Gender Images in State Tourism Brochures: An Overlooked Area in Socially Responsible Tourism Marketing

Abstract

Abstract:The purpose of this article is to examine photographs (pictorial displays) presented in state tourism promotional materials for gender depictions within Goffman"s framework. Specifically, the study investigated latent (i.e., facial expressions, gestures) and manifested (i.e., roles, activities) characteristics delineating relationships between men and women and the roles and meanings associated with these depictions. The results suggest that women are depicted in "traditional stereotypical" poses (i.e., subordinate, submissive, dependent) disproportionately more often than men. These findings suggest that tourism advertisers and destination promoters need to be aware of both the subtle and more blatant visual cues that depict the relationship between men and women in tourism advertisements. Article:Aware of the economic contribution of tourism to local economies, destinations around the globe spend billions of dollars on tourism advertising to capture larger shares of the tourism market in an effort to fulfill their tourism potential. In the United States alone, according to a recent report, state tourism offices allocated $478.7 million for promotion in 1997-98; total advertising for U.S. travel and tourism in 1996 was nearly $1.03 billion (U.S. Travel Data Center 1998). Because public monies are spent in search of new tourist dollars, legislators and taxpayers are increasingly holding state tourism divisions accountable (Perdue and Gustke 1992;Schoenbachler et al. 1995). Accountability research has traditionally consisted of conversion studies that deal with the proportion of a dollar converted to tourism purchases as a result of exposure to a specific advertising message. While some advertising agencies might have conducted proprietary research on the topic, little scholarly work has been published that discusses the appropriate format, content, and design needed to increase the effectiveness of promotional messages (Gilbert and Houghton 1991). Published tourism research too often has concentrated on traditional concepts such as the meaning and impact of a tourism setting (sun, sea, sex, and sand) on perceived vacation experiences (e.g., Olsen, McAlexander, and Roberts 1986;Uzzell 1984). The portrayal of tourists in tourism settings and the extent to which tourists are influenced by images of people have not been studied. Research in this area might help destination promoters and tourism offices to theme their promotional messages more effectively toward the intended target market and thereby increase dollar conversions. Because visual advertising (e.g., television and photographs) plays an indispensable role in promotional campaigns, among other types of advertising strategies (Schmitt 1994), the focus of this study is on visual travel promotional literature.Women"s role and status in both the family and society have evolved dramatically in the United States since the 1940s. Women have entered the labor force in substantial numbers and assumed a variety of professional and managerial positions that ...

Gender Stereotypes Depicted by Western and Korean Advertising Models in Korean Adolescent Girls’ Magazines

“…Since the 1990s, several scholars have examined subtle cues of stereotypical gender portrayals using Goffman's typology (Belknap and Leonard 1991;Browne 1998;Hovland et al 2005;Kang 1997;Klassen et al 1993;McLaughlin and Goulet 1999;Sirakaya and Sonmez 2000). The advantage of using Goffman's framework over other frameworks which focus on explicit gender stereotypes is that it is better equipped to identify subtle, often unnoticeable, beliefs about stereotypical gender roles in society.…”

Gendered Constructions of Romania’s Tourist Destination Image

“…The women analysed in this study touch: domestic objects traditionally associated with feminine The social rank of gender indicates the relationship between men and women through their social and occupational roles. In tourism brochures men usually have the executive (instructing) role, associated with action, power and ownership, whilst women are mostly passive participants (watching, observing or just being there (Sirakaya & Sonmez, 2000), associated with availability and being owned (Selwyn, 1992;Antomarchi & de la Barre, 2010;Kinnaird & Hall, 1994, Swain, 1995. As mentioned above, Romanian women in the TV commercials are most often represented as hosts (either as tourism industry employees or local people), available to service and entertain the generally male tourist.…”

“…Afterwards, researches mainly focused on topics such as tourism labour force or sex tourism (Swain, 1995), and less on gendered tourist experiences and marketing (Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a;Sirakaya & Sonmez, 2000;Alessio & Jóhannsdóttir, 2011). Or, it is known that tourism is a product of gendered societies (Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a) and images projected through tourism advertising reflect real relationships between genders, races, countries and cultures (Morgan & Pritchard, 1998).…”

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“…Other researchers have investigated the effects of characteristics such as age, (Luoh & Tsaur, 2014), culture (Laxson, 1991), and gender (Sirakaya & Sonmez, 2000) in stereotypes. Yet, despite what Bender, Gidlow, and Fisher (2013) have described as the widespread acknowledgement of stereotypes in tourism studies, limited research has provided an in-depth understanding of the origins of stereotyping.…”