Culture, identity and tourism representation
This article attempts to contribute to the development of a critical analysis of tourism representations through an investigation of destination branding strategies. Based on an analysis of the marketing campaigns of the Wales Tourist Board and Welsh local authorities，it argues that the influence of repressive and liberating historical，political and cultural discourses can be discerned in the tourism representations used in contemporary branding strategies and these explain why Wales is differently branded in its overseas and UK markets. Whilst Wales provides the focus for this discussion of the relationship between discourse，tourism representations and destination marketing，the same analysis could be applied to representations of other tourism destinations.
This article contends that tourism experiences and processes are part of a much wider discursive framework grounded in complex, multi-dimensional. social-cultural and historical systems. In particular, it attempts to contribute to the development of critical analyses of tourism representations through its investigation of the branding strategies adopted by Welsh local authorities and the Wales Tourist Board (WTB) — the organization charged with promoting Welsh tourism both within the United Kingdom (UK) and internationally. The article argues that the nature and the use of the tourism representations used by these tourism marketing bodies in their branding strategies is constrained by historical, political and cultural discourses.
Importantly, however, such discourses are not immutable but are constantly evolving and Wales is currently a country in considerable transition (economically, socially, politically and culturally). As such, whilst the article examines how the social-cultural — and thus the touristic — identity of Wales continues to be shaped by powerful historical and political discourses, it also highlights that those discourses are beginning to be challenged. Thus, contemporary Wales is witnessing a fusion of cultural and political processes which have facilitated the promotion of a more overtly Welsh tourism brand image in international markets. By contrast, however, such remains the power of certain negative discourses that a marketing strategy which promotes a distinctively Welsh brand image in the UK is still considered problematic by WTB marketers.
The article begins by reviewing work which has examined the social construction of space and contends that critical analyses of destination marketing activities should involve consideration of their wider social-political framework. After briefly introducing the case study destination of Wales, it then focuses on the discourses which have influenced perceptions and representations of this country. Central to this discussion is the complex relationship between Wales and England - the formerrsquo;s nearest neighbour and most significant tourism-generating market. The main body of the article examines the separate international and domestic branding strategies pursued by the WTB and Welsh local authorities - the latter being important in domestic marketing. The empirical basis for this discussion is a content analysis of 29 tourism brochures - the WTBrsquo;s main domestic and overseas brochures and those produced by Welsh local authorities. This is complemented by an in-depth interview with a recently retired key WTB decision-maker, formerly in post at the Board for over 25 years. It then analyses these tourism representations within the wider sociocultural discourses which have a far-reaching impact on the images of Wales (and the hence the branding strategies) that can be effectively promoted in England (and in the rest of the UK). By contrast, the existence of alternative discourses overseas has facilitated the promotion of a more distinctively Welsh identity in other markets. The article thus concludes that Walesrsquo; marketing representations (as those of any destination) are inextricably intertwined with historical, political and cultural processes and are not solely the outcome of effective marketing practice.
Place is a deceptively simple concept in geographical thought; we want to make it difficult, uneasy. We want to show that places do not exist in a sense other than culturally, and as a result that they can appear and disappear, change in size and character. . . according to the way in which people construct them. Places then have no objective reality, only intersubjective ones.
The new cultural geography thus “demonstrates that space, place and landscape - including landscapes of leisure and tourism - are not fixed but are in a constant state of transition as a result of continuous, dialectical struggles of power and resistance among and between the diversity of landscape providers, users and mediators” (Aitcheson, 1999, p. 29; see also Morgan amp; Pritchard, 1999). As Rose (1993, p. 89) contends, lsquo;a landscapersquo;s meanings draw on the cultural codes of the society for which it was madersquo; and thus permeate that societyrsquo;s social and cultural norms and symbols. The following case study-based discussion attempts to contribute to such debates over the social-cultural and political construction of space through a critical examination of tourism marketing. In doing so it first atte
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Abstract
Various aspects of hot springs at Bakreshwar (Lat. 23°52′48Prime;N; Long. 87°22′40Prime;E) in West Bengal, India have been investigated since the middle of 20th century, but comprehending the complete diversity and the complexity of the microbial population therein has been in the continuing process. Some of these microorganisms are found to have immense industrial importance. Microbes generally exist in milieus of varying complexities and diversities. Attempting the usually employed cultivation-based techniques in experimentation with those microbes had confronted various limitations. To overcome these limitations a strategy based on high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicon analysis was employed for studying the differential diversity and the detailed nature of microbial population of the two hot springs of Bakreshwar (54 °C amp; 65 °C). Paired-end libraries of amplified V-3 hyper-variable 16S rDNA fragments from sets of samples that varied in their contents, ranging from a single bacterium to highly complex communities were sequenced. The comparison revealed the differential aspects in the two hot spring waters; the samples at 54 °C showed the bacterial phylum Firmicutes (65.85%) and Synergistetes (27.24%) predominating and those from hot spring water at 65 °C showed the abundance of the phyla Firmicutes (96.10%) and Proteobacteria (3.36%). The presence of Archaea in the hot springs could not be ascertained.
Keywords
16S rRNA; V-3; Hot springs
1. Introduction
Bakreshwar hot springs in the geothermal belt (35 °C to 81 °C), were formed as a result of volcanic or tectonic activities belong to the Chotanagpur gneissic complex within a Precambrian craton in the eastern part of Peninsular India [1]. The environmental conditions prevailing during the origin of a Precambrian craton included high temperature, poor amount of free oxygen, high concentration of sulfur and lots of reducing gases like methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide [2]. The environmental conditions of these hot springs suited for being the natural niches for some unicellular organisms, prokaryotes known as thermophiles (optimal growth temperature gt; 50 °C) and hyperthermophiles (OGT gt; 80 °C) limited in the domain of Archaea and bacterial viruses [3].
Places which were once perceived to be sterile abound with microorganisms with great diversity. The search for them has been intensified recently as the enzymes isolated from them are proven to be extremely valuable biocatalysts with potentially significant application for use in industry and biotechnology [2]. An important feature of the cluster of Bakreshwar hot springs is the high Helium content in their water with values ranging from 1.2% to 2% in air at 1 m above the ground, [4] which is far above the atmospheric background level, and the gas is released in periodic bursts [5]. The thermal water is alkaline with low to moderate sodium-HCO3minus; and SO4 as compared to chloride. The Clminus;, HCO3minus; and SO4 ternary plot of thermal water in Bakreshwar falls in HCO3minus; field indicating sodium-bicarbonate type water [6]. This has led to the isolation and identification of a number of metal-reducing bacteria. Three bacterial strains so isolated and partially characterized from water of the 65 °C hot spring consortium were found efficacious for enhancement of concrete strength, silica leaching activity and other industrial applications [7]; [8]; [9]; [10]; [11] ; [12].
The utilization of the procedure of Metagenomics bypasses the requirement for obtaining pure cultures. It has now become a standard method for characterization of the biodiversity, genome contents and inferred functions of bacterial and Archaeal communities [13]. Metagenomic sequencing has also been applied to diverse microbial communities existing in surface soils, fresh and marine waters, where enormity of previously undetected biodiversity has been revealed [14]; [15]; [16] ; [17].
Revelations obtained from the work have led to a markedly clear breakthrough in understanding the differences in diversity of the bacterial population of two hot springs in Bakreshwar. The use of 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing in MiSeq System, Illumina established the presence, besides a few other bacteria, of novel non-marine thermophilic relatives thereof. Further investigative studies can be directed towards metagenomic sequencing of microbes in other hot springs in the same region with probable results of interest. Sequencing can even be aimed at for other differently variable regions (V1–V9) as well.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Reagents
All the analytical grade chemicals and instruments used in this investigation were purchased from the Sigma, USA, Merck, Germany and Amresco, USA, GE, USA, KAPA Biosystems, USA, Applied Biosystems, USA, Qiagen, USA, Agilent, USA, Thermo Scientific, USA.
2.2. Collection of sample
Samples were collected from two hot springs (65 °C and 54 °C) of Bakreshwar. The surface temperature of the sediment of both the hot springs varied between 2 °C and 3 °C. The pH of the water was measured varying from 7.8 to 8.0. The sediment contained 1.1 to 1.5% organic carbons and, interestingly, 280 to 422 mol of reducible Fe (III) and 280 to 600 mol of reduced iron per g of wet sediment [18]. The temperature of the water at the time was around 65 °C and 54 °C. 50–60 l of hot spring water was passed through membranes 6 times in the span of 4 years and subsequent DNA extraction was performed after mixing the different samples. Due to extremely low yield of DNA the process had to be carried out several times.
2.3. Isolation of genomic DNA Bacterial genomic DNA was isolated by CTAB/NaCl method from the enrichment culture [19]. A 1.5 ml of the saturated bacterial culture was centrifuged at 6000 times; g for 5 min to collect the bacterial cell pellet. The cell pellet was then suspended in 567 mu;l of TE buffer (10 mm Tris, 1 mm EDTA, pH 8)
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