ABSTRACT
Academic interest in the marketing of places can be traced back to two key themes arising in the literature from the 1960s: the place as a geographical locus of production that can exert influence on consumers to purchase goods and services with which the place is associated; and the place as a destination where ‘the product is substantially a location and the geographical locus is what is being sold’ (Kavaratzis and Ashworth 2008: 153). More recently, it has become increasingly of interest for place marketers to also consider the authenticity of the cultural tourism ‘product’. Another focus of recent interest within the extant place marketing and place branding literature is whether it is more appropriate to consider marketable places that transform through the act of experiential consumption, or as entities that confer identity. The latter is especially evident at the national level where it is often ‘the utilisation, or creation, of a cultural heritage to create a place brand [that] … provides the link between the cultural and political aspects of national identity’ (Croft et al. 2008: 301–2). Thus it is not only the natural and physical environments that contribute to the essence of the place brand, but also the politics, history and culture of a place, along with the ‘sensory and symbolic elements that may encompass staged spectacles, and which may or may not be based on authenticity’ (Skinner 2011: 289). This chapter therefore explores the link between the issues of authenticity, identity and experiential consumption as they relate to cultural tourism.
