Description
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons that tourists capture images of their
trips on cameras or camcorders
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Tourist photographs: signs of self
Russell Belk J oyce Hsiu-yen Yeh
Article information:
To cite this document:
Russell Belk J oyce Hsiu-yen Yeh, (2011),"Tourist photographs: signs of self", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality
Research, Vol. 5 Iss 4 pp. 345 - 353
Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506181111174628
Downloaded on: 24 January 2016, At: 22:17 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 83 other documents.
To copy this document: [email protected]
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1192 times since 2011*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
Antónia Correia, Metin Kozak, J oão Ferradeira, (2013),"From tourist motivations to tourist satisfaction", International J ournal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 7 Iss 4 pp. 411-424http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-05-2012-0022
Michael Basil, (2011),"Use of photography and video in observational research", Qualitative Market Research: An International J ournal, Vol.
14 Iss 3 pp. 246-257http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13522751111137488
J oaquín Alegre, Magdalena Cladera, (2012),"Tourist characteristics that influence shopping participation and expenditures", International
J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 6 Iss 3 pp. 223-237http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506181211246375
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:115632 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about
how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/
authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than
290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional
customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and
also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Tourist photographs: signs of self
Russell Belk and Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons that tourists capture images of their
trips on cameras or camcorders.
Design/methodology/approach – Over a period of approximately ?ve years, the authors observed,
photographed and interviewed tourists taking photos or videos in diverse international locations. Upon
returning home, informants e-mailed their trip photos together with descriptions of what the images
meant and what they had done with them when at home. These data were archived and interpreted in
line with the central research questions.
Findings – Why does almost every tourist carry a camera or camcorder? What are they doing making
these images? And what do they do with them once they return home? The accompanying video
conveys most of the ?ndings, while the manuscript elaborates on certain theoretical points and provides
contextualizing and supportive evidence from the literatures dealing with tourism and photography.
Originality/value – The paper suggests that the images form part of an identity project, serving as a
means of conveying internal tales to the self rather than as a means of, beyond the immediate family,
communicating with others. The images act as tools for displacing meanings that are too fragile and
tenuous to be contained in the fragile present as Grant McCracken describes more generally with
regard to tying hopes and dreams to places and times of the past and future.
Keywords Tourism, Photography, Audio-visual ethnography, Individual behaviour, Self-actualization
Paper type Research paper
P
erhaps tourists existed before cameras. The elites of ancient cultures travelled to
villas, baths, and sports contests, and the pilgrimages of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries involved pleasure seeking and cultural immersion in addition to
the religious activity that was their avowed purpose (Belk and Costa, 1995; Urry, 1990). The
European Grand Tour of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was still the province of
the elites, but Towner (1995) argues that spas, seaside resorts, and Thomas Cook tours in
the nineteenth century mark the start of recreational, scenic, and cultural mass tourism in the
west. If so, since photography began in 1839 with the daguerreotype (Sontag, 1977) it is fair
to say that there were not many tourists before there were cameras. For as Osborne (2000)
notes:
As soon as there was photography there was travel photography (p. 3).
Indeed, the emergence of mass tourism and popular photography owe a great deal to one
another (e.g. Crawshaw and Urry, 1997; Neumann, 1992; Stotesbury, 2001).
By the start of the twentieth century, photography and tourism were so thoroughly integrated
that Chalfen (1987) calls the camera the identity badge of the tourist. Whether the tourist
camera is cast positively as a status symbol (Schroeder, 2002) or negatively as a
stigmatizing mark of the one who does not belong here (Lo¨ fgren, 1999), the camera
demarcates the tourist fromthe local inhabitant who, at best, may have a camera cummobile
phone with him or her and at any rate would not photograph the same things as a tourist. In
DOI 10.1108/17506181111174628 VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011, pp. 345-353, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 345
Russell Belk is Kraft Foods
Canada Chair in Marketing
at the Schulich School of
Business, York University,
Toronto, Canada.
Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh is an
Associate Professor at the
National Dong Hwa
University, Hualien, Taiwan.
Received April 2009
Revised September 2009
Accepted January 2010
Please ?nd the video that
accompanies this article at:http://www.emeraldinsight.
com/promo/hospitality_
research.htm
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
addition, by placing a camera between the self and the other, the tourist adopts a mask and
gains a certain voyeuristic license. Just as we do not commonly step between a
photographer and subject, neither do we question, for instance, the Japanese or Chinese
tourist taking photos of all the dishes in a restaurant at which they are eating.
Not only does the camera mark us as a tourist, it may also be an instrument by which we seek
to de?ne at least a portion of our identity. By allowing us to collect evidence of where we have
been and what we saw and did there, we may be attempting to claim these otherwise
intangible and ephemeral experiences as a part of our extended self (Belk, 1988). This
premise underpins the research on which our paper and the accompanying video are
based. Beyond this point, the project considers the target of tourist photography – that is,
what tourists choose to photograph or video record and what these images mean to them
after they return home.
The data come from a diverse array of international tourist activities studied over a period of
approximately ?ve years. From the start of this inquiry we observed and photographed or
videotaped tourists taking photos or videos. Because virtually everyone at tourist places has
a camera or camcorder, we ?tted in easily. The diverse sites for these observations included
an air excursion over Antarctica, African photo safaris, hula performances, sur?ng, and a
submarine excursion in Hawaii, the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Parade in San Francisco,
Buddhist temples in Taiwan, various spectacles on the Las Vegas strip, dance performances
in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Cambodia, whale watching, glacier viewing, and ?oat plane trips
in Alaska, Chinese theme parks, San Diego Sea World, a train tour in the Yukon, visits to
Victoria Falls, a bus tour of Ankor Wat in Cambodia, Cu Chi tunnel tours in Vietnam, and
palaces and a puppet theatre in Bangkok. At the last three sites, one of the authors also
accompanied a group of 15 tourists (ages 18 to 64) on a weeklong excursion and conducted
informal interviews en route. After we returned we had them e-mail us their photos from the
trip along with a description of what these photos meant and what they had done with them
once they were home. We also sent them a brief open-ended set of questions about the trip
and their visual recordings. Belk also conducted telephone interviews with a subset of three
of these participants, using selections from their photographs to visually elicit additional
commentary. We transcribed the data and archived the photos along with the narratives
describing these images and their meanings for the tourists we studied.
Because of the visual nature of both the data and the consumer behavior being studied, the
23-minute ?lm is the primary research output fromthis project. In the discussion that follows,
theoretical points from the ?lm are expanded upon and integrated into a small existing
literature on tourist photography. This theoretical discussion offers the chance to advance
arguments made in the ?lm as well as to acknowledge prior relevant work.
The tourist
In an era of global mobility, faster transportation, and increasing af?uence, more and more of
the world’s people are becoming tourists. International tourism is no longer considered to be
an extravagant luxury as it once was (England, 1980). Key?tz (1982) has suggested that
leisure travel is now a part of the ‘‘standard package’’ desired by consumers throughout the
world. Some have suggested that receiving international tourists may also be the best
pathway to development for many poor nations (e.g. De Kadt, 1979). Until the rise of recent
concerns with global warming and the carbon footprint left by international travel, tourism
has been seen as a green pathway to economic growth, especially in the less af?uent world.
And a number of marketing and tourism scholars have offered advice and research on how
to attract more tourists (e.g. Fisher and Price, 1991; Kotler et al., 1993; Madrigal and Kahle,
1994; Ray and McCain, 2003).
This pro-tourism outlook has not been universal however. Because international tourists are
likely to be from the more af?uent world and travel to the less af?uent world, some theorists
view such tourism as a contemporary form of imperialism (e.g. Nash, 1989). The imposition
of non-local preferences can be seen, for instance, when tourists travel in a ‘‘tourist bubble’’
in which a tour guide speaks their native language, takes them to branches of global hotels
PAGE 346
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
that serve familiar foods and beverages, and effectively isolates them from any real contact
with local inhabitants (Belk, 1993; Buck, 1976; Owen, 1968; Schmidt, 1979). Although there
have been attempts to classify tourists in categories based on the ‘‘authenticity’’ of their
experience (e.g. Cohen, 1979; Redfoot, 1984; Smith, 1977), the idea that some types of
tourists (e.g. hostelling backpackers) have deeper experiences than others smacks of
elitism. The likelihood of any individual touristic experience being a meaningful intercultural
encounter is small, despite arguments to the contrary (e.g. Butler, 1992; Lanfant, 1980;
Pearce, 1982; Riley, 1988). At the same time the cumulative effect of tourist encounters on
local consumption patterns is likely to be signi?cant (e.g. Costa, 1988, 1993). In addition, the
greater relative af?uence of global tourists in comparison to local inhabitants can make the
tourist appear to spend extravagantly, consume recklessly, and engage in eating, drinking,
and sexual behaviors that appear excessive, immoral, and exploitative (Belk, 1993; Culler,
1981). The subcategory of sexual tourism further highlights these problems (Belk et al.,
1998).
Another set of critiques of international tourism focuses on the performances that are
produced for and consumed by these tourists. MacCannell (1989) decries the ‘‘staged
authenticity’’ of encounters that present a stylized and stereotyped view of what tourists
expect to see rather than showing a more accurate view of life at the tourist destination.
Tourists themselves are prepared to see these stereotypes because that is what they have
encountered in tour guidebooks, tourist brochures, National Geographic, on the internet and
in television travel programs (e.g. Costa, 1998; Lutz and Collins, 1993; Osborne, 2000;
Schroeder and Borgerson, 1990). Given the tourists’ stereotypical expectations as well as
the production of stereotypical performances like those of the Polynesian Cultural Center in
Hawaii, it is not surprising that the tourism has been charged with providing only a shallow
‘‘pseudo experience’’ through producing and consuming ‘‘pseudo events’’ (Boorstin, 1987).
Urry (1990) describes the tourist gaze as being both shallow and voyeuristic in consuming
tourist spectacles in much the same way as the same person might a watch a television
movie or wander in a shopping mall. And Eco (1983) charges that this has led to a pervasive
hyperreality in which we prefer the Disney-like recreation of, say, Africa and other locales to
the real thing. Although Eco was writing at a time when Caesar’s Palace was still the most
spectacular of the Las Vegas strip themed casinos that he visited, Las Vegas continues to go
farther over the top with each newmega-resort (e.g. Belk, 2000; Gottdiener et al., 1999). And
in their race to keep up with other tourist attractions, even zoos – which are already a
perversion of animals in nature (Berger, 1980; Tuan, 1984; Davies, 2000) – become
Disney?ed (Beardsworth and Bryman, 2001; Bettany and Belk, n.d.).
Nor are the effects of tourism on host locales always positive. In addition to the potential for
neocolonial economic dominance by tourists over exploitable locals as already noted, an
additional problem is that often the ?nancial bene?ts of tourism go more to global hotels,
airlines, and travel companies rather than local ?rms (Belk, 1993; Belk and Costa, 1995). For
example, it was estimated that the sixteen largest hotel chains owned more than a third of the
hotels in developing countries and a greater proportion of the rooms (Crick, 1989). While
some local jobs are provided by such companies, they are likely to be low-level service jobs
rather than technical and managerial positions. International tourism has also been charged
with spreading consumer culture, disrupting local cultural practices, and creating
vulnerability for the locals who have come to depend upon it until natural disasters,
political events, or boredom cause tourists to move on to the next hot spot.
In the light of such criticisms of the tourist, touristic spectacles, and the negative effects of
tourism on local populations, we may well ask why people continue to travel in
ever-increasing numbers, even as the ?nancial and environmental cost of doing so
continues to climb. Although tourist motives are diverse, one characterization has been that
of seeking a sacred transformative experience in which the time and place are regarded as
wholly different from ordinary times and places and the tour is mystical, mysterious, and
mythical (e.g. Belk et al., 1989; Grayburn, 1989; Sears, 1989). The result is that the liminal
sacred experience ideally transforms the participant into an entirely different person.
However, as international travel has become increasingly common and in view of the
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 347
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
frequently shallow and super?cial nature of the tourist experience, it is questionable whether
this characterization can aptly be applied. And although some have characterized tourism
as an educational experience with visits to museums and historical and cultural sights
(e.g. Horne, 1992; Jager, 1975), it is also questionable whether it is common for tourists to
expect to be educated rather than merely entertained (Dunbar, 1977; Yeh, 2003). A more
common tourist motivation these days may be that of play. Touristic liminality may release
travelers from their quotidian lives less for a sacred experience than for a playful ludic
experience. This attitude characterizes Urry’s (1990) ‘‘post-tourist,’’ gazing playfully on
whatever the trip may offer while casting an acquisitive gaze on all that is seen. Both
shopping and photography are implicated in this perspective. But the playful post-tourist
may not be precluded from expecting to be changed by the experience. Self-de?nition
requires an other fromwhomwe can distinguish ourselves and international tourismcan help
to frame this other (e.g. Cohen, 1990; MacCannell, 1989; Rossel, 1988; Yeh, n.d.). This focus
is one of the emphasers of the accompanying ?lm. But the question yet to be addressed in
this paper concerns the role that tourist photography plays in all of this.
Photography
Clearly one function of tourist photography is to provide a souvenir of the trip (Belk, 1990,
1991; Benson and Silberman, 1987; Evans, 1999, 2000; Hutnyk, 2004; Love and Sheldon,
1998; Yeh, 2003, 2009). But this begs the question if we are unclear about what a souvenir is
for or what kind of a phenomenon photography is. We know that the term souvenir comes
from the French for ‘‘to remember,’’ and most photographs and video recordings made by
tourists no doubt have this purpose in mind. Still, it is not clear what we remember based on
such cues. Roland Barthes (1981) sought to recall his dead mother fromher photograph and
found that this image indeed brought back the details of her appearance at the time the
photo was taken. But it was as much his mother’s former possessions at the photograph that
helped him to get a feeling for who she was. And like Proust’s lime blossom tea and petit
Madelines, is was the ?ood of associations that all these things brought back that constituted
his memories of her and their relationship. Similarly, Alain De Botton (2002) distinguishes
between the mere facticity of a scenic photograph and the embodied experience of actually
being in the place depicted:
A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making its ?rst appearance: that I had
inadvertently brought myself with me to the island. It is easy to forget ourselves when we
contemplate pictorial and verbal descriptions of places. At home, as my eyes had panned over
photographs of Barbados, there were no reminders that those eyes were intimately tied to a body
and mind which would travel with me wherever I went and that might, over time, assert their
presence in ways that would threaten or even negate the purpose of what the eyes had come
there to see. At home, I could concentrate on pictures of a hotel room, a beach or a sky and ignore
the complex creature in which this observation was taking place and for whom this was only a
small part of a larger, more multifaceted task of living (p. 20).
Thus, although photographic and video-graphic evidences may be cues to call forth
memories, they do not performthe work of recollection themselves and cannot reproduce all
of the actual experience. Moreover, because we selectively take, select, and preserve these
images, they present a distorted, more polished, and more positive set of evidences than
does the experience itself (Belk, 1986, 1998; Schroeder, 1998, 2002). In this sense they may
be imagined to create cultural capital for the tourist by connecting him or her to another time
and place that implies self-importance and accomplishment. Such photographic and
videographic evidences thus serve as an attempted capitalization of experience (Bourdieu,
1990; Crang, 1999).
Although Hutnyk (2004) refers to both the travel photograph and the souvenir as means of
‘‘trinketizing’’ touristic experience, he recognizes that there are differences between the two.
Trinketization also implies trivialization and seeing the world not so much as a museum of
living cultures as a combination theme park and shopping mall (e.g. Kirschenblatt-Bimblett,
1998). While the souvenirs of today’s market economy are likely to be commodities taken
from a set of identical memorializing objects, each photograph seems to be unique, even if
PAGE 348
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
thousands of other tourists have stood on the same spot taking what is essentially the same
photograph. Nevertheless, the photo remains more connected to the tourist-photographer
because he or she made it. The act is incrementally more personal than selecting a travel
postcard with a similar (and likely superior) image, because the photographer, consciously
or unconsciously, has an intent in taking the photo (Nguyen and Belk, 2007). We will not ?nd
images of our family and friends on a postcard, but we can make images of themin the same
touristic locations. These photographs represent, in Hutnyk’s (2004) words, congealed
social relations. One framing sought is labeled the ‘‘family gaze’’ by Baerenholdt et al.
(2004). The frame seeks to construct the idealized image of family intimacy just as the
‘‘romantic gaze’’ in photography seeks to construct an idealized view of a place. When the
images are of local people and places encountered in travel, they may be more akin to
plunder (Hutnyk, 2004). As Sontag (1977) points out, it is with reason that we say we ‘‘take’’ a
photo. In addition to being possessive, taking a photograph is acquisitive. As Urry (1990)
emphasizes, taking photos gives structure to a trip – we stop, take a photo, and then move
on. For men, the task is especially important; arguably we feel more ‘‘productive’’ on our
vacation trip.
In taking these photos, we also engage in an act intended for self-fashioning (Osborne,
2000). On one hand, tourist photography might be thought of as a re?exive project in which
‘‘we have become the permanent reviewers of our own experience’’ (Osborne, 2000, p. 75).
But the performativity of such photography with its staging and posing of shots means that
tourists intend something more than simply experiential documentation. Along with the act of
naming or labeling things we encounter, either before or after photographing them, in taking
tourist photos we are potentially collecting illustrations and titles for a self-narrative. In
describing ethnographic narratives, John Van Maanen (1988) suggests several genres. Of
these genres, personal travel photos are likely most similar to dramatic tales and tales about
self. That is, rather than just crafting a reportorial format, we are scripting a future travel tale
in which we are the dramatic hero or heroine. Nevertheless, while photography may be a
form of language (Scott, 1999), it still requires a narrator. Otherwise, the images are as
confusing as the family photo album of an unknown family. In taking photos or videos for an
imagined self narrative, the tourist is apt to think in terms not only of dramatic heroism, but
also in related genres such as tragedy, comedy, pilgrim’s tales, adventure tales, and quest
tales. We are also apt to draw upon Orientalizing discourse (Said, 1979) and make the Other
our antithesis. This approach can take several forms ranging from romanticism to abjection
(see Crawshaw and Urry, 1997). The traveler becomes the author/playwright/director/
cinematographer/photographer in crafting these imagined narratives of self. Thus, it is not so
much the people and places that tourist photography seeks to understand as it is his or her
self as a tourist.
Conclusion
As the accompanying ?lm reveals, the tourist photographer may attempt to say various
?attering things about themselves. For example, ‘‘I had fun,’’ ‘‘I am rich,’’ ‘‘I am important’’
and ‘‘I had a transformative experience,’’ are all among the imagined narrative possibilities.
In Grant McCracken’s (1988) terms, photos can be a tool for displacing meanings that are
too fragile and tenuous to be contained in the here and now. By instead claiming these
identity statements in the there and then of the tourist’s travels, they become less subject to
interrogation and less demanding of veri?cation. After all, there is the evidence, no longer
just in black and white, but in living color and susceptible to PhotoShopping and video
editing. But we also ?nd that, despite the narrative that the tourist photographer-
cinematographer imagines delivering at some future time, these tales wind up being more
internal tales told to the self than ever ?nding an audience outside of the immediate family.
Our tourist photos are nevertheless selectively taken and retained with an intended audience
in mind and are a conscious attempt to manipulate our self-image (Crang, 1999). E-mailed
photos as well as photo sharing sites like Flickr and social networking sites, blogs, and web
pages may have some greater success in reaching an audience (Schau and Gilly, 2003),
and a few of us may also bring selected images to our workplace (Tian and Belk, 2005). But
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 349
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
the fact remains that with the ease of taking photos and the sense of purpose that it gives us
to photograph our touristic sights, not to mention the escalating proliferation of photos that
result, most of the world will little note, long remember, nor even encounter the self
productions we have in mind when we record these images. And as these images become
more numerous and more ephemeral in their digital forms, it may well be that we ourselves
will never see them again either.
References
Baerenholdt, J.O., Haldrop, M., Larsen, J. and Urry, J. (2004), Performing Tourist Places, Ashgate
Publishing, Aldershot.
Barthes, R. (1981), Camera Lucida, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, NY, translated from 1980
French edition.
Beardsworth, A. and Bryman, A. (2001), ‘‘The wild animal in late modernity: the case of the disneyization
of zoos’’, Tourist Studies, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 83-104.
Belk, R. (1986), ‘‘Art versus science as ways of generatingknowledge about materialism’’, in Brinberg, D.
and Lutz, R.J. (Eds), Perspectives on Methodology in Consumer Research, Springer-Verlag, New York,
NY, pp. 3-36.
Belk, R. (1988), ‘‘Possessions and the extended self’’, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15 No. 2,
pp. 139-58.
Belk, R. (1990), ‘‘The role of possessions in constructing and maintaining a sense of the past’’,
Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 17, pp. 669-76.
Belk, R. (1991), ‘‘Possessions and the sense of past’’, in Belk, R. (Ed.), Highways and Buyways:
Naturalistic Research from the Consumer Behavior Odyssey, Association for Consumer Research,
Provo, UT, pp. 114-30.
Belk, R. (1993), ‘‘Third world tourism: panacea or poison? The case of Nepal’’, Journal of International
Consumer Marketing, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 27-68.
Belk, R. (1998), ‘‘Multimedia consumer research’’, in Stern, B. (Ed.), Representating Consumers: Voices,
Views, and Visions, Routledge, London, pp. 308-38.
Belk, R. (2000), ‘‘May the farce be with you: on Las Vegas and consumer infantalization’’, Consumption,
Markets, and Culture, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 101-23.
Belk, R., Østergaard, P. and Groves, R. (1998), ‘‘Sexual consumption in a time of AIDS: a study of
prostitute patronage in Thailand’’, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 197-214.
Belk, R. and Costa, J.A. (1995), ‘‘International tourism: an assessment and overview’’, Journal of
Macromarketing, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 33-49.
Belk, R., Wallendorf, M. and Sherry, J.F. Jr (1989), ‘‘The sacred and the profane in consumer behavior:
theodicy on the Odyssey’’, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 1-38.
Benson, J. and Silberman, R. (1987), ‘‘Tourist photographs as souvenirs’’, in Salzman, J. (Ed.),
Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies, Vol. 11, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY,
pp. 261-71.
Berger, J. (1980), About Looking, Pantheon, New York, NY.
Bettany, S. and Belk, R. (n.d.), ‘‘Disney discourses of self and other: animality, primitivity, modernity, and
postmodernity’’, Consumption, Markets and Culture, in press.
Boorstin, D. (1987), The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, Atheneum, New York, NY.
Bourdieu, P. (1990), Photography: A Middlebrow Art, Polity Press, London.
Buck, R.C. (1976), ‘‘Boundary maintenance revisted: tourist experience in an old order Amish
community’’, Rural Sociology, Vol. 43, Summer, pp. 221-34.
Butler, R. (1992), ‘‘Alternativetourism: the thin end of the wedge’’, in Smith, V.L. and Eadington, W.R.
(Eds), Tourism Alternatives: Potentials and Problems in the Development of Tourism, University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 31-46.
PAGE 350
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Chalfen, R. (1987), Snapshot Versions of Life, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling
Green, OH.
Cohen, E. (1979), ‘‘A phenomenology of tourist experiences’’, Sociology, Vol. 13, May, pp. 179-201.
Cohen, J.H. (1990), ‘‘Strategies in two Zapotec weaving communities of Oaxaca, Mexico’’, Society for
Economic Anthropology Newsletter, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 12-29.
Costa, J.A. (1988), ‘‘Systems integration and attitudes toward Greek rural life: a case study’’,
Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 61 No. 2, pp. 73-90.
Costa, J.A. (1993), ‘‘Tourism as cultural precipitate: an exploration and example’’, European Advances
in Consumer Research, Vol. 2, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT.
Costa, J.A. (1998), ‘‘Paradisal discourse: a critical analysis of marketing and consuming Hawaii’’,
Consumption, Markets and Culture, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 303-46.
Crang, M. (1999), ‘‘Knowing, tourism and practices of vision’’, in Couch, D. (Ed.), Leisure Tourism
Geographies: Practices and Geographical Knowledge, Routledge, London, pp. 238-56.
Crawshaw, C. and Urry, J. (1997), ‘‘Tourism and the photographic eye’’, in Rojek, C. and Urry, J. (Eds),
Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory, Routledge, London, pp. 176-95.
Crick, M. (1989), ‘‘Representations of international tourism in the social sciences: sun, sex, sights,
savings, and servility’’, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 18, Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, CA,
pp. 307-44.
Culler, J. (1981), ‘‘Semiotics of tourism’’, American Journal of Semiotics, Vol. 1 Nos 1/2, pp. 27-140.
Davies, G. (2000), ‘‘Virtual animals in electronic zoos: the changing geographies of animal capture and
display’’, in Philo, C. and Wilbert, C. (Eds), Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies of
Human-Animal Relations, Routledge, London, pp. 243-67.
De Botton, A. (2002), The Art of Travel, Penguin, London.
De Kadt, E. (Ed.) (1979), Tourism: Passport to Development? Perspectives on the Social and Cultural
Ethics of Tourism in Developing Countries, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Dunbar, S. (1977), ‘‘Why travel?’’, Landscape, Vol. 21, Spring-Summer, pp. 45-7.
Eco, U. (1983), Travels in Hyperreality, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, CA.
England, R. (1980), ‘‘Architecture for tourists’’, International Social Science Journal, Vol. 32 No. 1,
pp. 44-54.
Evans, G. (1999), Souvenirs, NMS Publishing, Edinburgh.
Evans, G. (2000), ‘‘Contemporary crafts as souvenirs, artefacts, and functional goods and their role in
local economic diversi?cation and cultural development’’, in Hitchcock, M. and Teague, K. (Eds),
Souvenirs: The Material Culture of Tourism, Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 127-46.
Fisher, R.J. and Price, L. (1991), ‘‘International pleasure travel motivations and post-vacation attitude
change’’, Journal of Leisure Research, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 193-208.
Gottdiener, M., Collins, C. and Dickens, D. (1999), Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American
City, Blackwell, Oxford.
Grayburn, N.H. (1989), ‘‘Tourism: the sacred journey’’, in Smith, V. (Ed.), Hosts and Guests:
The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nd ed., University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 21-36.
Horne, D. (1992), The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History, Pluto, London.
Hutnyk, J. (2004), ‘‘Photogenic poverty: souvenirs and infantalism’’, Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 3
No. 1, pp. 77-94.
Jager, B. (1975), ‘‘Theorizing, journeying, dwelling’’, in Giorgi, A., Fischer, C.T. and Murray, E.L. (Eds),
Duquesne Studies in Phenomenological Psychology, Vol. 2, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA,
pp. 235-60.
Key?tz, N. (1982), ‘‘Development and the elimination of poverty’’, Economic Development and Cultural
Change, Vol. 30, April, pp. 649-70.
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 351
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998), Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage, University of
California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Kotler, P., Haider, D.H. and Rein, I. (1993), Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry, and
Tourism to Cities, States, and Nations, Free Press, New York, NY.
Lanfant, M. (1980), ‘‘Introduction: tourism in the process of internationalization’’, International Social
Science Journal, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 14-43.
Lo¨ fgren, O. (1999), On Holiday: A History of Vacationing, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Love, L.L. and Sheldon, P.S. (1998), ‘‘Souvenirs: messengers of meaning’’, Advances in Consumer
Research, Vol. 25, pp. 170-5.
Lutz, C.A. and Collins, J.L. (1993), Reading National Geographic, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
IL.
McCracken, G. (1988), Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of
Consumer Goods and Activities, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
MacCannell, D. (1989), The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, 2nd ed., Schocken Books, New
York, NY.
Madrigal, R. and Kahle, L.R. (1994), ‘‘Predicting vacation activity preferences on the basis of
value-system segmentation’’, Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 32, Winter, pp. 22-8.
Nash, D. (1989), ‘‘Tourism as a form of imperialism’’, in Smith, V.L. (Ed.), Hosts and Guests:
The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nd ed., University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 27-52.
Neumann, M. (1992), ‘‘The traveling eye: photography, tourism, and ethnography’’, Visual Studes, Vol. 7
No. 2, pp. 22-38.
Nguyen, D. and Belk, R. (2007), ‘‘This we remember: consuming representation in remembering’’,
Consumption, Markets and Culture, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 251-91.
Osborne, P.D. (2000), Traveling Light: Photography, Travel and Visual Culture, Manchester University
Press, Manchester.
Owen, C. (1968), Britons Abroad: A Report on the Packaged Tour, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Pearce, P.L. (1982), The Social Psychology of Tourist Behavior, Pergamon, Oxford.
Ray, N.M. and McCain, G. (2003), ‘‘Taking the ‘sham’ out of shamrock: legacy tourists seeking the ‘real
thing’’’, European Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 6, pp. 54-9.
Redfoot, D.L. (1984), ‘‘Touristic authenticity, touristic angst, and modern reality’’, Qualitative Sociology,
Vol. 7, Winter, pp. 291-309.
Riley, P.J. (1988), ‘‘Road culture of international longtermbudget travelers’’, Annals of TourismResearch,
Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 313-28.
Rossel, P. (1988), ‘‘Tourism and cultural minorities: double marginalization and survival strategies’’, in
Rossel, P. (Ed.), Tourism: Manufacturing the Exotic, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs,
Copenhagen, pp. 1-20.
Said, E. (1979), Orientalism, Vintage, New York, NY.
Schau, H.J. and Gilly, M.C. (2003), ‘‘We are what we post: self-presentation in personal webspace’’,
Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 30, December, pp. 385-404.
Schmidt, C.J. (1979), ‘‘The guided tour: insulated adventure’’, Urban Life, Vol. 7, January, pp. 441-67.
Scott, C. (1999), The Spoken Image: Photography and Language, Reaktion, London.
Schroeder, J. (1998), ‘‘Consuming representation: a visual approach to consumer research’’, in Stern, B.
(Ed.), Representating Consumers: Voices, Views, and Visions, Routledge, London, pp. 193-230.
Schroeder, J. (2002), Visual Consumption, Routledge, London.
Schroeder, J. and Borgerson, J. (1990), ‘‘Packaging paradise: consuming Hawaiian music’’, Advances
in Consumer Research, Vol. 26, pp. 46-50.
Sears, J.F. (1989), Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford
University Press, New York, NY.
PAGE 352
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Smith, V.L. (1977), ‘‘Eskimo tourism: macro-models and marginal men’’, in Smith, V.L. (Ed.), Hosts and
Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nded., University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 51-70.
Sontag, S. (1977), On Photography, Delta, New York, NY.
Stotesbury, J.A. (2001), ‘‘Time, history, memory: photographic life narratives and the albums of
strangers’’, in Campbell, J. and Habord, J. (Eds), Temporalities: Auto/biography in a Postmodern Age,
Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 193-203.
Tian, K. and Belk, R. (2005), ‘‘Extended self and possessions in the workplace’’, Journal of Consumer
Research, Vol. 32, September, pp. 297-310.
Towner, J. (1995), ‘‘What is tourism’s history?’’, Tourism Management, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 339-43.
Tuan, Y. (1984), Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Urry, J. (1990), The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies, Sage, London.
Van Maanen, J. (1988), Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, IL.
Yeh, J. (2003), ‘‘Journeys to the west: travelling, learning and consuming Englishness’’, unpublished
PhD thesis, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster.
Yeh, J. (2009), ‘‘Still vision and mobile youth: tourist photos, travel narratives and taiwanese modernity’’,
in Winter, T. et al. (Eds), Asia on Tour, Routledge, London, pp. 302-14.
Yeh, J. (n.d.), ‘‘Embodiment of sociability through the tourist camera’’, in Robison, M. and Picard, D.
(Eds), The Framed World: Tourism, Tourist and Photography, Ashgate, London.
About the authors
Russell W. Belk is Professor and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing, Schulich School of
Business, York University as well as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of
Hong Kong and Honorary Professor at Hong Kong City University and the University of
Go¨ teborg (Sweden). Russell W. Belk is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh holds a PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University, UK. She is now an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Cultures of National Dong Hwa
University, Taiwan. Her research and ?eldwork have concentrated on cultural studies of
tourism and deal with issues of otherness, intercultural encounters, material culture, and
relations between everyday culture consumption and (re)presentations of indigenousness.
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 353
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
This article has been cited by:
1. Anja Dinhopl, Ulrike Gretzel. 2016. Selfie-taking as touristic looking. Annals of Tourism Research 57, 126-139. [CrossRef]
2. Iris Sheungting Lo, Bob McKercher. 2015. Ideal image in process: Online tourist photography and impression management.
Annals of Tourism Research 52, 104-116. [CrossRef]
3. Don E. Schultz. 2014. Extending the Extended Self in the Digital World. The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
22, 143-146. [CrossRef]
4. Alain Decrop, Julie Masset. 2014. “This is a piece of coral received from captain Bob”: meanings and functions of tourist
souvenirs. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 8:1, 22-34. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
5. Russell W. Belk. 2013. Extended Self in a Digital World. Journal of Consumer Research 40, 477-500. [CrossRef]
6. Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert. 2012. Tourists with cameras:. Annals of Tourism Research 39, 1817-1838. [CrossRef]
7. Rachel Snow. 2012. Snapshots by the way: Individuality and convention in tourists’ photographs from the United States,
1880-1940. Annals of Tourism Research 39, 2013-2050. [CrossRef]
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
doc_554682287.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons that tourists capture images of their
trips on cameras or camcorders
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Tourist photographs: signs of self
Russell Belk J oyce Hsiu-yen Yeh
Article information:
To cite this document:
Russell Belk J oyce Hsiu-yen Yeh, (2011),"Tourist photographs: signs of self", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality
Research, Vol. 5 Iss 4 pp. 345 - 353
Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506181111174628
Downloaded on: 24 January 2016, At: 22:17 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 83 other documents.
To copy this document: [email protected]
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1192 times since 2011*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
Antónia Correia, Metin Kozak, J oão Ferradeira, (2013),"From tourist motivations to tourist satisfaction", International J ournal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 7 Iss 4 pp. 411-424http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-05-2012-0022
Michael Basil, (2011),"Use of photography and video in observational research", Qualitative Market Research: An International J ournal, Vol.
14 Iss 3 pp. 246-257http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13522751111137488
J oaquín Alegre, Magdalena Cladera, (2012),"Tourist characteristics that influence shopping participation and expenditures", International
J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 6 Iss 3 pp. 223-237http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506181211246375
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:115632 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about
how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/
authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than
290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional
customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and
also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Tourist photographs: signs of self
Russell Belk and Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons that tourists capture images of their
trips on cameras or camcorders.
Design/methodology/approach – Over a period of approximately ?ve years, the authors observed,
photographed and interviewed tourists taking photos or videos in diverse international locations. Upon
returning home, informants e-mailed their trip photos together with descriptions of what the images
meant and what they had done with them when at home. These data were archived and interpreted in
line with the central research questions.
Findings – Why does almost every tourist carry a camera or camcorder? What are they doing making
these images? And what do they do with them once they return home? The accompanying video
conveys most of the ?ndings, while the manuscript elaborates on certain theoretical points and provides
contextualizing and supportive evidence from the literatures dealing with tourism and photography.
Originality/value – The paper suggests that the images form part of an identity project, serving as a
means of conveying internal tales to the self rather than as a means of, beyond the immediate family,
communicating with others. The images act as tools for displacing meanings that are too fragile and
tenuous to be contained in the fragile present as Grant McCracken describes more generally with
regard to tying hopes and dreams to places and times of the past and future.
Keywords Tourism, Photography, Audio-visual ethnography, Individual behaviour, Self-actualization
Paper type Research paper
P
erhaps tourists existed before cameras. The elites of ancient cultures travelled to
villas, baths, and sports contests, and the pilgrimages of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries involved pleasure seeking and cultural immersion in addition to
the religious activity that was their avowed purpose (Belk and Costa, 1995; Urry, 1990). The
European Grand Tour of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was still the province of
the elites, but Towner (1995) argues that spas, seaside resorts, and Thomas Cook tours in
the nineteenth century mark the start of recreational, scenic, and cultural mass tourism in the
west. If so, since photography began in 1839 with the daguerreotype (Sontag, 1977) it is fair
to say that there were not many tourists before there were cameras. For as Osborne (2000)
notes:
As soon as there was photography there was travel photography (p. 3).
Indeed, the emergence of mass tourism and popular photography owe a great deal to one
another (e.g. Crawshaw and Urry, 1997; Neumann, 1992; Stotesbury, 2001).
By the start of the twentieth century, photography and tourism were so thoroughly integrated
that Chalfen (1987) calls the camera the identity badge of the tourist. Whether the tourist
camera is cast positively as a status symbol (Schroeder, 2002) or negatively as a
stigmatizing mark of the one who does not belong here (Lo¨ fgren, 1999), the camera
demarcates the tourist fromthe local inhabitant who, at best, may have a camera cummobile
phone with him or her and at any rate would not photograph the same things as a tourist. In
DOI 10.1108/17506181111174628 VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011, pp. 345-353, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 345
Russell Belk is Kraft Foods
Canada Chair in Marketing
at the Schulich School of
Business, York University,
Toronto, Canada.
Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh is an
Associate Professor at the
National Dong Hwa
University, Hualien, Taiwan.
Received April 2009
Revised September 2009
Accepted January 2010
Please ?nd the video that
accompanies this article at:http://www.emeraldinsight.
com/promo/hospitality_
research.htm
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
addition, by placing a camera between the self and the other, the tourist adopts a mask and
gains a certain voyeuristic license. Just as we do not commonly step between a
photographer and subject, neither do we question, for instance, the Japanese or Chinese
tourist taking photos of all the dishes in a restaurant at which they are eating.
Not only does the camera mark us as a tourist, it may also be an instrument by which we seek
to de?ne at least a portion of our identity. By allowing us to collect evidence of where we have
been and what we saw and did there, we may be attempting to claim these otherwise
intangible and ephemeral experiences as a part of our extended self (Belk, 1988). This
premise underpins the research on which our paper and the accompanying video are
based. Beyond this point, the project considers the target of tourist photography – that is,
what tourists choose to photograph or video record and what these images mean to them
after they return home.
The data come from a diverse array of international tourist activities studied over a period of
approximately ?ve years. From the start of this inquiry we observed and photographed or
videotaped tourists taking photos or videos. Because virtually everyone at tourist places has
a camera or camcorder, we ?tted in easily. The diverse sites for these observations included
an air excursion over Antarctica, African photo safaris, hula performances, sur?ng, and a
submarine excursion in Hawaii, the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Parade in San Francisco,
Buddhist temples in Taiwan, various spectacles on the Las Vegas strip, dance performances
in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Cambodia, whale watching, glacier viewing, and ?oat plane trips
in Alaska, Chinese theme parks, San Diego Sea World, a train tour in the Yukon, visits to
Victoria Falls, a bus tour of Ankor Wat in Cambodia, Cu Chi tunnel tours in Vietnam, and
palaces and a puppet theatre in Bangkok. At the last three sites, one of the authors also
accompanied a group of 15 tourists (ages 18 to 64) on a weeklong excursion and conducted
informal interviews en route. After we returned we had them e-mail us their photos from the
trip along with a description of what these photos meant and what they had done with them
once they were home. We also sent them a brief open-ended set of questions about the trip
and their visual recordings. Belk also conducted telephone interviews with a subset of three
of these participants, using selections from their photographs to visually elicit additional
commentary. We transcribed the data and archived the photos along with the narratives
describing these images and their meanings for the tourists we studied.
Because of the visual nature of both the data and the consumer behavior being studied, the
23-minute ?lm is the primary research output fromthis project. In the discussion that follows,
theoretical points from the ?lm are expanded upon and integrated into a small existing
literature on tourist photography. This theoretical discussion offers the chance to advance
arguments made in the ?lm as well as to acknowledge prior relevant work.
The tourist
In an era of global mobility, faster transportation, and increasing af?uence, more and more of
the world’s people are becoming tourists. International tourism is no longer considered to be
an extravagant luxury as it once was (England, 1980). Key?tz (1982) has suggested that
leisure travel is now a part of the ‘‘standard package’’ desired by consumers throughout the
world. Some have suggested that receiving international tourists may also be the best
pathway to development for many poor nations (e.g. De Kadt, 1979). Until the rise of recent
concerns with global warming and the carbon footprint left by international travel, tourism
has been seen as a green pathway to economic growth, especially in the less af?uent world.
And a number of marketing and tourism scholars have offered advice and research on how
to attract more tourists (e.g. Fisher and Price, 1991; Kotler et al., 1993; Madrigal and Kahle,
1994; Ray and McCain, 2003).
This pro-tourism outlook has not been universal however. Because international tourists are
likely to be from the more af?uent world and travel to the less af?uent world, some theorists
view such tourism as a contemporary form of imperialism (e.g. Nash, 1989). The imposition
of non-local preferences can be seen, for instance, when tourists travel in a ‘‘tourist bubble’’
in which a tour guide speaks their native language, takes them to branches of global hotels
PAGE 346
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
that serve familiar foods and beverages, and effectively isolates them from any real contact
with local inhabitants (Belk, 1993; Buck, 1976; Owen, 1968; Schmidt, 1979). Although there
have been attempts to classify tourists in categories based on the ‘‘authenticity’’ of their
experience (e.g. Cohen, 1979; Redfoot, 1984; Smith, 1977), the idea that some types of
tourists (e.g. hostelling backpackers) have deeper experiences than others smacks of
elitism. The likelihood of any individual touristic experience being a meaningful intercultural
encounter is small, despite arguments to the contrary (e.g. Butler, 1992; Lanfant, 1980;
Pearce, 1982; Riley, 1988). At the same time the cumulative effect of tourist encounters on
local consumption patterns is likely to be signi?cant (e.g. Costa, 1988, 1993). In addition, the
greater relative af?uence of global tourists in comparison to local inhabitants can make the
tourist appear to spend extravagantly, consume recklessly, and engage in eating, drinking,
and sexual behaviors that appear excessive, immoral, and exploitative (Belk, 1993; Culler,
1981). The subcategory of sexual tourism further highlights these problems (Belk et al.,
1998).
Another set of critiques of international tourism focuses on the performances that are
produced for and consumed by these tourists. MacCannell (1989) decries the ‘‘staged
authenticity’’ of encounters that present a stylized and stereotyped view of what tourists
expect to see rather than showing a more accurate view of life at the tourist destination.
Tourists themselves are prepared to see these stereotypes because that is what they have
encountered in tour guidebooks, tourist brochures, National Geographic, on the internet and
in television travel programs (e.g. Costa, 1998; Lutz and Collins, 1993; Osborne, 2000;
Schroeder and Borgerson, 1990). Given the tourists’ stereotypical expectations as well as
the production of stereotypical performances like those of the Polynesian Cultural Center in
Hawaii, it is not surprising that the tourism has been charged with providing only a shallow
‘‘pseudo experience’’ through producing and consuming ‘‘pseudo events’’ (Boorstin, 1987).
Urry (1990) describes the tourist gaze as being both shallow and voyeuristic in consuming
tourist spectacles in much the same way as the same person might a watch a television
movie or wander in a shopping mall. And Eco (1983) charges that this has led to a pervasive
hyperreality in which we prefer the Disney-like recreation of, say, Africa and other locales to
the real thing. Although Eco was writing at a time when Caesar’s Palace was still the most
spectacular of the Las Vegas strip themed casinos that he visited, Las Vegas continues to go
farther over the top with each newmega-resort (e.g. Belk, 2000; Gottdiener et al., 1999). And
in their race to keep up with other tourist attractions, even zoos – which are already a
perversion of animals in nature (Berger, 1980; Tuan, 1984; Davies, 2000) – become
Disney?ed (Beardsworth and Bryman, 2001; Bettany and Belk, n.d.).
Nor are the effects of tourism on host locales always positive. In addition to the potential for
neocolonial economic dominance by tourists over exploitable locals as already noted, an
additional problem is that often the ?nancial bene?ts of tourism go more to global hotels,
airlines, and travel companies rather than local ?rms (Belk, 1993; Belk and Costa, 1995). For
example, it was estimated that the sixteen largest hotel chains owned more than a third of the
hotels in developing countries and a greater proportion of the rooms (Crick, 1989). While
some local jobs are provided by such companies, they are likely to be low-level service jobs
rather than technical and managerial positions. International tourism has also been charged
with spreading consumer culture, disrupting local cultural practices, and creating
vulnerability for the locals who have come to depend upon it until natural disasters,
political events, or boredom cause tourists to move on to the next hot spot.
In the light of such criticisms of the tourist, touristic spectacles, and the negative effects of
tourism on local populations, we may well ask why people continue to travel in
ever-increasing numbers, even as the ?nancial and environmental cost of doing so
continues to climb. Although tourist motives are diverse, one characterization has been that
of seeking a sacred transformative experience in which the time and place are regarded as
wholly different from ordinary times and places and the tour is mystical, mysterious, and
mythical (e.g. Belk et al., 1989; Grayburn, 1989; Sears, 1989). The result is that the liminal
sacred experience ideally transforms the participant into an entirely different person.
However, as international travel has become increasingly common and in view of the
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 347
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
frequently shallow and super?cial nature of the tourist experience, it is questionable whether
this characterization can aptly be applied. And although some have characterized tourism
as an educational experience with visits to museums and historical and cultural sights
(e.g. Horne, 1992; Jager, 1975), it is also questionable whether it is common for tourists to
expect to be educated rather than merely entertained (Dunbar, 1977; Yeh, 2003). A more
common tourist motivation these days may be that of play. Touristic liminality may release
travelers from their quotidian lives less for a sacred experience than for a playful ludic
experience. This attitude characterizes Urry’s (1990) ‘‘post-tourist,’’ gazing playfully on
whatever the trip may offer while casting an acquisitive gaze on all that is seen. Both
shopping and photography are implicated in this perspective. But the playful post-tourist
may not be precluded from expecting to be changed by the experience. Self-de?nition
requires an other fromwhomwe can distinguish ourselves and international tourismcan help
to frame this other (e.g. Cohen, 1990; MacCannell, 1989; Rossel, 1988; Yeh, n.d.). This focus
is one of the emphasers of the accompanying ?lm. But the question yet to be addressed in
this paper concerns the role that tourist photography plays in all of this.
Photography
Clearly one function of tourist photography is to provide a souvenir of the trip (Belk, 1990,
1991; Benson and Silberman, 1987; Evans, 1999, 2000; Hutnyk, 2004; Love and Sheldon,
1998; Yeh, 2003, 2009). But this begs the question if we are unclear about what a souvenir is
for or what kind of a phenomenon photography is. We know that the term souvenir comes
from the French for ‘‘to remember,’’ and most photographs and video recordings made by
tourists no doubt have this purpose in mind. Still, it is not clear what we remember based on
such cues. Roland Barthes (1981) sought to recall his dead mother fromher photograph and
found that this image indeed brought back the details of her appearance at the time the
photo was taken. But it was as much his mother’s former possessions at the photograph that
helped him to get a feeling for who she was. And like Proust’s lime blossom tea and petit
Madelines, is was the ?ood of associations that all these things brought back that constituted
his memories of her and their relationship. Similarly, Alain De Botton (2002) distinguishes
between the mere facticity of a scenic photograph and the embodied experience of actually
being in the place depicted:
A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making its ?rst appearance: that I had
inadvertently brought myself with me to the island. It is easy to forget ourselves when we
contemplate pictorial and verbal descriptions of places. At home, as my eyes had panned over
photographs of Barbados, there were no reminders that those eyes were intimately tied to a body
and mind which would travel with me wherever I went and that might, over time, assert their
presence in ways that would threaten or even negate the purpose of what the eyes had come
there to see. At home, I could concentrate on pictures of a hotel room, a beach or a sky and ignore
the complex creature in which this observation was taking place and for whom this was only a
small part of a larger, more multifaceted task of living (p. 20).
Thus, although photographic and video-graphic evidences may be cues to call forth
memories, they do not performthe work of recollection themselves and cannot reproduce all
of the actual experience. Moreover, because we selectively take, select, and preserve these
images, they present a distorted, more polished, and more positive set of evidences than
does the experience itself (Belk, 1986, 1998; Schroeder, 1998, 2002). In this sense they may
be imagined to create cultural capital for the tourist by connecting him or her to another time
and place that implies self-importance and accomplishment. Such photographic and
videographic evidences thus serve as an attempted capitalization of experience (Bourdieu,
1990; Crang, 1999).
Although Hutnyk (2004) refers to both the travel photograph and the souvenir as means of
‘‘trinketizing’’ touristic experience, he recognizes that there are differences between the two.
Trinketization also implies trivialization and seeing the world not so much as a museum of
living cultures as a combination theme park and shopping mall (e.g. Kirschenblatt-Bimblett,
1998). While the souvenirs of today’s market economy are likely to be commodities taken
from a set of identical memorializing objects, each photograph seems to be unique, even if
PAGE 348
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
thousands of other tourists have stood on the same spot taking what is essentially the same
photograph. Nevertheless, the photo remains more connected to the tourist-photographer
because he or she made it. The act is incrementally more personal than selecting a travel
postcard with a similar (and likely superior) image, because the photographer, consciously
or unconsciously, has an intent in taking the photo (Nguyen and Belk, 2007). We will not ?nd
images of our family and friends on a postcard, but we can make images of themin the same
touristic locations. These photographs represent, in Hutnyk’s (2004) words, congealed
social relations. One framing sought is labeled the ‘‘family gaze’’ by Baerenholdt et al.
(2004). The frame seeks to construct the idealized image of family intimacy just as the
‘‘romantic gaze’’ in photography seeks to construct an idealized view of a place. When the
images are of local people and places encountered in travel, they may be more akin to
plunder (Hutnyk, 2004). As Sontag (1977) points out, it is with reason that we say we ‘‘take’’ a
photo. In addition to being possessive, taking a photograph is acquisitive. As Urry (1990)
emphasizes, taking photos gives structure to a trip – we stop, take a photo, and then move
on. For men, the task is especially important; arguably we feel more ‘‘productive’’ on our
vacation trip.
In taking these photos, we also engage in an act intended for self-fashioning (Osborne,
2000). On one hand, tourist photography might be thought of as a re?exive project in which
‘‘we have become the permanent reviewers of our own experience’’ (Osborne, 2000, p. 75).
But the performativity of such photography with its staging and posing of shots means that
tourists intend something more than simply experiential documentation. Along with the act of
naming or labeling things we encounter, either before or after photographing them, in taking
tourist photos we are potentially collecting illustrations and titles for a self-narrative. In
describing ethnographic narratives, John Van Maanen (1988) suggests several genres. Of
these genres, personal travel photos are likely most similar to dramatic tales and tales about
self. That is, rather than just crafting a reportorial format, we are scripting a future travel tale
in which we are the dramatic hero or heroine. Nevertheless, while photography may be a
form of language (Scott, 1999), it still requires a narrator. Otherwise, the images are as
confusing as the family photo album of an unknown family. In taking photos or videos for an
imagined self narrative, the tourist is apt to think in terms not only of dramatic heroism, but
also in related genres such as tragedy, comedy, pilgrim’s tales, adventure tales, and quest
tales. We are also apt to draw upon Orientalizing discourse (Said, 1979) and make the Other
our antithesis. This approach can take several forms ranging from romanticism to abjection
(see Crawshaw and Urry, 1997). The traveler becomes the author/playwright/director/
cinematographer/photographer in crafting these imagined narratives of self. Thus, it is not so
much the people and places that tourist photography seeks to understand as it is his or her
self as a tourist.
Conclusion
As the accompanying ?lm reveals, the tourist photographer may attempt to say various
?attering things about themselves. For example, ‘‘I had fun,’’ ‘‘I am rich,’’ ‘‘I am important’’
and ‘‘I had a transformative experience,’’ are all among the imagined narrative possibilities.
In Grant McCracken’s (1988) terms, photos can be a tool for displacing meanings that are
too fragile and tenuous to be contained in the here and now. By instead claiming these
identity statements in the there and then of the tourist’s travels, they become less subject to
interrogation and less demanding of veri?cation. After all, there is the evidence, no longer
just in black and white, but in living color and susceptible to PhotoShopping and video
editing. But we also ?nd that, despite the narrative that the tourist photographer-
cinematographer imagines delivering at some future time, these tales wind up being more
internal tales told to the self than ever ?nding an audience outside of the immediate family.
Our tourist photos are nevertheless selectively taken and retained with an intended audience
in mind and are a conscious attempt to manipulate our self-image (Crang, 1999). E-mailed
photos as well as photo sharing sites like Flickr and social networking sites, blogs, and web
pages may have some greater success in reaching an audience (Schau and Gilly, 2003),
and a few of us may also bring selected images to our workplace (Tian and Belk, 2005). But
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 349
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
the fact remains that with the ease of taking photos and the sense of purpose that it gives us
to photograph our touristic sights, not to mention the escalating proliferation of photos that
result, most of the world will little note, long remember, nor even encounter the self
productions we have in mind when we record these images. And as these images become
more numerous and more ephemeral in their digital forms, it may well be that we ourselves
will never see them again either.
References
Baerenholdt, J.O., Haldrop, M., Larsen, J. and Urry, J. (2004), Performing Tourist Places, Ashgate
Publishing, Aldershot.
Barthes, R. (1981), Camera Lucida, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, NY, translated from 1980
French edition.
Beardsworth, A. and Bryman, A. (2001), ‘‘The wild animal in late modernity: the case of the disneyization
of zoos’’, Tourist Studies, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 83-104.
Belk, R. (1986), ‘‘Art versus science as ways of generatingknowledge about materialism’’, in Brinberg, D.
and Lutz, R.J. (Eds), Perspectives on Methodology in Consumer Research, Springer-Verlag, New York,
NY, pp. 3-36.
Belk, R. (1988), ‘‘Possessions and the extended self’’, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15 No. 2,
pp. 139-58.
Belk, R. (1990), ‘‘The role of possessions in constructing and maintaining a sense of the past’’,
Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 17, pp. 669-76.
Belk, R. (1991), ‘‘Possessions and the sense of past’’, in Belk, R. (Ed.), Highways and Buyways:
Naturalistic Research from the Consumer Behavior Odyssey, Association for Consumer Research,
Provo, UT, pp. 114-30.
Belk, R. (1993), ‘‘Third world tourism: panacea or poison? The case of Nepal’’, Journal of International
Consumer Marketing, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 27-68.
Belk, R. (1998), ‘‘Multimedia consumer research’’, in Stern, B. (Ed.), Representating Consumers: Voices,
Views, and Visions, Routledge, London, pp. 308-38.
Belk, R. (2000), ‘‘May the farce be with you: on Las Vegas and consumer infantalization’’, Consumption,
Markets, and Culture, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 101-23.
Belk, R., Østergaard, P. and Groves, R. (1998), ‘‘Sexual consumption in a time of AIDS: a study of
prostitute patronage in Thailand’’, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 197-214.
Belk, R. and Costa, J.A. (1995), ‘‘International tourism: an assessment and overview’’, Journal of
Macromarketing, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 33-49.
Belk, R., Wallendorf, M. and Sherry, J.F. Jr (1989), ‘‘The sacred and the profane in consumer behavior:
theodicy on the Odyssey’’, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 1-38.
Benson, J. and Silberman, R. (1987), ‘‘Tourist photographs as souvenirs’’, in Salzman, J. (Ed.),
Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies, Vol. 11, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY,
pp. 261-71.
Berger, J. (1980), About Looking, Pantheon, New York, NY.
Bettany, S. and Belk, R. (n.d.), ‘‘Disney discourses of self and other: animality, primitivity, modernity, and
postmodernity’’, Consumption, Markets and Culture, in press.
Boorstin, D. (1987), The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, Atheneum, New York, NY.
Bourdieu, P. (1990), Photography: A Middlebrow Art, Polity Press, London.
Buck, R.C. (1976), ‘‘Boundary maintenance revisted: tourist experience in an old order Amish
community’’, Rural Sociology, Vol. 43, Summer, pp. 221-34.
Butler, R. (1992), ‘‘Alternativetourism: the thin end of the wedge’’, in Smith, V.L. and Eadington, W.R.
(Eds), Tourism Alternatives: Potentials and Problems in the Development of Tourism, University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 31-46.
PAGE 350
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Chalfen, R. (1987), Snapshot Versions of Life, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling
Green, OH.
Cohen, E. (1979), ‘‘A phenomenology of tourist experiences’’, Sociology, Vol. 13, May, pp. 179-201.
Cohen, J.H. (1990), ‘‘Strategies in two Zapotec weaving communities of Oaxaca, Mexico’’, Society for
Economic Anthropology Newsletter, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 12-29.
Costa, J.A. (1988), ‘‘Systems integration and attitudes toward Greek rural life: a case study’’,
Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 61 No. 2, pp. 73-90.
Costa, J.A. (1993), ‘‘Tourism as cultural precipitate: an exploration and example’’, European Advances
in Consumer Research, Vol. 2, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT.
Costa, J.A. (1998), ‘‘Paradisal discourse: a critical analysis of marketing and consuming Hawaii’’,
Consumption, Markets and Culture, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 303-46.
Crang, M. (1999), ‘‘Knowing, tourism and practices of vision’’, in Couch, D. (Ed.), Leisure Tourism
Geographies: Practices and Geographical Knowledge, Routledge, London, pp. 238-56.
Crawshaw, C. and Urry, J. (1997), ‘‘Tourism and the photographic eye’’, in Rojek, C. and Urry, J. (Eds),
Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory, Routledge, London, pp. 176-95.
Crick, M. (1989), ‘‘Representations of international tourism in the social sciences: sun, sex, sights,
savings, and servility’’, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 18, Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, CA,
pp. 307-44.
Culler, J. (1981), ‘‘Semiotics of tourism’’, American Journal of Semiotics, Vol. 1 Nos 1/2, pp. 27-140.
Davies, G. (2000), ‘‘Virtual animals in electronic zoos: the changing geographies of animal capture and
display’’, in Philo, C. and Wilbert, C. (Eds), Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies of
Human-Animal Relations, Routledge, London, pp. 243-67.
De Botton, A. (2002), The Art of Travel, Penguin, London.
De Kadt, E. (Ed.) (1979), Tourism: Passport to Development? Perspectives on the Social and Cultural
Ethics of Tourism in Developing Countries, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Dunbar, S. (1977), ‘‘Why travel?’’, Landscape, Vol. 21, Spring-Summer, pp. 45-7.
Eco, U. (1983), Travels in Hyperreality, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, CA.
England, R. (1980), ‘‘Architecture for tourists’’, International Social Science Journal, Vol. 32 No. 1,
pp. 44-54.
Evans, G. (1999), Souvenirs, NMS Publishing, Edinburgh.
Evans, G. (2000), ‘‘Contemporary crafts as souvenirs, artefacts, and functional goods and their role in
local economic diversi?cation and cultural development’’, in Hitchcock, M. and Teague, K. (Eds),
Souvenirs: The Material Culture of Tourism, Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 127-46.
Fisher, R.J. and Price, L. (1991), ‘‘International pleasure travel motivations and post-vacation attitude
change’’, Journal of Leisure Research, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 193-208.
Gottdiener, M., Collins, C. and Dickens, D. (1999), Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American
City, Blackwell, Oxford.
Grayburn, N.H. (1989), ‘‘Tourism: the sacred journey’’, in Smith, V. (Ed.), Hosts and Guests:
The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nd ed., University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 21-36.
Horne, D. (1992), The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History, Pluto, London.
Hutnyk, J. (2004), ‘‘Photogenic poverty: souvenirs and infantalism’’, Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 3
No. 1, pp. 77-94.
Jager, B. (1975), ‘‘Theorizing, journeying, dwelling’’, in Giorgi, A., Fischer, C.T. and Murray, E.L. (Eds),
Duquesne Studies in Phenomenological Psychology, Vol. 2, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA,
pp. 235-60.
Key?tz, N. (1982), ‘‘Development and the elimination of poverty’’, Economic Development and Cultural
Change, Vol. 30, April, pp. 649-70.
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 351
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998), Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage, University of
California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Kotler, P., Haider, D.H. and Rein, I. (1993), Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry, and
Tourism to Cities, States, and Nations, Free Press, New York, NY.
Lanfant, M. (1980), ‘‘Introduction: tourism in the process of internationalization’’, International Social
Science Journal, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 14-43.
Lo¨ fgren, O. (1999), On Holiday: A History of Vacationing, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Love, L.L. and Sheldon, P.S. (1998), ‘‘Souvenirs: messengers of meaning’’, Advances in Consumer
Research, Vol. 25, pp. 170-5.
Lutz, C.A. and Collins, J.L. (1993), Reading National Geographic, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
IL.
McCracken, G. (1988), Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of
Consumer Goods and Activities, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
MacCannell, D. (1989), The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, 2nd ed., Schocken Books, New
York, NY.
Madrigal, R. and Kahle, L.R. (1994), ‘‘Predicting vacation activity preferences on the basis of
value-system segmentation’’, Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 32, Winter, pp. 22-8.
Nash, D. (1989), ‘‘Tourism as a form of imperialism’’, in Smith, V.L. (Ed.), Hosts and Guests:
The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nd ed., University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 27-52.
Neumann, M. (1992), ‘‘The traveling eye: photography, tourism, and ethnography’’, Visual Studes, Vol. 7
No. 2, pp. 22-38.
Nguyen, D. and Belk, R. (2007), ‘‘This we remember: consuming representation in remembering’’,
Consumption, Markets and Culture, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 251-91.
Osborne, P.D. (2000), Traveling Light: Photography, Travel and Visual Culture, Manchester University
Press, Manchester.
Owen, C. (1968), Britons Abroad: A Report on the Packaged Tour, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Pearce, P.L. (1982), The Social Psychology of Tourist Behavior, Pergamon, Oxford.
Ray, N.M. and McCain, G. (2003), ‘‘Taking the ‘sham’ out of shamrock: legacy tourists seeking the ‘real
thing’’’, European Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 6, pp. 54-9.
Redfoot, D.L. (1984), ‘‘Touristic authenticity, touristic angst, and modern reality’’, Qualitative Sociology,
Vol. 7, Winter, pp. 291-309.
Riley, P.J. (1988), ‘‘Road culture of international longtermbudget travelers’’, Annals of TourismResearch,
Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 313-28.
Rossel, P. (1988), ‘‘Tourism and cultural minorities: double marginalization and survival strategies’’, in
Rossel, P. (Ed.), Tourism: Manufacturing the Exotic, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs,
Copenhagen, pp. 1-20.
Said, E. (1979), Orientalism, Vintage, New York, NY.
Schau, H.J. and Gilly, M.C. (2003), ‘‘We are what we post: self-presentation in personal webspace’’,
Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 30, December, pp. 385-404.
Schmidt, C.J. (1979), ‘‘The guided tour: insulated adventure’’, Urban Life, Vol. 7, January, pp. 441-67.
Scott, C. (1999), The Spoken Image: Photography and Language, Reaktion, London.
Schroeder, J. (1998), ‘‘Consuming representation: a visual approach to consumer research’’, in Stern, B.
(Ed.), Representating Consumers: Voices, Views, and Visions, Routledge, London, pp. 193-230.
Schroeder, J. (2002), Visual Consumption, Routledge, London.
Schroeder, J. and Borgerson, J. (1990), ‘‘Packaging paradise: consuming Hawaiian music’’, Advances
in Consumer Research, Vol. 26, pp. 46-50.
Sears, J.F. (1989), Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford
University Press, New York, NY.
PAGE 352
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
Smith, V.L. (1977), ‘‘Eskimo tourism: macro-models and marginal men’’, in Smith, V.L. (Ed.), Hosts and
Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nded., University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 51-70.
Sontag, S. (1977), On Photography, Delta, New York, NY.
Stotesbury, J.A. (2001), ‘‘Time, history, memory: photographic life narratives and the albums of
strangers’’, in Campbell, J. and Habord, J. (Eds), Temporalities: Auto/biography in a Postmodern Age,
Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 193-203.
Tian, K. and Belk, R. (2005), ‘‘Extended self and possessions in the workplace’’, Journal of Consumer
Research, Vol. 32, September, pp. 297-310.
Towner, J. (1995), ‘‘What is tourism’s history?’’, Tourism Management, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 339-43.
Tuan, Y. (1984), Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Urry, J. (1990), The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies, Sage, London.
Van Maanen, J. (1988), Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, IL.
Yeh, J. (2003), ‘‘Journeys to the west: travelling, learning and consuming Englishness’’, unpublished
PhD thesis, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster.
Yeh, J. (2009), ‘‘Still vision and mobile youth: tourist photos, travel narratives and taiwanese modernity’’,
in Winter, T. et al. (Eds), Asia on Tour, Routledge, London, pp. 302-14.
Yeh, J. (n.d.), ‘‘Embodiment of sociability through the tourist camera’’, in Robison, M. and Picard, D.
(Eds), The Framed World: Tourism, Tourist and Photography, Ashgate, London.
About the authors
Russell W. Belk is Professor and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing, Schulich School of
Business, York University as well as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of
Hong Kong and Honorary Professor at Hong Kong City University and the University of
Go¨ teborg (Sweden). Russell W. Belk is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh holds a PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University, UK. She is now an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Cultures of National Dong Hwa
University, Taiwan. Her research and ?eldwork have concentrated on cultural studies of
tourism and deal with issues of otherness, intercultural encounters, material culture, and
relations between everyday culture consumption and (re)presentations of indigenousness.
VOL. 5 NO. 4 2011
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 353
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
This article has been cited by:
1. Anja Dinhopl, Ulrike Gretzel. 2016. Selfie-taking as touristic looking. Annals of Tourism Research 57, 126-139. [CrossRef]
2. Iris Sheungting Lo, Bob McKercher. 2015. Ideal image in process: Online tourist photography and impression management.
Annals of Tourism Research 52, 104-116. [CrossRef]
3. Don E. Schultz. 2014. Extending the Extended Self in the Digital World. The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
22, 143-146. [CrossRef]
4. Alain Decrop, Julie Masset. 2014. “This is a piece of coral received from captain Bob”: meanings and functions of tourist
souvenirs. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 8:1, 22-34. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
5. Russell W. Belk. 2013. Extended Self in a Digital World. Journal of Consumer Research 40, 477-500. [CrossRef]
6. Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert. 2012. Tourists with cameras:. Annals of Tourism Research 39, 1817-1838. [CrossRef]
7. Rachel Snow. 2012. Snapshots by the way: Individuality and convention in tourists’ photographs from the United States,
1880-1940. Annals of Tourism Research 39, 2013-2050. [CrossRef]
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d
b
y
P
O
N
D
I
C
H
E
R
R
Y
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
A
t
2
2
:
1
7
2
4
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
2
0
1
6
(
P
T
)
doc_554682287.pdf