ABSTRACT
In the literature of analysing tourism places, the term ‘environment’ and associated words such as ‘ecotourism’ are popular whilst landscape is not. Why does this chapter refer to landscape rather than the more fashionable environment? Landscape is a term which acknowledges the key roles of sociocultural dimensions and imagery in tourism. This is particularly the case when we take an historical view of the ‘discovery’ of the Pacific and of the ways in which interpretations of landscape have been propagated. It is particularly important that these sociocultural dimensions be acknowledged. One of the contentions of the present thesis is that concepts of how environment relates to tourism have been too divorced from the human dimension and have attempted to hide behind a sometimes quasi-scientific veil. This chapter takes a particular interest in the way resorts ‘package’ the landscape and bring about a particular and institutionalised ‘way of seeing’. Such concepts draw together imagery, social dimensions and landscape. The act of consumption en masse becomes ‘place creating’ and makes the landscape and social dimensions inseparable.]
This chapter explores landscape from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing upon art history, sociology, anthropology, architecture and aesthetics, as well as from geography and environmental science. An attempt is made to show how the landscape of tourism is currently depicted and what opportunities exist for resorts to depict landscape in an appropriate and sustainable fashion that also has market appeal. The chapter examines the physical dimensions of the resorts themselves and of their surroundings.
