of Dubai, private sectors, and particularly the hospitality and transport sectors, seem
to avoid references to the local culture and heritage. Therefore, both private sector and public sector appear to be working across purposes. Especially in the case of the airport website this is
peculiar as it is most heavily involved in the media
campaigns promoting Dubai’s heritage. But even
when it comes to the way culture, heritage, and
ONLINE DESTINATION IMAGE PROJECTION
identity are projected by the destination marketing
organization, “gaze”-type images are the norm, as
opposed to experiential representations.
Hirschman and Holbrook (1982, p. 92) emphasize the importance of multisensory, fantasy, and
emotive aspects of experiential or hedonic products such as tourism. Yet, the way the tourism industry projects images of its tourism product offering, such as on destination marketing websites
(Gretzel & Fesenmaier, 2003), is still
focusing on communicating lists comprised of
functional attributes such as price, distances and
room availability. The design is based on a model
of a rational and information seeking consumer
which often results in simple activity based descriptions that reflect the supply side . . . rather
that an actual consumer’s perceptions of tourism
experiences. It is argued that this lack of an experiential mindset within the tourism industry is due
largely to a lack of understanding of the nature
of tourism experiences. (p. 50)
This conclusion is supported by the research
findings presented in this article. One of the key
tourism challenges seems to be that the focus of
private industry decision makers is on maintaining
tourist satisfaction levels in their own very specific subdomain. The part of the image of the
world that they have is often only related to the
specific facilities and convenient commodities that
they offer for consumption. They are not aiming
to project tourism experiences that are embedded
in a local context, nor are they concerned with the
destination’s identity or how it should be projected. Therefore, they often fail to incorporate the
full potential of the prospective rich tourism experience, which would match the tourists’ perceived
destination image and the experience delivery that
the tourists expect. It should be emphasized here,
however, that this dilemma is not particular to online presentations but most likely also exists in paper catalogues and other media; it is a strategic
dilemma, not a technical problem, and there is no
easy solution. However, the Internet particularly
seems to provide opportunities for improvement.
Gretzel and Fesenmaier (2003) successfully
showed that sensory information regarding consumer perceptions of places can be researched and
bundled into sensory themes following specific
87
patterns of association, which “can be used to define coherent experiences sought after by certain
groups of travellers.” This proves that there is a
world of opportunities for the tourism industry to
use the learning of the hedonic consumption domain to improve the way in which the destination’s identity is reflected in the tourism product
offering and the way it is communicated, in order
to provide the rich tourism experience that the
tourist is looking for, based on a shared cultural
identity that has been projected by the destination
(among others through the media, websites, art
and literature, historical narratives, and prior experience with a culture, other than one’s own).
If a “balanced encounter” between hosts and
guests does not take place, tourists are likely to
adjust their perceived destination image and even
lower their expectations, based on their actual
tourist experience. But what may be worse, at least
from a tourist destination perspective, is that they
are likely to misinterpret and share perceptual inferences with other strangers, thereby creating a
self-perpetuating spiral of misrepresentation in the
image formation process. Therefore, it is crucial
that both the design of a shared cultural identity
and the construction of tourist scripts are rooted in
a sense of place. Ultimately, the quality of a tourist experience and sustainable host communities
depends on the intelligent alignment of the perceived destination image and projected identity.
How this can be done is a challenging topic for
future research.
Biographical Notes
Robert Govers is currently serving as tourism economics
research coordinator at the Flemish Center for Tourism Policy Studies. Prior to this he worked in Dubai as a senior
lecturer in tourism and marketing. Robert graduated with a
Master’s degree in Marketing from the Rotterdam School
of Management, but also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information Management. After his studies he was a Research Associate for the Centre for Tourism Management
in Rotterdam, where he is currently completing his Ph.D.
on the topic of destination image.
Frank Go currently holds the Bewetour Chair of Tourism
Management at the Rotterdam School of Management,
Erasmus University, the Netherlands. Prior to that he
served within business faculties at universities in Canada
88
GOVERS AND GO
and Hong Kong. His current research focus is on the coevolution of marketing, information and communication technology, and organization practices in relation to innovative
networks and creative communities, sustainable business
development, projected and perceived destination images &
brand identity, and technology-enhanced learning contexts.
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