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.

Introduction

Reading novels, watching television and going to the cinema have occupied a central part of people's daily cultural and social practice in post-modern society. Owing perhaps to the greater speed and the extent of international flow of cultural information and imagery in these forms of entertainment, popular media portraying landscapes of different cultures, places and events, are endlessly and internationally distributed, circulated, re-circulated and consumed on a global scale. Those popular cultural forms of the media that are accessible and pervasive entertainment are enjoyed and consumed by mass audiences as a means of joy, pleasure, daydreaming and fantasy, as well as understanding of the others in everyday life (Carey, 1988; Urry, 1990).

There has been a growing worldwide touristic phenomenon that tourists visit a destination or attraction as a result of personal viewing experiences of that place being featured or portrayed as the backgrounds and foregrounds in film and television production. Therefore, it is testimony to the importance of production and consumption of popular media, in particular within a western world context, that there exists a growing recognition among researchers and the tourism industry of the increasingly close relationships between tourism and the consumption of film and fictional television programmes (see, for example, Torchin, 2002; Kim and Richardson, 2003; Beeton, 2005; Connell, 2005a; O'Neill et al., 2005; Busby and O'Neill, 2006; Hudson and Ritchie, 2006a; Iwashita, 2006; Carl et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2007). The concept of film-induced “location” tourism, (often called “screen tourism”), generally encompasses the inter-linked issues of destination image (Kim and Richardson, 2003), motivation (Macionis, 2004; Singh and Best, 2004), travel preference and destination choice (Iwashita, 2003, 2006), host communities (Beeton, 2001; 2008; Connell, 2005a, 2005b), screen tourists' experiences (Couldry, 1998; Carl et al., 2007), destination marketing (Hudson and Ritchie, 2006a, 2006b), and destination branding (O'Connor and Bolan, 2008; O'Connor et al., 2008).

However, there is a general lack of research on understanding the screen tourism destination spaces and screen tourist performances at former film locations. The use of performance as a metaphor of tourist practice has been paid much attention in recent literature on tourist experiences (Adler, 1989; Edensor, 2000, 2001; Chaney, 1993; Mordue, 2001). Nevertheless, little sustained research has explored the roles of tourist performances in particular, at the screen tourism locations in re-enacting scenes from the screen and photographing them as a metaphor of authentic tourist experiences in the context of screen tourism.

This paper aims to explore the ways in which screen tourism locations and their associated tourist experiences are (re)produced, packaged, contextualised and performed in the context of production and consumption of a particular Korean television drama series, Winter Sonata. This Korean television series focuses, in the first instance, on a domestic Korean audience but the series has also been distributed beyond national boundaries and has attracted a significant international audience, which is now impacting upon Korean inbound tourism. Within an exploratory case study mode, this paper particularly focuses on the context in which screen tourist performances including re-enacting and photographing occur. By comparing them with the original still images of the series, it highlights the sensual and symbolic meanings of photographs taken by tourists at Nami Island, the programme's main filming location, in ChunCheon, Gangwon province, South Korea. Thus, it provides insights into a richer understanding and interpretation of screen tourist experiences behind re-enacting and photographing it in the context of Winter Sonata's narratives. This paper also suggests some recommendations for potential future planning and development of screen tourism destinations in general.

Tourist Experiences and Screen Tourism

Theoretical approaches to the study of tourist experiences have been dominated by the binary distinction between the authentic and inauthentic, and have been embraced by many scholars (see, for example, Bruner, 1994, 2001; Cohen, 1988; Crang, 1996; MacCannell, 1999, 2001; Wang, 1999, 2000; Olsen, 2002). However, the concept of authenticity in the study of tourist experiences has recently been challenged by postmodernist modes (McCabe, 2005). Uriely (2005) suggests a useful review of the conceptual development of tourist experiences research by asserting that:

… four developments emerge: a reconsideration of the distinctiveness of tourism from of everyday life experiences; a shift from homogenizing portrayals of the tourist as a general type to pluralizing depictions that capture the multiplicity of the experience; a shifted focus from the displayed objects provided by the industry to the subjective negotiation of meanings as a determinant of the experience; and a movement from contradictory and decisive academic discourse, which conceptualizes the experience in terms of absolute truths, toward relative and complementary interpretations.

(Uriely, 2005, p. 200)

Through an “age of mechanical reproduction” (Benjamin, undated) almost everything can be mechanically or electronically reproduced for visual consumption by anonymous mass audiences, in the form of popular media (Altheide, 1997). According to Urry (1994) this process of “visualisation of culture” not only affects cultural and social changes in one's life, but also reflects these changes on (re)presenting and (re)producing visual and aural messages, images and representations. In particular, film and television experiences as everyday routines are becoming one of the most powerful information sources and image creators, and one of the most common social and cultural activities. McQuail (1997) emphasises media use as a reflection of a particular socio-cultural context and as a process of giving meanings to cultural products and experiences. Tourist practices transformed by viewing experiences, in this context, are simply cultural, that is, they comprise signs, images, texts, discourses and contexts which (re)produce social ideals and conventions. Thus, tourism is no longer a differentiated set of social and cultural practices (Lash, 1990; Urry, 1990, 1994; Edensor, 2001). Film and television in particular are the nexus which helped blur the boundaries between tourism and other cultural activities (Urry, 1994). It is also suggested that it is blurring the boundaries between everyday life and tourist experiences (Urry, 1990; Lash and Urry, 1994).

To a greater extent tourist spaces and performances as tourist locations and experiences are also affected and even (re)created by the production and consumption of films and television series (Edensor, 2001; Kim et al., 2006). According to Urry (1990), popular media consumption such as watching films and television series does not require audiences to have their corporeal mobility, which is conventionally and traditionally associated with tourist movements, in order to experience many of the typical objects of the tourist gaze. Rather, they can gaze upon, compare, contextualise and gaze upon again, all sorts of places with the popular media consumption practice as part of daily life (Feifer, 1985). Tourism then is a visual encounter with a place that is coded as distant, both spatially and temporally. When one visits an actual place, he/she therefore might feel that the place seems strangely familiar even though he/she has never been there before. Regarding this kind of déjà vu sense or familiarity experience, in particular associated with serialised television dramas, Edensor suggests that those television dramas:

produce a theatrical signature through which the scenery can be familiarised, associated with characters, episodes and props. As the series of televisual signifiers condenses, the network of associations between theatrical spaces provides extensive opportunities for re-envisaging the dramatic conventions of these series.

(Edensor, 2001, p. 68)

Symbolic Experience and Place Attachment

Television dramas, including soap operas in which personal and domestic narratives are frequently the central part of storylines, dramatise personal life over and above questions of power, politics, economics, social structure, religion, science or ethics (Carroll, 1996; Creeber, 2001). These personalised storylines touch on shared human interests and experiences which anyone can identify with in his or her everyday life. It may allow audiences to feel that they are participating in a real story which is happening just next to them, empathising with the characters and caring about what happens to them (Carroll, 1996; Creeber, 2001; Kincaid, 2002; Hobson, 2003). In addition, characters frequently remind viewers of people they know, and viewers use characters' situations and behaviours as ways of understanding their own lives and the lives of others (Giles, 2002). Furthermore, to a greater extent, bipolar major features of television drama series, “intimacy” and “continuity” or “serialisation”, engender a deeper degree of audience involvement, a sense of gradually becoming identifiable, empathetic and discursive to mass audiences (Newcomb, 1974; Valaskivi, 2000).

Through this process of personal engagement with television series consumption associated with familiarity, empathy, identification and reflection, it would allow greater personalised symbolic meanings to the beholders of the gaze (Riley et al., 1998). Because of this sense of connection and attachment, Couldry (1998) suggests that becoming a screen tourist may fulfil considerable amounts of emotional investment. Screen tourists want to experience what was emotionally experienced through the screen as well as at least parts of what was depicted on the screen (Tooke and Baker, 1996), as opposed to merely gazing at the site/sight. In other words, experiencing mediated representations through the screen creates a strong contextual package in which attractions and experiences screen tourists anticipate can be grounded. Thus subjective screen tourist experiences need to be understood by the context in which the nature of a specific and particular form of screen product and screen tourism occurs (Uriely, 2005).

This kind of psychological, emotional, and symbolic meaning stimulates people to develop a bond, person-place coupling, and a sense of belonging, to the extent that these places become “their place” (Korpela et al., 2001), representing what the literature of human geography and environmental psychology calls “place attachment” (Low and Altman, 1992) or “sense of place” (Relph, 1976; Buttimer, 1980; Tuan, 1980). In other words, place attachment as a metaphor of sense of place represents an emotional or affective and positive bond between a person and a particular place/location. Similarly, as suggested by Holbrook, “nostalgia” as referring “to a longing for the past, a yearning for yesterday, or a fondness for possessions and activities associated with the days of yore” (Holbrook, 1993, p. 245) and a longing for the place's meanings to them, is an important part of what screen tourists look forward to experiencing at screen tourism destinations.

On the one hand, this kind of symbolic touristic experience would be embodied by remembering that they were emotionally and behaviourally (e.g. crying, talking to characters) touched by the story and characters in the screened reality, because the emotional and behavioural attachment with the screen were much dramatised by tailored background music, visual enhancement, and celebrity icons. It would, on the other hand, be simply confirming an icon which was very distinctively portrayed or symbolically presented on the screen. In this respect, Couldry (1998), in his study of visitors' tales from the set of Coronation Street, explains that tourist experiences associated with screen tourism locations go beyond the obvious cognitive dimension of the locations as their fictive status. They are appreciated as a memory structure and various symbolic dimensions of these spaces as ritual places through the complex imaginative and emotional involvement of audiences.

Photography as a Tourist Activity

Photographs, as the most “widely disseminated tourist icon” (Markwick, 2001), along with postcards, souvenirs, and sometimes videos, can be produced as a memento of individuals' touristic experiences. They also create an essential part of selective memory of a particular time, place and performance that enriches the tourist experience (Markwick, 2001; Haldrup and Larsen, 2003; Burns, 2004; Morgan and Pritchard, 2005). In some cases such photographs provide the purpose for tourist experiences (Burns, 2004). These visual narratives, framed in the form of tourist photographs, constitute a personal image and experience that tells a unique story of an exceptional and extraordinary encounter which provides crucial components of “place-myths” (Shields, 1991). Hence, this “emblematic tourist practice” (Haldrup and Larsen, 2003) becomes transformed from merely visual artefacts to symbolic objects that are constituted in, and convey subjectivities of, their circulation (Crang, 1997).

Research Methods

Although the nature of screen tourism has a close relationship with substantial visual content and context of screen products that audiences consume in the form of moving visual images, most academic research on screen tourism has been conducted either by a conventional qualitative research approach, including (participant) observation and interview, or by quantitative questionnaire survey, or by analysis of secondary sources. Therefore, it is noteworthy that little work has been carried out by visual research methods, often known as “visual ethnography” (Pink, 2001), “visual anthropology” (Collier and Collier, 1986), or “visual methods” (Banks, 2001; Leeuwen and Jewitt, 2001; Rose, 2001), as a means of understanding tourist experiences associated with screen tourism locations. Acknowledging these gaps and the aim of this study to explore the role of re-enacting and photographing it in creating a new dimensional experience for screen tourists in the context of screen tourism, it adopts and considers an exploratory case study approach based on visual research methods as appropriate for the data collection and analysis.

As visual images or materials are abstract and polysemic, the central concern of visual analysis is the fluidity of interpretation of visual images, implying that they can be always viewed by different people in different ways (Pink, 2001; Collier, 2001). Despite no conclusive guidelines on visual research methods, Pink (2001) suggests two general approaches of visual image analysis: scientific-realist and reflexive approach. The former is to directly examine the image itself or its content as data, whereas the latter is to more focus on the context in which the image is produced. However, the main weakness of direct analysis of a single image would be its analytic potential that is limited by the lack of substantial internal contextual information and absence of annotation. Given the fact that contextual information provides a richer knowledge about the activities, individuals, and objects represented in an image's content, the visual image analysis indeed requires the researcher to establish contextual information and other annotation in which the images were generated (see, for example, Banks, 2001; Collier, 2001; Pink, 2001; Rose, 2001; Bryman, 2004). Thus, this study intends not only to analyse the content of selected visual images, but also to interpret the context and its meanings from which those images were produced.

The initial stage of this study collected screen tourist photographs of re-enacting scenes from Winter Sonata, taken by tourists who had visited Nami Island. The photographs of people performing the re-enactments of the bicycle riding scene (see Figure 3) and the kissing snowman and snowwoman scene (see Figure 6) were mainly collected and analysed by comparing them with the still images of the actors who performed the original scenes in the series (see Figure 1, 2, and 5). Two photographs used for the visual analysis were provided by two international tourists whom the author met on a Winter Sonata-related blog (Chicago Korean Drama Fan Club, 2006).

Figure 1. The characters in the TV series Winter Sonata riding a bicycle along the redwood-lined road I (still).

Figure 2. The characters in the TV series Winter Sonata riding a bicycle along the redwood-lined road II (still).

Figure 3. A screen tourist couple re-enacting the bicycle scene from Winter Sonata.

As it is often recommended that non-visual research methods are included in the process of visually orientated research (Pink, 2001), additional research methods including observation and interview apply to this study in order to reinforce the findings from the analysis of visual images as secondary data sources. The observation was conducted during June 2006 on Nami Island. It examined how Nami Island was transformed into a popular screen tourism destination for audiences and how tourists experienced the locations, mainly by exploring the tourist performances in terms of re-enacting and photographing. An interview was conducted with SeokHo Yoon, the director of Winter Sonata, who was considered as the key informant. It was expected that he could specifically talk about the production intention of the programme and its intended messages and meanings behind the programme. Especially, it focused on behind the scenes embedded in the selected still images of the bicycle riding scene and the kissing snowman and snowwoman scene, because they were overly constructed and framed by the production's intention.

Also, the author, as a subjective reader, has undertaken his own viewing experience of 20 episodes of Winter Sonata on DVD. It allowed the researcher to form personal experience and aspirations. The viewing experience informed the associated contextual information and its meanings which were not necessarily presented in the collected tourist photographs themselves. The established contextual background was then used to systematically analyse the selected photographs of re-enacting scenes. Overall, this mixed-method approach within a case-study mode, would collectively provide a richer context and information for each other and in turn enhance the generalisation of findings in order to better understand this dimension of screen tourist experiences.

Case Study: Winter Sonata, Nami Island and International Screen Tourists

Following its success in the Korean domestic market in 2002, Winter Sonata, one of the most successful Korean television drama series in Asia, has been exported and viewed in more than 20 countries worldwide including China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Iraq, United States, Uzbekistan, Paraguay, Mexico, and Brazil (KNTO, 2005). The drama opens with two high-school students who fall in love, both for the first time. The romantic, but tragic, love story between a male character, Junsang and a female character, Yoojin, has a complicated plot involving ideal love and self-sacrifice, complex family matters, the hero's amnesia from a car accident, heart-rending separation, and unexpected reunion, before the heroine's wedding to another man. In the moving last scene, Junsang and Yoojin recognise each other and their first love is consummated.

As the impact of a successful film or television programme on increased tourist numbers at its filming location has been demonstrated elsewhere, Nami Island, the main location used for the production of Winter Sonata, has become one of the most popular screen tourism destinations in Korea, in particular for Asian international tourists. The place was unofficially recognised as the historical first screen tourism destination in Korea for international inbound tourists. With no figures of overseas visitors prior to 2003, more than half a million foreign visitors (674,101) were recorded from 2003 to 2005 (KNTO, 2006a), whilst the entrance revenue was estimated at around $0.4 million in 2004 (KNTO, 2004). In 2005 Taiwan and Japan were the two major nations from which 131,900 and 102,800 tourists visited Nami Island, respectively. It is noteworthy that the figures during winter are much higher than during other seasons. For example, in 2005 the location attracted 33,000 and 37,000 international visitors in January and February, respectively, while only 17,000 and 16,000 tourists visited it in August and September (KNTO, 2006b). This might be explained by the fact that breathtaking winter scenery and a romantic love story between the characters backed up by melancholic music tunes were aesthetically portrayed throughout the 20 serialised episodes of Winter Sonata.

The Bicycle Riding Scene I

The still shot in Figure 1 shows Yoojin (Choi, Jiwoo) and Junsang (Bae, Yongjoon) riding their bicycle alongside the redwood-lined road after skipping afternoon classes, for their first unplanned date in Nami Island. This particular scene from the first episode lasts almost one minute and captures beautiful picturesque scenery of a wood-lined road and the romance of the characters during sunset in the late autumn/early winter season. There is no conversation between the characters, but beautiful and evocative background music is playing during the scene. The reflection of the sunset, especially, generates a yellowish pastel shade to the image, which creates a warmer and more romantic mood and atmosphere. It symbolises and reflects the happiness and warm inner emotion of the characters, and celebrates the beginning of their love. In this respect, Scarles (2004) suggests that interplay of light and colour on landscapes and places intensifies the magical qualities of image and drastically alters the mood and atmosphere.

Indeed, this privileging of visual display over narrative action is a desire or an intention of the production team, not only to portray Nami Island's sheer beauty in the form of a more aesthetically pleasing image, but also to maximise the sense of romantic feelings between the characters (interview with the director of Winter Sonata, 2006). This intention provides the audiences with “virtual spatial and temporal mobility” into the place (Friedberg, 1994, p. 22) and allows them to empathise with the characters. These particular visual narratives would connote three important messages embedded in the redwood-lined road: first dating, first time of holding hands, and the beginning of their ill-fated love and each other's first true love. Through this production intention, this ordinary space or place has been ultimately transformed as an extraordinary symbolic space in the context of the series.

The Bicycle Riding Scene II

This unforgettable memory, emotionally and symbolically embedded in that particular place with the connoted three “firsts”, has motivated Junsang and Yoojin to revisit the same place ten years later after their reunion (see Figure 2). The story in the series is that this love was destined to suffer a cruel blow as the heroine (Yoojin) believes that the hero (Junsang) died in a car accident ten years ago leaving the heroine heartbroken and dispirited. The story continues with her as an interior designer and romantically involved with her high school classmate, Sanghyeok. Her company has recently signed a contract to work at a ski resort. The company heading the resort remodelling project is managed by her first love who had allegedly died in a car accident ten years ago. She can not believe her eyes when she attends a business meeting with her first love. She is even more stunned to find out the man, who is now known as Lee Minhyeong, does not remember her. Yoojin, who never really got over her first true love, is confused and torn between the man who looks so much like Junsang and her current boyfriend, Sanghyeok. Wanting to live in the past, she often talks with Minhyeong about her first love and the wonderful times that they had together.

In this context, the characters become tourists re-visiting Nami Island, a symbolic place for them, and are seen stepping into the redwood-lined road and riding their bicycles again. Compared with the first still of the bicycle riding scene, this second still photo appears to transport the audiences to a heavy and unrelaxed moment, in this albeit symbolically important place, where different interpretations and meanings of the image are inevitably suggested. In contrast with the warm and relaxing image of the characters and the background in Figure 1, for instance, both Junsang and Yoojin seem to look a bit taut in Figure 2. He is just looking around the wood-lined road and its surrounding as if he felt unfamiliar and strange, but wanted to remember and recall the shared time and memory with his first lover in this very same place where their love started ten years ago. Furthermore, the colours used in this imagery are a blueish pastel shade, with even Junsang's blue jumper and blue scarf, signifying cold images that portray his calm emotion.

The Re-enacting Bicycle Scene by a Screen Tourist Couple

The photograph taken by a couple of screen tourists (Figure 3) shows that the tourists re-enacted the bicycle riding scene from Winter Sonata. No matter in what season and what emotions they performed, the importance is a longing for an unrealistic, but perhaps utopian love, by passing through the redwood-lined road as a metaphor or shrine to eternal love, as symbolically (re)presented in the context of Winter Sonata. By this performance or experience of the passage of ritual, it is presumed that the tourists would then become true lovers in their own context and love story. Indeed, the symbolically contextualised meanings behind this particular space provoked audiences to build a strong attachment with the place. It is akin to how Connerton (1989) suggests that people transmit ideals and reproduce memory by mapping them on to symbolic and familiar spaces. The re-enactment of this couple and the meaning of what they did, tends to be similar to the re-enactment of Junsang and Yoojin during their re-visit to the location (see Figure 2). The difference is that the former reflects their past touristic experiences with the place, whereas the latter reflects the previous viewing experiences with staging and mediation through the screen.

The Kissing Snowman and Snowwoman Scene on the Day of First Snow

As a punishment for skipping classes, Junsang and Yoojin are sweeping up dead leaves in school. Yoojin says “the first snow seems to be late this year, doesn't it?” (second episode, 42 min., 12 sec.). She starts recalling the event last year when the first snow fell. By gazing upon her face, Junsang says “shall I make snow?” and starts making snow with fallen leaves. Then he asks her, “What are you going to do when the first snow falls?” He says, “I am going to meet someone by the lake” (second episode, 43 min., 30 sec). The scene is changing and the first snows are falling. As expected by the audiences as well, Yoojin is now at the lakeside where her love with Junsang started, as if she was expecting him.

Both Yoojin and Junsang are smiling at each other when they find each other on the redwood-lined road, their first dating place. Then, they start playing with snow and making snowmen. Figure 4 shows a short dialogue extracted from the scene in which they sit on the bench with the snowman as an alter ego of Junsang and the snowwoman as one of Yoojin.

Figure 4. Dialogue extracted from the scene of the kissing snowmen, from Winter Sonata.

The close-up shot is a still image that displays a large scale of a snowman and snowwoman, suggesting how symbolically important these materials are as a sign of their love (Figure 5). Also, the characters' views toward the snowmen can be read as an anthropomorphisation of the camera (interview with the director of Winter Sonata, 2006). During this particular scene the lovers promised to meet again on 31 December, but it was the first and last snow of winter and they did not meet again until their reunion ten years later, after his apparent death in the car accident that same day.

Figure 5. The kissing snowman and snowwoman with the characters in the TV series Winter Sonata (still).

The Snowmen Kiss Scene Re-enacted by a Screen Tourist

The bench and snowmen scene has contextualised symbolic meanings that are transformed, and is a popular screen tourist site in Nami Island. Interestingly, regardless of tourist demand or the destination's supply, the bench and artificial snowmen are ready for visitors to re-enact the scene as shown in Figure 6. The tourist in this figure is a Philippine screen tourist who visited Nami Island in October 2006, and the photograph was taken by one of his friends during this visit. As Chaney suggests, “we (tourists) are above all else performers in our own dramas on stages the industry has provided” (1993, p. 64), the Philippine tourist was sitting on the bench facing the camera, putting his hands on one of the snowmen with a relaxed and large smile, as Junsang did in the series Winter Sonata.

Figure 6. A screen tourist re-enacting the snowmen scene.

However, the snow and the snowmen look so artificial that this photograph does not manage to create a similar atmosphere or feeling to that created in the original scene of Winter Sonata as demonstrated in Figure 5. Even worse, it is pathetic to observe that the tourist is alone without his loved one, in such a shrine for lovers. But, this kind of imperfect re-enactment is also equally meaningful, as it provides him with a memorable touristic experience. Indeed, his re-enacting is still translated into more playful, sensuous and even serious ways of being there, which connotes polysensual and authentic screen tourist experiences in the screen tourism location. In this way, the bench and snowmen are actively used as a performance stage upon which tourists' own narratives and discourses are played out and re-interpreted through the re-enactment and photography, against the backdrop in terms of the events in the series. In this regard, Milligan (1998) suggests two interdependent components for understanding this kind of feeling and meaning people have for places: the interactional past and the interactional potential of the place. Interactional past refers to past experiences or memories associated with the place; while interactional potential is defined as the imagined or anticipated future experiences or expectations associated with the place (Milligan, 1998).

Observation

The author's observation at the site on Nami Island also confirmed that some visitors performed in similar ways as portrayed in Figure 3 and Figure 6. The visitors the author encountered on Nami Island usually asked other visitors to take photographs for them and explained a particular angle and shot in which they wanted to be framed. More interestingly, they were able to set up a more picturesque scene with the co-operation of other visitors, who stopped passing through that particular location, as if the tourists in the photograph became the actual main characters in the series. According to Aden et al. (1995), a similar scene was found in the former film site of the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. They observed that screen tourists in that particular location, “simultaneously produce and perform their own individualised text and interpretive community within which individuals can feel unique yet part of a larger congregation” (Aden et al., 1995, p. 377). Likewise, to some extent the screen tourists on Nami Island may have similar expectations and want to have similar but self-reflexive experiences, by doing similar performances. Because of that, the other screen tourists at the location seemed to be supportive of each other to enable other screen tourists to get a better re-enactment and photograph, for what would be an event that happened once in a life time, unless they revisited.

Discussion

The dominance of visual culture and the emergence of screen tourism, televisual or cinematic narratives and mediated physical locations with embedded signs, images and symbolic meanings, shape motifs and reasons behind screen tourist experiences at their preferred screen tourism locations. When tourists visit a destination, in the context of general tourism, they are usually informed by pre-existing discursive, practical and embodied norms which help to guide their performative orientations and to achieve a working consensus about what to do/perform (Edensor, 2001). In a similar manner, the findings from this Korean case study suggest that previous viewing experiences of a television series and visualised signifiers associated with characters, celebrities, storylines, narratives, music and visual enhancement, indeed provide them a means of preparation, aid, documentation and vicarious participation when visiting screen tourism locations.

As demonstrated in Figure 3 and Figure 6, some serious screen tourists consciously plunge themselves in/between representation and reality, and form unique memories of a specific time and space. Through this process, the anticipated excitement of their performances at the screen tourism locations, provide authentic ways in which the screen tourists can create reflexive and authentic touristic experiences associated with the filming locations. Such tourist performances confirm the findings of Carl et al. (2007), that screen tourists visiting Hobbiton/Matamata and Wellington, two locations of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in New Zealand, were willing to re-enact actions or scenes from the film in order to feel or experience the filming locations from the perspectives of the film's characters. At this stage there is not enough evidence to understand the detailed motivations of the screen tourist re-enactment. However, the screen tourists appear to attach an emotional bond or link between themselves and screen tourism locations and to recall what they were touched by during the previous viewing experiences and its meanings. They do this by expressing a desire for feeling the same sense and emotion at the actual filming locations.

Furthermore, the touristic spaces and screen tourist performances associated with the Winter Sonata series are similar to those at the site of Romeo and Juliet's balcony, in the Italian city of Verona. The place is a shrine to passionate love in the minds of many young and old tourists. The site as a metaphor of an embodiment of Italian courtship and passion is informed by explicit tourism promotion. The tourist performances on-site include locating the balcony, simply gazing at it, to photographing and contemplating the setting. A few tourists participate in elaborate displays of romantic affection and affectation (Pearce, 2005). Therefore, the above findings suggest that the re-enactment is considered as an important part of the overall experience of screen tourists in former film locations.

Although the presented findings in this paper are representative of a small group of screen tourists visiting screen tourism locations of Winter Sonata in Nami Island, it is not unreasonable to suggest that re-enactment or similar performances by screen tourists and its role in understanding screen tourist experiences could be generalised in various genres, various screen tourism locations and different icons. With its own limitations, this article, however, has identified a number of aspects for further research in this relatively new touristic phenomenon, that were beyond the scope of this study to explore these aspects in any depth.

First, this study has been exploratory in nature in order to provide insights into a better understanding of screen tourist performances as a metaphor of their experiences by analysing tourist photographs and stills images of a television series. Given there is a dearth of research on the general connections between tourist experiences and photographs, sustained research on the use of visual images as a means of collecting information about tourists' lived experiences in general, and about screen tourist experiences in particular would be beneficial. Second, the interpretations of tourist photographs in this paper are still marginalised, because the analyses were conducted solely in the context of the television series' narrative and representation. As tourist photographs convey inherently personal stories and the distant analytical gaze has little access to their inner emotional universe (Haldrup and Larsen, 2003), understanding the complex and subjective screen tourist experience would be incomplete without having the screen tourists' own explanations or voices, for their own experiences, associated with re-enactment and photography at the screen tourism locations. This paper should stimulate further research into both production (filmic contexts) and consumption (screen tourists' own contexts) of screen tourists' experiences behind their performances.

Third, to some extent screen tourism locations and their associated tourist experiences contribute to transnational and international circulation of films and television series for the consumption of international audiences. In this regard, further research on the role of circulation and flow of films and television series, in creating new touristic spaces and experiences, would provide insights and a richer understanding of the potential values and the costs of a film or television series, to the proposed location. Last, but not least, the concept of place attachment and its role in understanding screen tourist experiences and their embedded meanings, have been highlighted in this paper. However, there is a need for more research into the psychological aspects of screen tourism, in particular the relationships between place attachment, the decision making process, the destination choice, and tourists' experiences.

Conclusion

Previous viewing experiences of a television series not only create personalised memories and attachment with its filming locations, but also create new touristic spaces and inspire the visitors to enhance their touristic experiences in the form of re-enacting scenes from the series and photographing their re-enactment. In the case study, these performances were of paramount importance for memorial and authentic experiences at the screen tourism destinations. Some screen tourists tended to anticipate such experience-orientated holidays with an emphasis on action, fantasy, nostalgia, memory and emotion. Simply marketing former filming locations as screen tourism destinations therefore will not work effectively to attract and satisfy screen tourists. For a successful screen tourism destination, it would appear to be crucial to have the destination's provision and supply of such experiences. Turning film locations into successful screen tourism destinations has the potential to contribute to proactive research on understanding symbolically meaningful icons and attractions in the context of film or television series, as well as on investigating actual screen tourist experiences through analysing their performances. This can only be achieved through a strong collaboration and mutual understanding between screen product companies and destination marketing organisations from planning to marketing.

Some recommendations for potential screen tourism destination planning and development are put forward here. There is a need to provide stages (for example, such as the bench and snowmen in Nami Island for the Winter Sonata location), at which screen tourists could perform their re-enactment of the particular scenes by which they were deeply touched. Offering a costume hire service for the characters' costumes and theatrical productions would be welcomed by more serious screen tourists who may want to perform more accurately and seriously. Staging events, such as a contest for re-enacting scenes or imitating gestures or lyrics of the characters, could also be an option. Furthermore, the screen tourists visiting Nami Island expressed a strong “sense of place” with the particular screen tourism locations where several symbolic meanings were multi-layered in the context of the series' narrative. In this regard, tourists will be more likely to purchase miniature of symbolic icons such as the bench and snowmen, as a nexus between their touristic experiences at the screen tourism locations and their viewing experiences on the screen. These destination planning and development efforts would not only provide value-added experiences to the screen tourists, but could also lead to high levels of satisfaction associated with their experiences of screen tourism destinations.

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.

Notes