Extraordinary Experience: Re-enacting and Photographing at Screen Tourism Locations

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which screen tourism locations and their associated tourist experiences are (re)produced, contextualised and performed through production and consumption of a Korean television drama series entitled, Winter Sonata. As an exploratory case study based on visual image analysis, this paper examines the context and meanings of photographs taken by tourists who are re-enacting scenes from the series during their visit to Nami Island, the main filming location of Winter Sonata, in South Korea. The photographs are compared with the still images of original scenes in the series. The findings of this comparison suggest that previous viewing experiences of the television series not only created personalised memories and attachment with its filming location, but also produced new touristic spaces. The previous viewing experiences also induced the audiences to visit the filming locations and to perform reflexive and extraordinary touristic experiences in the form of re-enacting scenes from the series and photographing their re-enactment.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express special thanks to SeokHo Yoon, the director of Winter Sonata, for his interview in 2006. He also gratefully acknowledges yan_fangon and grace for allowing the author to use their photographs for this paper. Finally he expresses special thanks to Professor Mike Robinson, who showed great interest in this research and made helpful comments on this paper.

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