by Velvet Nelson Nelson, V., 2005: Representation and images of people, place, and nature in Grenada's tourism. Geogr. Ann., 87 B (2): 131-143.ABSTRACT. The purpose of this paper is to examine the visual images occurring in Grenada's place promotion materials. Tourism has become Grenada's principal source of foreign exchange and employment generation. With the increasing popularity of eco-and nature-tourism, the island has looked to this form of specialty tourism as a way to diversify its tourism product. Tourism is a uniquely visual industry; thus semiotics, the study of signs, was chosen for this study because of its ability to analyze the representations a tourist would encounter prior to reaching a destination or prior to participating in activities at the destination that would influence his or her expectations. Emphasis was placed on the images found in promotional materials and advertisements of Grenada to determine the mythology and ideology behind them. These images fell broadly into one of three categories: people, place or nature. Each category was represented as an 'other' that may be discussed in terms of dualities such as natural-artificial, exotic-familiar, and active-passive. The study concludes that images take on the myth of something different breaking the routine of the tourist's ordinary, daily life.

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In the highly competitive global tourism industry, place branding has become a widely used tool in the promotion of tourism destinations. The creation and communication of a unique, positive, and recognizable identity is considered key for destinations to remain competitive and vital for relatively unknown destinations to raise awareness among international audiences. However, the brand-building process has become more challenging than ever, as destinations around the world seek to promote themselves in much the same way. Consequently, destinations have begun to move away from traditional marketing strategies towards experiential marketing that seeks to engage potential tourists by not only communicating the characteristics of the place but also appealing to their senses and emotions. The Internet has become the key medium for the communication of destination brands, typically through national tourism websites. However, in the modern information search process, tourists have a multitude of resources available to them that do not always correspond with the internally created brand identity. This article considers the case of Slovenia. Tourism stakeholders have engaged in the process of building and communicating a rich and coherent experiential brand. Yet, Slovenia as a tourism destination is subject to the representations of external sources that have not adopted or successfully incorporated the essence of Brand Slovenia. In this article, tourism information websites are examined through the use of content analysis to investigate the differences in representations of the destination between the internally and externally produced sources.

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Place reputation refers to the composite of ideas held by external audiences that play an important role in the development and success of that place. A negative place reputation can be very slow and difficult to change, but place reputation management seeks to adjust it so that it is closer to how stakeholders would like the place to be perceived. Research suggests that this should reflect the quality of place (i.e. what is there, who is there, and what is going on there) that defines it and makes it attractive to both residents and tourists. This research examines a place reputation management strategy employed by the Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau (HCVB) in which the organization's website features media articles as an 'objective' depiction of the city. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 66 media articles, including 425 photographs, revealed an emphasis on Houston's culinary culture. In particular, the manifest content shows that independent local restaurants driven by innovative chefs inspired by various influences are creating a vibrant culinary culture. The latent content shows that an understanding of this culinary culture can offer greater insight into the city, beyond the stereotypes, that allows one to better appreciate the quality of place that makes it a creative destination.