Cultural Tourism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cultural Tourism - Essay Example In looking at the official national website for Sri Lanka tourism, the first word that appears is heritage. This indicates a strong need for the country to promote the historical value of its country as being central to the event of a vacation within their borders. The website promotes a sense of otherness, attuned to Western sensibilities, through depicting men sitting on elephants, a lounging leopard, and an exotic woman reclining in what appears to be a spa atmosphere. The experience is connected back to the Western traveler through an image of a Caucasian man on a surfboard and a modern look at a beach. The emphasis is on the exotic, with a connection to the modern Western ideal in order to attract a broad set of travelers. The official national website for the Maldives has a picture of a surfer, swimming below the water towards the surface on a submerged board. The image evokes the sense of the beach, a cool splash of water against the heat of the sun. The first sub-category tha t is presented is titled culture. Just like the Sri Lanka website, the first promotional factor is the differences in culture that a Western traveler would encounter when visiting the country. The two subsequent headings promote diving and the opportunity for a honeymoon in the Maldives. The website reveals the daily temperature and has links to further information about where to stay and where to go, just like the Sri Lanka website. The otherness that is expressed in both websites leads the traveler towards thoughts of adventure. In creating an enticement to travel to the region, the websites are intended to evoke a sense of newness of experience so that the traveler will want to know what they do not yet know. The imagery also suggests that the locations have the element of the exotic, the â€Å"erotics of imperial conquest† as explored by McClintock (24). While the eroticism is not blatant, the notion that the locations will bring to the vacationer an experience that is de fined by adventure suggests that the attendee will be able to conquer an unknown territory. The use of the woman in the spa-like atmosphere on the advertisement for Sri Lanka can be linked to the desire to equate sensuality with the experience of visiting the island. McClintock states that â€Å"women served as mediating and threshold figures by means of which men oriented themselves in space, as agents of power and agents of knowledge† (24). The boundaries of the world have been typically characterized as women, objectifying the presence of the female spirit within the framework of territory. Through using a female image in a position of sensuality, this concept is continued into the modern day discourse about the experience of visiting a new land, thus having conquered that experience. The Maldives have a different approach to enticing their visitors. The site is full of images of the rich blue of the sea in contrast to the strand of islands. Several images of surfers, thei r boards planted beneath their feet and their bodies arched in control of their activity, grace the pages of their website. This evokes a different type of feeling towards the experience. This suggests that the natural environment is what will be conquered in visiting the isla