Going Forward by Looking Back: Memory, Nostalgia and Meaning-Making in Marketing for a Sense of Place (original) (raw)

Nostalgic Tourism Ain’t What It Used to Be: What Makes a Destination Engender Nostalgia?

2019

Increasing attention has been devoted in the literature to the popularity of nostalgic tourism, which could be viewed as a separate form of tourism whose motivation is of a personal nature. Scholars have during the last few decades published research articles on nostalgic tourism from the perspectives of anthropology, sociology, psychology, management and marketing (Davis, 1979; Graburn, 1995; Wildschut, Sedikides, Routledge, Arndt & Cordaro, 2010). From a sociological point of view, nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental or bittersweet yearning for an experience, product, or service from the past” (Baker & Kennedy, 1994, p. 169). From an anthropological perspective, Graburn (1995, p. 166) commented that nostalgia tourism is travelling “with a wish for the past” and it is a personal effort meant to slow down one’s life cycle, to indulge in one’s earlier stage of life or as a way to counter rapid changes. Stern (1992) suggested that nostalgia can be reflected on one’s own identity, s...

Research Note: Nostalgia and Tourism

Tourism Analysis, 2005

The concept of nostalgia has drawn significant attention from diverse disciplines for its powerful impact on contemporary individuals' mind and behaviors. However, the study of tourism has been negligent on exploring the association between nostalgia and heritage tourism despite its increasing importance. This note, in recognition of this research gap, offers a chance to understand the role of nostalgia within the heritage tourism context. As there are two types of nostalgia, personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia, particular attention is given to the importance of historical nostalgia (a sentimental yearning for the past beyond one's living memory). It is argued that the role of historical nostalgia in heritage tourism can be better understood through the reciprocal relationship between sociocultural conditions, the culture industry, and heritage tourism institutions. This note uses the Texas Renaissance Festival to illustrate how historical nostalgia arises from such dynamic interplay. It is interpreted that the Texas Renaissance Festival can be conceived of as a simulacrum where nostalgic desires are stimulated through active consumption of positive images of the past. Several suggestions for future research are made at the end of the note.

Memory tourism' and commodification of nostalgia

Peter Burns, Cathy Palmer, Jo-Anne Lester (Eds), Tourism and Visual Culture. Volume 1: Theories and Concepts, 2010

This chapter illustrates two cases emblematic of a new frontier of modern tourism that offers nostalgic experiences to consumers: the case of Heidiland and Heididorf in the Swiss Alps, and the case of 'Ostalgia tourism' in the regions of former East Germany. These cases also illustrate two different examples of memory tourism, with different connections to embodied memories and with the social and media imaginary, which in this framework plays a very important role. Finally, the chapter constructs a tentative definition of memory tourism, identifying its main characteristics as a form of marketing of nostalgia, based on commodified memories.

Meaning of place and the tourist experience

Tourism Research Symposium : Tourism, Malta and the Mediterranean, Floriana, Malta, 2014

When visiting a place, people sometimes experience something which goes beyond physical or sensory properties. This is often referred to as ‘sense of place’ or ‘genius loci’. In urban design literature, sense of place is often attributed to three elements namely physical setting, activity and meaning. This presentation will consider one element, namely meaning, and examine the extent to which meaning of place impinges on the tourist experience. Buildings and urban spaces communicate meaning. Meanings are partly the result of codification based on a system of pre-determined meanings and partly are acquired over time as people give to space historical associations derived from events. The meaning of buildings, spaces and artefacts are subjective and can be read and interpreted differently by different people in accordance to their background and culture. Narrative is one of several ways how the tourist can derive meaning from the experience. By means of narratives, tourists are able to visualise past events, a process reinforced by heritage sites which enable tourists to see, and even touch, tangible evidence. This makes the narrative more real and thus the tourist experience more interesting and enjoyable. The narratives may be about the people of the place and therefore they provide an insight to the national identity of the country or region. Different typologies of tourists can be identified including those whose primary motivation for the tourism activity is a search for meaning. To illustrate the relation between tourism experience and meaning, I refer to my doctorate research on the tourist experience in Valletta.

A Conceptualization of the Senses, Emotions, and Memories in Memorable Tourism Experiences

Handbook of Research on Resident and Tourist Perspectives on Travel Destinations, 2020

This chapter explores a conceptualization of the elements that create a memorable tourism experience – senses, emotions, and memories. A comprehensive and coherent theoretical model is established to explain the complexities involved in the tourism experience creation (tourism experience relational model) and in the memorable tourism experience (conceptual model). The data suggest that, first, the senses developed an important role in the experiential stimuli perception; second, the emotions are fundamental to these experiential stimuli understanding and meaning creation, and third, memory is essential in the codification and storage process and anticipation of meaningful information to future experiences. The conceptual model is based on the five senses (sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch), three positive emotions (joy, love, and positive surprise), and two memorable elements (recollection and vividness). Future research opportunities in the memorable tourism experience are ex...

Memorable Tourism Experiences: Vivid memories and feelings of Nostalgia for Houseboat tourism

2017

There has been a great emphasis on understanding the relationship of tourism experience quality with memorability of such experiences in recent years, however very few studies have attempted to measure the nostalgic characteristics of such experiences. This study attempts validation of memorable tourism experience scale (MTES) as a measure of nostalgia intensity and vividness of tourist memory of such experiences. Using structural equation modeling approach to analyze data from 412 domestic and international tourists in backwaters of Kerala, India; the results support that memorable tourism experiences (MTEs) are related to Nostalgia Intensity and Vividness of memory of stay on the houseboats.

Nostalgia as travel motivation and its impact on tourists' loyalty

Journal of Business Research, 2015

This study examines associations among push and pull motives for travel in the context of Macau. As a cultural tourism destination, Macau possesses attributes that can meet tourists' need for nostalgia. Individuals high in nostalgia are attracted to Macau's historical and heritage pull attributes. However, in order to create loyalty, these pull attributes must also provide opportunities for family members or friends to bond. The study examines pull motives holistically and individually. The results indicate that while holistic examination of motives better predicts future intentions to visit, individual examination provides details that can help in understanding the interaction among different push and pull motives to visit a destination.

Cultural memory and place identity: Creating place experience

2010

Studying landscapes anchored in human life, with natural and cultural components interwoven as one fabric, embracing the political and ideological aspects, helps to understand the role of our everyday landscapes in tourism. Tourism, the travel between places and touring of landscapes, is essential to the identity process of both travelers and places. The notions of "home" and "elsewhere," "us" and "them" are constructed through mobility, motility (potentials of mobility) and migration. The scope and scale of mobility and motility has changed in a postmodern world through the intensity in time-space expansion/ contraction. Contemporary European society is fractured in a struggle between conflicts of identity (former Eastern Europe). Renegotiations of past and present, integration and diversity are especially acute after the collapse of the Soviet empire and ongoing enlargement of the European Union. Identity and culture are elastic concepts, involving conscious and unconscious processes through which places are lived and made while giving meaning to the lives of the people involved. Communication of those meanings is essential to each individual in this process and to others beyond the actual lived place. The meaning attached to landscapes is negotiable due to competing social actors involved in a continuous interpretation and variability offered across cultural, historical, individual and situational aspects. iv This case study examines the dynamic between real landscapes, their representations and negotiations of identity under the umbrella of a stabilizing past among foreign and domestic visitors to Saare County on Saaremaa Island in Estonia. The disruptive societal changes, which occurred in recent decades with the collapse of the Soviet regime, guide discussion of interactions of place, identity, landscape and memory, as well as the role of tourism. The central aim of this dissertation is to explore the role of past through individual and collective memory in multifaceted negotiations of place identity and place experience. Huff's (2008) model of landscape, place and identity combined with memory and tourism was used to guide this investigation. Data were collected in three phases: content analysis of online news article debate about the potential bridge connecting Saaremaa Island to mainland Estonia (n=123), onsite tourist survey of visitors to the island (n=487), and in-depth interviews with 16 visitors drawn from the survey sample. Narrative and discourse analyses were supplemented by a multiple/logistic regression of survey data in a mixed methods approach. Results imply that pro-anti bridge sentiment exists among Estonians and foreigners based on socio-cultural and political contexts in a post Soviet society. Memory, well-being, and aesthetics of place with nationality, and education are predictors of perceived effects of environmental changes and effects of a bridge to mainland on future holiday experiences to Saaremaa Island. Past memories from ideological images of place and memories of places elsewhere were intertwined into bodily perceptions of place, yet resulted in somewhat contradictory statements. Evaluation of changes in landscapes correlated with perceived identities of place and self, and reflected upon readings of home. Historical aspects of place were deemed an v important part of place experience. Respondents without prior knowledge or experience similar to the socio-cultural, economic and political context in Estonia were inclined to identify place based on comparisons of home place from their own residency and past memories from places traveled elsewhere. Outcomes suggest a dialogue for further sense of place research in tourism for the marketing and management of sustainable tourism development in general and for island destinations in particular.

Place‐product or place narrative (s)? Perspectives in the Marketing of Tourism Destinations

Journal of Strategic Marketing, 2008

This paper utilises a narrative approach to appraise critically the challenges and paradoxes faced by tourism destination marketing, and the inherent weaknesses of the traditional marketing management framework to adequately address them. In so doing, the treatment of place as a set of attributes is contrasted with its conceptualisation as a set of meanings. In perceiving place as a set of meanings, the focus of attention shifts to a number of different issues, such as the role of culture and symbolic meanings in the construction and experience of place and the contested ‘realities’ involved in the making of a tourism destination.