Consumption of a literary tourism place: a perspective of embodiment

Abstract

With contemporary cultural transformation and the expansion of consumption, tourism has been elevated to embodied consumption of the entire tourist destination. This study examined the case of Liangshan in the Shandong province – the birthplace of the famous story of Water Margin in Chinese classical literature – to construct an analytical framework for the consumption of literary tourism. Using data collected from personal interviews and online blogs and analyzed by content analysis, this study determined the relational structure of literary tourist embodied consumption. Research findings revealed that the existence of literary works as a ‘preconstruction’ or ‘preunderstanding’ was an expectation of literary tourists. There were different dimensions of embodied consumption of literary tourism, which were interdependent and mutually permeating. Perception, imagination, understanding, and emotion are mutually evocative in the multisensory experience of a literary tourism place. This study contributes to theory by providing further understanding of literary tourists’ aesthetic experience of embodied consumption and offers implications for literary tourism resource development, local destination brand marketing, and the inheritance of humanistic values.

摘要

随着当代文化转型和消费的扩大, 旅游已上升到对整个旅游目的地的具身消费。本文选择中国古典文学名著《水浒传》故事的发祥地 – 山东水泊梁山为案例, 构建文学旅游地消费的分析构架。通过访谈和网络博客获取研究资料, 运用内容分析法研究确定文学旅游者具身消费的关系结构。研究发现：文学作品作为’前结构’或’前理解’存在, 是文学旅游者的一种期待视界。文学旅游者的具身消费有不同的维度, 它们相互依赖, 彼此渗透。感知、想象、理解和情感在文学旅游地的多感官体验中是相互唤起的。本研究的理论贡献是对文学旅游者具身消费的审美体验有更深的了解, 实践上为文学资源的旅游开发、地方品牌营销和人文价值传承提供参考。

Keywords:

• Consumer culture
• embodied consumption
• tourism aesthetics
• literary tourism place
• Liangshan
• China

关键词:

• 消费文化
• 具身消费
• 旅游美学
• 文学旅游地
• 梁山
• 中国

Disclosure statement

We declare no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Liao Jiang is an associate professor in the Shenzhen Tourism College of Jinan University, Shenzhen, China. His research focuses on the interaction between tourism and literary places in modern China and is also interested in culture tourism and tourism impact.

Larry Yu is professor of management, School of Business, The George Washington University. His research interests include consumer behavior, destination management and heritage governance.