From Cultural Governance to Cultural Tourism: Towards an Interpretation Perspective

Abstract

The debate of "cultural turn" has recently drawn scholars' attentions to the cultural dimension of tourism, particularly how and to what extent cultural symbols and languages make meaning in tourism production and consumption. This requires tourism scholars examining symbolic elements of culture and embedding them in tourism presentations, such as tourist products and service experiences. The authors attempt to address cultural dynamics between symbolism and signification and to illustrate their relationships within tourism through the studies of cultural governance and cultural tourism. Employing a qualitative approach with 85 semistructured interviews and secondary data, a case study of cultural tourism in Nanjing, China illustrates how the tourism and culture sectors selectively signify the tourism image—"A City of Universal Love"—with Nanjing's cultural governance ideology. The interpretation and the marketing of this city tourism image also show several tensions—for example, the cultural sector holds greater power to represent own its interests, but is less successful in promoting interactive heritage experience to the domestic tourism market. This study offers a new insight of cultural dynamics, notably symbolism and signification dynamics influence governance, interpretation, and marketing of city tourism image.