International journal of hospitality and tourism administration
Paginering:
Jaargang 2 (2001) nr. 3-4 pagina's 177-200
Jaar:
2001-10-23
Inhoud:
The promotion and marketing of Louisiana 19th century plantation life is fraught with contradictions since plantation agriculture depended on slave labor and a rigidly hierarchical class/caste system. How, then, can that history be commodified as heritage and marketed effectively as a tourist destination? Drawing on Said's thesis of Orientalism and historians Hobsbawm and Ranger's concept of invented traditions, the marketing efforts are examined of a St. James Parish, Louisiana plantation called Laura: A Creole Plantation. With access to scripted guided tours, as well as promotional materials directed at tourists and travel professionals, a textual analysis is undertaken of the four ways in which history becomes heritage. These are: emphasizing genealogical continuity; connecting a little-known site with major events in US history; promoting Creole culture as particularly enigmatic; and highlighting women as owner/managers. It is argued that these are tactics that construct the tourist site positively, as primordial and exotic, but also as a precursor of modern practices of business and gender/race relations. These strategies combine, representing the plantation through the discursive activity of objectifying, containing, and commodifying the other, while concomitantly inventing the Laura persona as contemporary heroine.
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