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Accepted Paper:
A virtual island? Tourism and the internet in a Shetland island community
Emma-Reetta Koivunen
(Manchester Metropolitan University)
Paper short abstract:
Analysing the representations of a Shetland island community on tourist websites and comparing these to the tourist experiences shows that promoting tourist services on the Internet can give tourist business providers in rural locations more freedom to decide how their community is represented
Paper long abstract:
The use of the Internet for tourism is a widely recognised phenomenon, calling forth the attention of the academic community. The Internet has made it easier for tourists to find information about travel and locations, as well as for the tourist sector to take control of promoting services directly to consumers. The paper presents and analyses empirical data of verbal descriptions and the imagery used on tourist websites on a Shetland Island. The paper explores in particular the representations of the island community in tourist websites. Even though the websites use the familiar descriptions and iconography of rurality for tourists, such as beautiful scenery, it is remarkable that the websites lack certain aspects of the usual way of representing Shetland, such as community life. These representations will be analysed in relation to the practices of tourism and the everyday life in the community.
Towards a non-human anthropology of tourism
Session 1