Authenticity in reconstructions of the past is essential to heritage management, and new technologies have made this a highly pertinent dilemma. Demands for new interpretation offers and experiences raise questions of the extent to which such demands can or should be met. New technologies have already made their way into the heritage industry as a means of innovation for interpretation offers, among these is augmented reality. New technologies have made a limited break-through arguably rooted in conservatism among heritage managers. This raises a question of managers' understandings and perceptions of authenticity and effects on heritage and new technologies. Based on an exploratory case, Lindholm Høje Viking burial and museum in Denmark, this paper proposes that different conceptions of authenticity can co-exist within the tourist setting, whereby new technologies can be implemented to strengthen heritage sites as tourism attractions while still paying attention to authenticity and ongoing authentication processes. Abstract, conceptual discussions of authenticity often stress the extremes, but it is here argued that a combination can exist in practice. The paper also suggests that understanding levels and patterns of authenticity among various groups of actors is central to discussions of authenticity and its role in tourism settings.
Marketers increasingly try to make marketing messages reach and 'infect' social media users, who subsequently share the message with yet other users, thereby 'infecting' additional users and spreading the message like a virus -processes often defined as viral marketing. However, what exactly happens to marketing messages when they 'go viral' has not received much attention, and the intention of this article is to take a closer look at what happens to marketing messages when social media users comment on and co-create these messages. Drawing on one particular case, that is, the 'do it for Denmark' commercial, the article suggests that what happens is not simply that marketers' original message spreads like a virus. Instead, a diverse set of discourses are constructed and shared as the marketing message goes viral. The contention of this article is that 'uncontrollability' of viral processes creates unforeseeable associations and meanings that may have little to do with the original message and meanings -in the present case changing meanings from 'do it for Denmark' to 'do it to Denmark'. Therefore, tourism marketers need to better understand the complexity of viral processes and how co-creation of viral messages may fundamentally transform and transcend the original message.
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