 China's Chairman Mao: A visual analysis of Hunan Province online destination imageWilliam Cannon Hunter Tourism Management, 2013, vol. 34, issue C, 101-111 Abstract: Chairman Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, is the main attraction in Shaoshan Village, Hunan. The Great Helmsman was born here and his likeness lives on after him in the form of statues, portraits, and souvenirs. His legacy is commemorated at his childhood home and family shrine – filled with markers, displays and artifacts. This paper describes how these representations of Mao work as a key element of the Hunan (湖南) Province online tourism destination image. The study was based on a compound content analysis-semiotic analysis method and a purposive sample of 995 photographs gathered from 257 websites. It was found that Mao-related photographic representations found online make up an interconnected and internally self-referential destination image of Hunan. The image combines intrinsic cultural value with commercial use value in ways that complement China's Green and Red Tourism policy. The control of this complex image is not, however, entirely in the hands of tourism marketers. Keywords: China; Content analysis; Destination image; Hunan; Mao Zedong; Interpretive semiotics; Representations (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:34:y:2013:i:c:p:101-111 DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2012.03.017 Access Statistics for this article Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.