Tourism as practice of making meaning

Annals of Tourism Research 61 (2016) 96–110

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Tourism as practice of making meaning Simona Soica ⇑ Transilvania University of Brasov, B-dul Eroilor nr. 29, 500036 Brasov, Romania

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 12 November 2014 Revised 18 August 2016 Accepted 7 September 2016

Coordinating Editor: Chaim Noy Keywords: Semiotics Meaning Intertextuality Landscape Ecotourism Embodied experience

a b s t r a c t In this paper we attempt to investigate how the semiotic construction of touristed landscapes ‘‘works” in tour owners’ ideologizing of the representation of Romania as an ecotourist destination. A semiotic framework of tourism as meaning-making practice is proposed on account of the theory of meaning as well as on cultural geography theories approaching landscape. The paper also addresses the ecotourism ideology as background to our study. The semiotic analysis frames the study of signs on levels of significance, along with the theory of intertextuality. The research corpus shows how the embodied experiences, practices and performances shape the significances we attach to objects and how tourism is meaning made by multiple actors, both tourism promoters and tourists. Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction & Background Under the umbrella of what Tribe terms ‘‘new tourism research” (Tribe, 2005, p. 5), in this study we look at the intertextual relationship that exists between landscape elements (primary text), websites (secondary text), and visitor books (tertiary texts) to examine both the creation and circulation of meaning and the ways in which anticipated and lived experiences shape the semiotic construction of sites which Cartier (2005) describes as ‘‘touristed landscapes”. Drawing on cultural geography and semiotics, we examine the creation of touristed landscape through both the websites of two ecotourism companies and the actual entries made by tourists in the onsite visitor books. The paper highlights the relationship between tourism and landscape. It defines tourism as a meaning-making practice in which the meanings that actors attach to places arise ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2016.09.003 0160-7383/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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from the ways in which they engage in the tourist experience. The anticipated experience is marked by the ways in which ecotourism companies employ ecotourism ideology for their marketing, and the lived experience is marked by tourists after their interaction with the place (landscape). The background to our study is ecological tourism (ecotourism). Ecotourism ideology shifts the focus from simply ‘‘gazing” (Urry, 2002), which works in the ideology of dominant Western cultures (see also MacCannell, 2011), to ‘‘memorable interpretative experiences” (The International Ecotourism Society [TIES], 2015), which works in the ideology of the new moral tourists (Butcher, 2005), who ‘‘may actually desire a closer interaction with ‘hosts’, and may even wish to learn something from the cultures they visit” (Wilson & Ateljevik, 2008, p. 101). Our research also draws on the works of Fennell (2005), Honey (2008), Wearing and Neil (2009), and Newsome, Moore, and Dowling (2013) in approaching the ecotourism theory and practice. The aim of this research is to investigate the meanings actors in tourism attach to places and to see how these meanings serve to sustain the ecotourism ideology and mark Romania as an ecotourist destination. The research question that underpins our study is: How does the semiotic construction of touristed landscapes ‘‘work” in the tour owners’ ideologizing of the representations of Romania as an ecotourist destination? This research is grounded in the notion that landscape reading is an active practice and meaning is made through embodied experience and performance. By bringing semiotics to the fore, we add a semiotic model to the ‘‘performative turn” literature to illustrate the way meanings are (re)created intertextually along the chain of tourist experience. The semiotic construction of touristed landscapes involves multiple actors, namely tourism promoters and tourists. Tourism promoters (re)construct the signs of a place for the purpose of building a particular experience of a particular destination. Tourists, in their turn, (re)construct the signs, supplying them with significance based in their own experience. In order to get at the tourist experience this research looks into the ways in which tourists wrote about their experiences in the visitor books at the two sites under consideration. The semiotic model proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1994) enables us to see how meaning emerges from our interaction with the elements of landscape we come into contact with. We also rely on the signifying systems advanced by Roland Barthes (1972) in understanding the evolution of signs on levels of significance, and the endless signifier-signified interplay. Peircean semiotics in tourism studies was pioneered by MacCannell (1999) and Echtner (1999) and recently has been revitalized by Metro-Roland (2009, 2011), Lau (2011, 2014) and Knudsen and Rickly-Boyd (2012). Peircean semiotics enables us to more closely enquire into the way tourists make sense of the objects they come into contact with. As Metro-Roland (2009) remarks in her invitation to ‘‘meet” Peirce: ‘‘Peirce’s semiotics provide the philosophical foundation for addressing epistemological issues involved in being a tourist and interacting with the world outside ourselves” (p. 278). Peirce’s (1994) scheme sign-object-interpretant (Peirce: CP 1.339, see also Fiske, 2002) highlights one of the underlying themes of this research, which is actually the tourist experience. We will revisit this in the methodology section below. (References to Peirce’s writings are based on the convention among scholars to cite from the Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce by volume number and paragraph number, preceded by ‘CP’.) In attempting to address the practice of making meaning we have analysed the websites and physical copies of visitor books of two ecotourism sites in Romania, Equus Silvania and Mihai Eminescu Trust. The paper interprets the results in terms of the literature on landscape, practice and embodiment. We endeavour to substantiate our contribution in terms of how meaning is actively created through physical involvement with the objects. We also look at how the making of meaning relates to the ideologizing of Romania as an ecotourist destination. Engagement with landscape and meaning making Research into landscape, embodiment and practice or performance is indebted to phenomenology. Pile and Thrift (1995), Cresswell (1996, 2003), Thrift and Dewsbury (2000), Nash (2000), Tuan (2001), Cosgrove (2003), Lorimer (2005), Wylie (2007) are among the leading advocates of this frame of reference in landscape studies. Essentially, phenomenology has provided ‘‘a people-centred form of knowledge based in human awareness, experience and understanding” (Pile, 1996, p. 50) and has

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remapped the subject-object relation in terms of sense made of the world through perception (seeing, hearing, touching), multisensual practices and experiences, bodily actions and movements. The phenomenological paradigm and the notions of embodied experience, practice and performance have nourished one of the main strands in tourism research, attention to the tourist experience. New approaches to landscape, tourism and meaning have broadened the view of the ways tourists experience, understand, and give meaning to places not only through the ‘‘tourist gaze” (Urry, 2002), but also through an active interaction with the world, grasping their own significances of signs and images (Crouch, 2000, 2005; Markwell, 2001). The sensory experience is highlighted (Cloke & Perkins, 1998) along with the physical, intellectual and cognitive activity and gazing (Perkins & Thorns, 2001). More recent studies (Rakic & Chambers, 2012; Rickly-Boyd, 2009; Rickly-Boyd & Metro-Roland, 2010; Wearing, Stevenson, & Young, 2010), also treat place construction in terms of interaction and embodied experience. As Terkenli (2005) summarizes, ‘‘landscape is articulated on grounds of subject (visitor) - object (landscape) relationship, involving all human faculties: cognitive, experiential, psychological” (p. 168). In this relationship it is the subject (the tourist) that negotiates the meaning ascribed to landscape in the light of his/her feelings, experiences, emotions (see Crouch, 2000; Terkenli, 2005). Absent from Terkenli’s model is attention to the other actors that shape landscape. In terms of the tourism-landscape-meaning triad, Terkenli’s relationship needs to be readapted. Beyond the tourists themselves there are multiple actors in tourism who are active participants in making meanings and articulating landscape. This paper adds to the literature by looking at other actors, specifically tour operators and the ways in which they shape the touristed landscape in order to transmit meanings and create expectations about the tourist experience of place. The eco-tour operators act as ‘‘insiders”, knowing the landscape and shaping the view of the sites in light of their green ideology for commercial purposes. The tourists bring ‘‘outsider” perspectives, endowing the landscape with subjective meanings rising from their active interaction with the landscape (see Knudsen, 2008; Tuan, 2001, for insider versus outsider landscape perspective). As we will see, neither the anticipated experiences marketed by the eco-tour operators nor the lived experiences of tourists predominate. In tourism the experience is unlimited, opening up to new experiences, in a continuous cycle. Noy (2004) discusses the cyclical relationship between the tourist commercial discourse (before the trip), tourists’ experience (during the trip), and personal changes (after the trip). Thinking of landscape-as-text encourages the ‘‘reading” and interpretation of ‘‘the landscape as a kind of text, full of symbolic clues to the meaning that lies behind the bare morphology” (Jackson, 1984 in Cresswell, 2003, p. 271). The reading is active practice, landscape is open to endless and ongoing interpretation and is ascribed different meaning by the actors interacting with it (Claval, 2005; Cresswell, 2003; Davis, 2001; Knudsen, Soper, & Metro-Roland, 2007). The role of subjectivity comes to the fore (Crouch, 2000; Knudsen, Metro-Roland, Soper, & Greer, 2008; Rakic & Chambers, 2012; Uriely, 2005). Tourism is a subjective practice that continuously produces meaning. Tour operators know this and also play a role in shaping expectations. The meaning does not lie in the ‘‘content” of the landscape as primary text but in the ‘‘performances” produced by means of practice by its readers, as also illustrated in Noy’s (2008) interpretation of visitor books from a semiotic and performative perspective. Fiske (2001) employs the term vertical intertextuality in describing the ways in which a text references other texts relating to it and in accessing ‘‘the meanings that are in circulation at any one time” (Fiske, 2001, p. 117). In order to grasp the meaning of a sign we should know the effects of the sign on the mind, that is to say ‘‘the practical bearings” (Peirce CP 5.2) of the sign. In other words, we know that bears and wolves are wild animals, considered dangerous predators, but in the extract ‘‘the bears and wolves were great. I had never touched a real wolf before” written by a Danish tourist in one of the visitor books, the tourist has attained a new idea about wolves, what Peirce would call a ‘‘clearness of apprehension” through physical involvement with the object. The meaning of the sign wolf is given by the effect that that actual wolf has on the tourist. It is this examination of the meaning from interaction that makes up the core of our research.

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Meaning making: Semiotic framework Semiotic research design & Study methods Adopting Fiske’s (2001) concept of vertical intertextuality allows us to focus on three main texts, the landscape, the websites, and the visitor books. The landscape is the primary text. The material elements which make up the landscape offer a material ordering, what according to Barthes, semiotically is a first level of signification. The websites are the secondary text, in that they promote and circulate selected meanings drawn from the primary text of the landscape itself. By looking at the websites we can see the meanings attached to landscape by the tour owners at Equus Silvania and Mihai Eminescu Trust. A reading of these websites highlights the process of encoding and decoding, of attaching new significances to the material objects that make up the landscape undertaken by the tour owners. Through a semiotic construction of the landscape at the level of connotation the touristed landscape is formed. This is the second level of signification that Barthes speaks of (for example wilderness is both barren land and imbued with all sorts of cultural meaning). The tertiary text, the visitor books, is another stage in the circulation of meanings. The visitor books frame the meanings actively created by tourists in the light of their own experience of the landscape. In analysing the secondary and tertiary text, content analysis is employed to structure our interpretation in a precise and systematic way. MacCannell (1999), building on Peirce’s formulation that a ‘‘sign represents something to someone”, creates a framework for analysing tourist attractions: sign [represents / something / to someone] attraction [marker / sight / tourist]. The material aspects of the landscape, our primary text and first level of signification, what Barthes refers to as the denotative, can be organized according to MacCannell’s framework this way: Landscape [websites, visitor books/landscape elements/tourist] In this way the physical features, the flora, fauna, human settlements, landscape uses and landscape interactions all constitute the ‘‘something” that is landscape. Our secondary text, the websites, are at the second level of signification, so that the landscape elements which appear there do not just represent themselves (a mountain as a sign for a mountain) but they are connotative (a mountain as a sign for picturesque). This shift from denotation to connotation is accomplished by means of Peirce’s interpretant. The signifier in the first system, the mountain, becomes form, the signified becomes concept, and the sign becomes significance in a particular context. Against the background provided by Hall and Page’s (2006) discussion of the motivations of the new eco-tourists and Gold and Revill’s (2005) semiotic analysis of a Cairgorm scene, we frame four types of ecotourist experiences within ecotourism: experience of protected natural and cultural landscapes; experience of a different, authentic way of life; experience of natural beauties and picturesque landscape; engagement in the challenges that natural and cultural landscapes offer. The significance (the sign) is endowed with the meaning given by the interpretant, the tourist experience, and the relation ‘‘something represents something to someone” develops into the following set of signs: Ecology and Environmental Protection; Adventure, Discovery, Learning; Picturesque; Tradition and Authenticity. Using MacCannell’s framework the signs appear like this: Ecology and Environmental Protection [landscape elements/Romanian protected species, habitats, protected human settlements/tourist] Tradition and Authenticity [landscape elements/typical Romanian way of life/tourist] Picturesque

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[landscape elements/ typical Romanian landscape /tourist] Adventure, Discovery, Learning [landscape elements/ wilderness, adventure, learning /tourist]. Thus, at the second level of signification, that of connotation, the signifier denotes the landscape elements, the signified denotes the concepts designated by the landscape elements, and the sign denotes the signification of landscape elements in the light of the tourist experience. We can make some assumptions about the forms that the interpretant may take following Roventßa-Frumusßani’s (1999) reasoning regarding Peirce’s sign theory, and taking into consideration Eco’s (1982) arguments. The immediate interpretant as given at the beginning of the semiosis process takes the form of the equivalent (or apparently equivalent) signifier in another semiotic system – that is to say a correspondence is established between the word ‘‘mountain” and its actual image in the landscape – and it leads through the dynamical interpretant to the dynamical object and through the final interpretant to the new significance of the word, at the end of the semiosis process. In other words, the interpretant takes the form of an emotional association that receives connotative value – that is to say the word ‘‘mountain” connotes the idea of ‘‘picturesque” or ‘‘adventure” rather than merely a physical feature in the landscape. The interpretant of landscape is the result of the experience the user has of the landscape. Peirce (1994) distinguishes the immediate object from the dynamical object in that the former is the object as it is represented and the latter is the object in itself (CP 8.333, CP 4.536), depending on the perceptual contact established with the object. In other words, for the locals the mountain is a source of subsistence whereas for the tourists it may be a source of recreation. Similarly, Peirce (CP 8.333, CP 4.536) points to the three interpretants that a sign has, namely the immediate interpretant as represented or meant to be understood, the dynamical interpretant as it is produced, and the final interpretant as the interpretant in itself. We corroborate the accounts above with the exposition by Metro-Roland (2009) on the use of Peircean semiotics in tourism and we make the following statement: the recognition of the landscape-text may be regarded as immediate interpretant; reading the landscape is the dynamical interpretant; the final, unlimited interpretation assured by the tourist experience is the final interpretant. The figure depicts the design of our semiotic research showing the levels of text and meaning (see Fig. 1). Data The empirical focus of this study are the websites and physical copies of visitor books of two ecotourism sites in Romania, Equus Silvania and Mihai Eminescu Trust located in Sinca Noua and Viscri/ Sighisoara respectively. Equus Silvania (ES) (www.equus-silvania.com), is a horse riding centre and guesthouse. The Austrian owners, specialists in wildlife biology and coordinators of conservation projects involving large carnivores in Eastern Europe, take the responsibility to implement sustainable development. They combine western standards and animal treatment with Romanian traditions and lifestyle. The motto ‘‘Horseriding [sic] and Nature at its Best” directs the tourists towards a romantic space where nature is associated with untouched and virgin nature. The centre has a visitor book in the guesthouse. It is placed on a coffee table in the reception area, which gives tourists time to write while relaxing and chatting over a hot cup of tea. The pleasure in writing is seemingly reflected in the long entries (up to 150, 200 words) that take the form of stories or poems. Likewise, the number of drawings is quite significant. The data used in this analysis come from 152 narrative accounts, spanning a period of two years from 2009 to 2010. Most tourists write down the date and sign their texts. The demographic data indicate the country of origin of ES tourists as follows: United Kingdom (60), France (18), Sweden (17), Norway (5), Ireland (4), Holland (3), Finland (3), Israel (1), Denmark (1), Switzerland (1), Australia (1), Canada (1), USA (1). There were also 36 unsigned narrative accounts. Mihai Eminescu Trust (MET) (http://www.mihaieminescutrust.ro/en), underscores its dedication to the conservation and regeneration of villages in Transylvania and Maramures, two of the most unspoilt regions of Europe. The organization was originally founded in the United Kingdom. The motto

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Ecotourism Tourist Visitor book tertiary text

Tour owner website secondary text

Object Landscape – primary text

Object Landscape – primary text

SIGN (signification) Ecotourism and Environmental Protection Tradition and Authenticity Picturesque Adventure, Discovery, Learning

Interpretant

Interpretant

Immediate interpretant -recognizing the landscapeDynamical interpretant -reading the landscape-

Immediate interpretant -recognizing the landscapeDynamical interpretant -reading the landscape-

Anticipated experience

Final interpretant Tourist experience

Narrated experience

Tourist practices

Fig. 1. Semiotic research design – levels of text and meaning.

‘‘Supporting Transylvania’s cultural heritage” underscores MET’s role in saving houses, churches, orchards and forests. The activities of MET in the field of tourism reflect the conservation mission in the areas of cultural and ecologic tourism. The website shows that tourism is only one activity of the organization beside other projects focused more directly on the conservation of the natural and cultural landscape. The MET visitor book is placed at the entrance of a fortified church. It is not a very comfortable place for writing and this may explain the relatively short length of the entries as compared to the ones in ES (from a single word to at most 40, 50 words). There are no drawings in this book. The data used in our analysis come from 301 narrative accounts, spanning a period of two years from 2009 to 2010. The demographic data indicate the country of origin of MET tourists as follows: France (66), Romania (63), United Kingdom (33), Italy (18), Spain (16), USA (16), Australia (11), Poland (11), Belgium (8), Norway (4), Switzerland (4), Finland (3), Sweden (3), New Zeeland (2), Canada (2), Denmark (2), Holland (2), Greek, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, Namibia (1 from each). There were 32 unsigned narrative accounts. The entries in both visitor books are written in six different languages. We analysed all the entries in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian. Only those in German (32 and 48 respectively) were excluded.

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Semiotic analysis Using the websites and visitor books’ entries, we carried out a content analysis based on the linguistic work of Halliday and Hasan (1976). Their work looks at the collocative relationship within the text in terms of ‘‘co-occurrence of lexical items that are in some way or other typically associated with one another, because they tend to occur in similar environments” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 287). Examples of such collocative relationships are given: ‘‘laugh. . .joke, boat...row, sunshine...cloud, garden. . .dig” (p. 285). We considered the collocative relationships within the context units in website paragraphs and visitor entries and encoded the elements that make up the landscape into the four sign categories noted above. We identified pairs of lexical units in light of the tourist activities/practices that shape the connotations given to landscape elements. For the Ecology and Environmental Protection sign, we considered the intellectual activity in light of intellectuals’ orientation towards green values and protection of natural and cultural landscapes (Dobson, 1993; Honey, 2008). Under the Tradition and Authenticity sign, the collocative relationships drew on the experiential practice of the landscape given the interest of ecotourists in experiencing new cultures and traditions (Fennell, 2005; Honey, 2008; Wearing & Neil, 2009). Pairs of lexical units that relate to active involvement with the landscape mark the physical activity under the Adventure, Discovery, Learning sign (Cloke & Perkins, 1998; Perkins & Thorns, 2001). For the Picturesque sign, we looked at landscape-picturesque descriptive pairs marking the romantic gazing activity in contemplating the pristine and undisturbed nature (Butcher, 2005; Urry, 2002). The examples below illustrate the undertaking in our research. Ecology and Environmental Protection is, at the second level of signification, denoted by signs defining the landscape through collocation with scientific-related lexical units, mainly nouns. The websites describe the landscape elements as follows: physical features (national park); flora (protected species); fauna (ecosystems); human settlements (UNESCO heritage); landscape use (biodynamic farm); landscape interactions (environmentally-friendly materials). Visitor books are dominated by imperative, encouraging expressions: flora (natural ecosystems); fauna (rescued bears); human settlements (rescue); landscape use (improvement). Tradition and Authenticity is marked on the websites mainly through the description of typical Romanian aspects of lifestyle, by collocating landscape elements with adjectives describing the authentic, and nouns and verbs with direct reference to the authentic: human settlements (authentic); landscape use (field work); landscape interaction (artisans). While on the websites the most noticeable connotations are related to landscape interaction, in the visitor books it is the locals-related connotations that prevail: human settlements (timeless); landscape use (rural); landscape interaction (authentic objects). Gazing produces meaning by collocation with picturesque-oriented descriptive adjectives to shape the Picturesque sign. In websites we see physical features (picturesque); flora (paradise); fauna (fantastic); human settlements (fairy tale-like); landscape use (magic atmosphere); landscape interaction (animals parade). The same pattern applies to visitor books: physical features (picturesque); flora (fairy tale-like); fauna (phenomenal); human settlements (romantic); landscape use (spectacular); landscape interaction (fantastic). Lastly, physical and cognitive activity gives meaning to landscape through collocation with verbs inviting tourists to ‘‘Adventure, Discovery and Learning”: physical features (climb); flora (explore); fauna (discover); human settlements (learn); landscape use (explore); landscape interaction (do, learn). Visitor books unveil the same experience and action-oriented verbs: physical features (we climbed); flora (we studied); fauna (we watched); human settlements (we explored); landscape use (adventure); landscape interaction (and learnt). Having defined the boundaries of the research, the next point in the paper is to direct a more specific focus towards the primary, secondary and tertiary text analysis. Landscape – Primary text – first level of signification In looking at the landscape as a primary text, the starting point was to identify and name the signs that make up the natural and cultural landscape at the first level of signification, that is denotation, in

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both the websites and the visitor books. In Table 1 we present the elements that make up the landscape, the categories, and the specific elements within the main elements, the sub-categories. Nevertheless, the most important part of the research aims at the second dimension of the sign, the connotation, which is analysed in the secondary and tertiary texts with a view to investigating the circulation of meaning. Therefore, at the core of tourism as meaning-making practice stands the landscape, and the meanings landscape receives beyond the denotative, in order to mark Romania as an ecotourist destination. Secondary texts – Websites – second level of signification Both tour operators emphasize different facets of ecotourism ideology in their construction of the Romanian landscape. The perspective on the world depicted by the Equus Silvania’s logo, namely ‘‘Horseriding [sic] and nature at its best” originates in the Romantic movement to which ecotourism in partly indebted as ‘‘untouched spaces have the greatest value, and wilderness assumes a deep spiritual significance” (Holden, 2008, p. 30). The main meaning that landscape receives in the ES website is that of a typical Romanian landscape, the Picturesque sign. The landscape is constructed in association with the effect of the aesthetic and pastoral value it has upon its users, the tour owners. On the other hand, the ecocentric principles (see Newsome et al., 2013) reflected on the Mihai Eminescu Trust website also represents the ideology of ecotourism: ‘‘A model of rural development through conservation and sustainable usage of heritage” (sustainability), ‘‘Working at first to save houses and churches from the accelerating dilapidation” (individual responsibility). Just as old traditions and values were reconsidered during the industrial revolution (Berberich, 2006), and romantic voices such as William Wordsworth militated against industrialization and spoke for the preservation of the cultural and natural environment, MET is dedicated to the preservation of the natural and cultural environment. Caroline Fernolend, director of MET Romania, told us that tourism is just one side of their activities, but it does not dictate their policy (see http://www.mihaieminescutrust.ro/en/projects/). ‘‘From October until March we do not receive tourists, this period is dedicated to the community”, said Fernolend, arguing for the importance of preserving the traditional way of life of the village (Fernolend, personal communication, August 20, 2014). This explains why the dominant sign on the MET website is the Ecology and Environmental Protection sign. The distribution of connotative significances in secondary texts is presented in Table 2. In addition to the analysis of the signs at the second level of significance, we investigate the classification of signifiers within signs. Under the sign of the Picturesque, the ES website invites the tourists to gaze upon ‘‘picturesque rolling hills of Transylvania” (extract 1), and ‘‘a picturesque village” (extract 2). MET also welcomes the tourists to see ‘‘the beautiful ancient oak plateau of Breite” (extract 3), or ‘‘the beauty of the Saxon villages” (extract 4).

Table 1 Elements (categories) of the natural and cultural landscape. Natural landscape Category Physical features and hydrology Sub-categories Mountains Hills Plains Other physical features Rivers Lakes Cultural landscape Category Human Settlements Sub-categories Villages Houses Churches Castles Human beings Other constructions

Flora Forests Flowers Meadows Other types of vegetation

Fauna Wildlife – animals and birds

Landscape use Pastures and hey meadows orchards Land work

Landscape interactions Clothes Crafts and other jobs Animal breeding Working tools Culinary products

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Table 2 Significances at the second level of significance in secondary texts. Equus Silvania website Picturesque Ecology and Environmental Protection Adventure, Discovery, Learning Tradition and Authenticity

Mihai Eminescu Trust website 29% 26% 24% 21%

Ecology and Environmental Protection Tradition and Authenticity Picturesque Adventure, Discovery, Learning

63% 21% 10% 6%

At ES the physical features rank first within the Picturesque sign (extract 1), followed by human settlements (extract 2), whereas at MET, flora occupy the first position (extract 3), followed by human settlements (extract 4). The anticipated tourist experience calls for tourists’ intellectual faculty oriented towards green values (see Dobson, 1993) in order to shape the Ecology and Environmental Protection sign. The intellectual activities reflect the principles of ecotourism (TIES, 2015). In Equus Silvania, for example, this means minimizing environmental impact: ‘‘We also take care to not cause soil erosion and stay outside of wetlands” (extract 5) or building ‘‘environmental and cultural awareness and respect” (TIES, 2015): ‘‘We of course respect the farmers’ needs and stay on the cart tracks” (extract 6). For Mihai Eminescu Trust, the principles of ecotourism mean for example ‘‘working with Indigenous People to create empowerment” (TIES, 2015): ‘‘We completed restoration and facade repairs on houses 104, 170 and 172” (extract 7), or building ‘‘environmental and cultural awareness and respect” (TIES, 2015): ‘‘we hope visitors will ensure their impact on the habitat and its biodiversity is minimum” (extract 8). The physical features are again the main landscape elements to which ecological values are attached in ES (extract 5), followed by human settlements (extract 6). For MET human settlements (extract 7) come first, followed by flora (extract 8). When it comes to physical or cognitive activities, the subject–object relationship established through the dynamical and the final interpretants construct the touristed landscape by ascribing ‘‘Adventure, Discovery and Learning” meanings to landscape. ‘‘Watch”, ‘‘ride”, ‘‘experience”, ‘‘find tracks”, ‘‘learn”, ‘‘discover”, ‘‘witness”, are some of the ‘‘action” verbs that anticipate the ecotourist experience. This ‘‘language of excitement” is also discussed by Cloke and Perkins (1998) in their argument that in adventure tourism as in ecotourism the tourist gaze becomes tourist performance and tourists are both ‘‘gazers and active beings” (p. 201, 207). Equus Silvania challenges tourists to ‘‘ride through some beautiful Carpathian forests” (extract 9) or to ‘‘come through oak and hornbeam forests” (extract 10). Mihai Eminescu Trust invites the tourists to ‘‘discover other secluded villages with fortified churches” (extract 11) or to ‘‘witness the various stages of the charcoal making” (extract 12). At ES the main objects tourists experience through bodily actions fall within the natural landscape, namely physical features (extract 9), followed by flora (extract 10). At MET the pattern is different. The human settlements come first (extract 11), followed by landscape interaction (extract 12). The explanation is the different eco-orientation of the two websites, that is to say towards the natural landscape (ES), and the cultural landscape (MET). The meanings landscape receives in association with the concept of typical Romanian way of life in the light of the tourist experience shape the Tradition and Authenticity sign. The Equus Silvania website anticipates a desire to live an experiential activity and to be immersed in the local community by offering the chance to taste ‘‘locally produced, organic food” (extract 13) or to actively interact with the locals: ‘‘Meeting people with us is something authentic” (extract 14). Mihai Eminescu Trust unveils the authenticity of the Saxon villages: ‘‘the folk memory of Europe” (extract 15), or the authenticity of the Romanian way of life: ‘‘the ongoing traditional farming methods” (extract 16). The immersion in nature and local culture also emphasizes the romantic roots of ecotourism (Holden, 2008). Therefore, on the ES website the main elements of landscape connoted at the second level of significance are landscape interaction (extract 13) and human settlements (extract 14). The pattern is reversed for the MET site, where human settlements occupy the first position (extract 15), and landscape interaction the second position (extract 16).

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Tertiary texts – Visitor books – second level of signification We have seen the way the landscape itself is the primary text, while the websites produced by the tour operators serve as the secondary texts. At ES and MET the visitor books offer a glimpse into the ways tourists actively experience these sites. These are the tertiary texts. The semiotic construction of the place is therefore viewed intertextually. All texts relate to each other, the meaning circulates vertically to show the whole picture of landscape reading and representation in the eyes of all the actors involved in framing the touristed landscapes. We analyse the signifiers (the immediate interpretant) following the landscape reading (dynamical interpretant) by the interpreter (the tourist) based on the lived tourist experience (final interpretant). At both Equus Silvania and Mihai Eminescu Trust the tertiary texts mobilize different signs from the ones in the secondary text. This highlights the ways that meanings do not stay the same. These meanings circulate, in that the sign user gives new significances to what he/she reads. Goss (1993) argues that consumers are ‘‘actively involved in the production of meaning and are quite capable of making creative use of texts in ways unintended by the producers” (p. 664). While Goss’s work does not directly deal with tourists’ texts, it is very applicable to the tourist experience. Our study overcomes some of the limitations in Goss’s study by analysing the texts of both the tour operators and the tourists these texts address, to depict the whole picture of touristed landscapes. The visitor books at the two sites have different dominant signs. Adventure, Discovery, Learning is dominant at the second level of signification in visitor book accounts at Equus Silvania. As Nash (2000) and Cresswell (1996, 2003) posit, tourists favour movement rather that a static-oriented approach to landscape. Tourist narrative accounts at ES show a deep interest in the natural and cultural landscapes and highlight the visitors’ active engagement in constructing the landscape by learning about and discovering it. In the MET’s visitor book, the Picturesque is the main sign. Urry, citing Bourdieu (1984 in 2002, p. 80) speaks of the new tourists’ ‘‘preference for aesthetic-asceticism.” Table 3 illustrates the classification of significances at the connotative or second level of significance in tertiary texts. The investigation into the signifiers within the signs in visitor books shows the meaning making and the construction of landscapes at a deeper level. Tourists invest their own feelings and emotions in making sense of the places they experience. The result is a different meaning they attach to landscape and implicitly a personal, subjective construction of place, as Rakic and Chambers (2012) also emphasize in their study. The narrative accounts in the visitor book from ES depict an intellectually active tourist in relation to the objects he/she experiences; yet, it is not in relation to the physical features as is the case of the website but in relation to the human settlements. It is especially the human beings (the category of human settlements) that the tourists admire and resonate with on sensitive issues, such as environmental protection: ‘‘welcoming house, lovely hosts and ecofriendly” (extract 17, British tourist). That fact that fauna ranks the second might be due to the western tourists militating for the preservation of the wildlife which has almost disappeared in Western Europe: ‘‘It’s only thanks to people like you that all the wildlife of the world has not already been destroyed” (extract 18, British tourist). The analysis of the visitor book from Viscri, at MET, shows that tourists are interested and intellectually involved in the preservation of the human settlements. The explanation may be the fact that the visitor book is placed inside the village fortress, and the people have the tendency to write about it to a significant extent. They express either the admiration for the work done to preserve the village, or the worry that the place might decline: ‘‘great place, glad it is being preserved” (extract 19, American tourist); ‘‘sad about its decline. Hope to be restored” (extract 20, Finnish tourist).

Table 3 Significances at the second level of significance in tertiary texts. Equus Silvania visitor book Adventure, Discovery, Learning Picturesque Tradition and Authenticity Ecology and Environmental Protection

Mihai Eminescu Trust visitor book 50% 25% 20% 5%

Picturesque Ecology and Environmental Protection Tradition and Authenticity Adventure, Discovery, Learning

35% 25% 24% 16%

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The visitor books of both Equus Silvania and Mihai Eminescu Trust show that tourists create the sign of Picturesque by gazing at human settlements (first place in both visitor books) and flora (second place in both visitor books), unlike the anticipated gazing at physical features and flora, respectively, on the two websites. In the eyes of tourists the typical Romanian landscape is made up of villages, houses, human beings. Thus, the picturesque of the cultural landscape dominates over the picturesque of the natural landscape: ‘‘the Saxon villages we have stayed in were utterly amazing” (Extract 21, British tourist); ‘‘lovely little village and church” (Extract 22, American tourist). Tourists of ES make sense of the place they visit especially through physical and cognitive involvement with the landscape. They create the sign Adventure, Discovery, Learning but in connotation to fauna, not in connotation to physical features, as is the anticipated experience on the website. The lived experience writes a different story. The multisensual experience - the tourists not only see, but they hear, touch, track down, meet animals - gives them the real sense of adventure: ‘‘hearing the wolf howl and seeing fresh tracks was absolutely unbelievable” (Extract 23, British tourist). Similarly, the misadventure and suffering in travel, once the attributes of Romantic travellers (Thompson, 2007), also excites the tourists: ‘‘a bear growling really near when we got out of the shelter, that even made one of the guides run away, but of course it’s a great memory” (Extract 24, Swedish tourist). The immersion into the local culture also exalts the tourists, which places human settlements on the second place within the sign Adventure, Discovery, Learning: ‘‘we have learnt a lot of Romanian” (Extract 25, Swedish tourist). The tourists who visit the village Viscri extol their ventures into the cultural landscape and are also grateful for the learning experience: ‘‘wonderful village and will be exploring everywhere” (Extract 26, Australian tourist). They also extol, just like the ES tourists, the risky experiences that got their adrenalin pumping: ‘‘great fun climbing up all the stairs, a bit scary with the creaking wood, but great views of Viscri and the landscape” (Extract 27, American tourist). The new tourists are there, in the world, and they make the most of it, they want to ‘‘experience the country and its people” (Butcher, 2005, p. 78). The Tradition and Authenticity sign is created in both visitor books through meanings related mainly to human settlements, landscape interactions, and landscape use. The references to people and their way of life are seen to describe the concept of a typical Romanian way of life, and are seen as an experiential activity of traditions and authenticity. As Butcher (2005) also contends, the moral ecotourist ‘‘holds dear – the ability to learn from and empathise with one’s host” (p. 77). Human settlements rank first (the references to people dominate): ‘‘thanks for your hospitality and for introducing us to your beautiful place” (Extract 28, ES, British tourist); ‘‘thank you to Sara for warm welcome” (Extract 29, MET, American tourist). Landscape interaction ranks second, in for example, meanings attached to clothes: ‘‘merci d’avoir garde le magnifique costume” (Extract 30, MET, French tourist), or to crafts: ‘‘loved the story about the weaving traditions” (Extract 31, MET, American tourist). The most noticeable feature of the visitor book is that human settlements are the landscape elements that connote with almost all signs at the second level of significance, except for the sign of Adventure, Discovery, Learning in Equus Silvania where fauna is the dominating object. This shows that it is mainly the cultural landscape that exalts tourists and challenges them to get engaged by virtue of the intellectual, experiential, physical, cognitive activities, and gazing. The semiotic construction of touristed landscape by tourists sustains the recognition of ‘‘the rights and spiritual beliefs of the Indigenous People” (TIES, 2015), which works in the ideologizing of Romania as an ecotourist destination.

Discussion and concluding remarks Discussion The ‘‘performative turn” in tourist studies has challenged researchers to find new paths in investigating how tourists are actively engaged with places (landscapes). In undertaking this research we have examined both tourists and eco-tour owners. The basic idea has been that landscape elements are just that until they are ‘‘touristed”, and then they take on connotative meanings in light of tourist activities/practices (intellectual, cognitive,

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physical, experiential, gazing) that shape the tourist experience, either anticipated by the eco-tour operators, or lived by the tourists. Alongside other research built on the embodiment, practice, and performance paradigm, we have argued that the ‘‘gaze” metaphor cannot capture the active creation of meanings. For instance, in McGregor’s study (2000) the ‘‘gaze” limits the tourists’ experience to a control by the guidebooks whereas ‘‘performance” enables a personal insight into the local culture. Moreover, we have argued that it is not only the tourists that are interpreters of meanings and nor are the tourism promoters the only producers of meaning. As Goss (1993) states, ‘‘tourism becomes merely the reading of touristic signs emptied by all meaning except the signification of difference” (p. 686). It is true, as Markwell (2001) also notices, the areas of Sinca Noua and Viscri are mediated: the tourists are taken on selected routes for riding, bears are watched from bear hides. Yet, the ecotourist makes his/her own meanings of the signs. The ecotourist respects the codes of conduct in ecotourism, and he/she enjoys the experience he creates himself within the ethical boundaries of ecotourism: ‘‘The magic of Transylvania has worked again and I am sure I will return to meet Cristoph and Barbara, ride the forests and hills, learn more about this wonderful country and the work they are doing to preserve the landscape for posterity” (ES visitor book, British tourist). The tour owners attempt to attract the tourists by attaching their significances to landscapes. In Equus Silvania the Picturesque sign prevails, which brings the ‘‘romantic gaze” (Urry, 2002) to the fore. In Mihai Eminescu Trust the Ecology and Environmental Protection sign dominates, which emphasizes the ecocentric approach of this organization. The explanation for the results may be that ES is a tour operator whose main activity is to offer riding and hiking activities in a spectacular environment. The sign of Ecology and Environmental Protection closely follows the Picturesque, which shows the concern with environmental conservation, but they may want to generate tourist satisfaction in the first place (see Dowling, 2013) and to have a prosperous business. On the other hand, MET is an organization whose main activity is to raise funds and carry out projects preserving the natural and cultural landscapes and, therefore, the meanings it attaches to landscapes sustain their environmentoriented ideology. The Tradition and Authenticity sign closely follows, which emphasizes that these projects particularly address the cultural landscapes, rural areas and they invite tourists to experience the typical Romanian way of life. ‘‘The active bodily involvement”, that Perkins and Thorns (2001, p. 186) speak of, shows that in addition to ‘‘eco-centric values and ethics in relation to nature” (TIES, 2015) tourists want to learn, to discover, to venture into, to experience, and to gaze at the landscape. In the Equus Silvania visitor book, the sign of Adventure, Discovery, Learning occupies the first position and in Mihai Eminescu Trust it is the Picturesque sign that ranks first. As one visitor to ES wrote: ‘‘It makes it really special to learn about the wildlife and history of Transylvania from such passionate guides who have been deeply involved in the conservation of this ecosystem. Seeing the bears and meeting the wolves was also a great experience” (ES visitor book, British tourist). Thus, the semiotic construction of touristed landscapes ‘‘works” in the ecotourist ideology of the tour owners. Both tour owners and tourists appraise the ecological sustainability or environmental education, show respect for the host cultures, and take recreational satisfaction from the interaction with the landscape (see Page & Dowling, 2002, Hetzer, 1965 in Dowling, 2013): ‘‘the Saxon Greenway is the best way to understand and enjoy – at a slow pace – the landscapes” (MET website); ‘‘This time I came with 14 friends to enjoy this place” (MET visitor book, British tourist). ‘‘Memorable interpretative experiences” (TIES, 2015) are also valued: ‘‘we see and experience an abundant birdlife” (ES website); ‘‘I feel privileged I have been asked to experience this vast beautiful country” (ES visitor book, British tourist). The results of our research confirm the results of the study conducted by Stamou and Paraskevopoulus (2004). In their analysis of visitor books from both the information centre and observation site of a Greek reserve, the two scholars remark that while in the visitor book from the information centre it is the environmentalist discourse that prevails, in the visitor book from the observation site it is the hedonistic discourse marked by the ‘‘affective aspect of visitor’s encounter with the reserve” (Stamou & Paraskevopoulus, 2004, p. 108) that dominates. Other studies carried out within the performance paradigm have also confirmed that the on-the-ground experiences leave

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their own mark on the construction of places (Markwell, 2001; Rakic & Chambers, 2012; Rickly-Boyd, 2009; Rickly-Boyd & Metro-Roland, 2010). Concluding remarks What other studies have not specifically addressed is the whole picture of the tourist experience, and how touristed landscapes are shaped through the circulation of meaning. Those works have looked at either the significances from tourist advertisements, brochures, or magazines, or the meanings articulated by tourists as derived from interviews, diary analysis, participant observation or visitor books. We have argued that in order to get the whole picture of the tourist experience, we should analyse it as a whole, and in a chain of meanings within the context of ongoing and unlimited semiosis. We have addressed the current knowledge gap by creating a semiotic model of tourism as meaning-making to take a step further into tourism theory and practice. Our research has been built on the embodiment, practice and performance paradigm, but we have drawn not just on tourism literature, instead situating our study in an underexplored research method which is Peirce’s semiotic theory, corroborated with Barthes’s theory of signifying systems. The two theoreticians have provided the tools to comprehend how the signs that make up the landscape evolve and become an expression of both tour operators and tourists’ experience, knowledge, and ideologies. Meanings and places (landscapes) evolve intertextually, which implies that texts cannot be analysed independently, but intertextually. Likewise, we have drawn on linguistics to perform the content analysis and to structure our interpretation in a precise and systematic way. Similar methodological triangulation was embraced by Goss (1993), and Stamou and Paraskevopoulus (2004) to increase the credibility and validity of the research results. This research has limits. Within the boundaries of an interpretivist research method, we have assumed the role of interpreters in the process of encoding the elements that make up the landscape. Yet, in order to avoid bias and to increase the level of reliability, we have used content analysis as a positivist research method. Essentially, we have taken an insight approach to meanings actors in tourism attach to places, and have investigated how these meanings sustain the ecotourism ideology and mark Romania as an ecotourist destination. Nevertheless, beyond the stated aim of the research, our intention has been to create a reference framework to be of use to other researches that investigate the making of touristed landscapes, and to lay the groundwork for further investigation into tourism as meaning-making practice. Understanding the construction of touristed places (landscapes) by providing a framework for analysing the meanings in tourism may have implications in elaborating efficient communication, and marketing strategies in the field of tourism. The framework may be employed by eco tour operators or decision-making bodies to build more efficient discourses to promote an ecotourism ideology within the strategic paradigm of ecotourism. Future research could explore other tourist practices that turn bare places into touristed ones given the meanings multiple actors in tourism give to objects through performance and embodied experiences of the places. Thus, we reiterate that within tourism there is constant production of meanings, and exploring meanings in tourism is an area that semiotics may illuminate. Acknowledgments The author is greatly indebted to Professor Michelle Metro-Roland not only for her help in editing the article but also for fruitful discussion on semiotics and landscape interpretation. Many thanks to Daniela Roventßa-Frumusßani for her inspiring personality - she is an outstanding Romanian Professor who has made significant contributions to the field of semiotics. The author would like to thank Barbara Promberger from Equus Sivania and Caroline Doots Fernolent from Mihai Eminescu Trust for providing their visitor books and for helpful discussions. Finally, the author wishes to thank the editor, Chaim Noy, for guidance and support, as well as the anonymous referees for comments that led to substantial improvements.

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