Consuming national themed environments abroad

Abstract

This article examines Australian working holidaymaker patronage of ‘Aussie’ theme pubs in London to explore meanings of the national themed environment. From semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork at three venues, it is argued that themed space can be interacted with in highly reflective ways while working to facilitate the reimagining of national identity. This finding challenges post-modern, critical and Weberian perspectives that argue the ersatz nature of themed space overwhelms actors’ ability to think critically while severing traditional connections with historical time. Attention is drawn to the polysemic dimensions of themed representations and the new ways that actors can engage with the nation in a globalizing world.

Mobilising identity and culture in experience co-creation and venue operation

“…Greiner, 2001), and, through a process of commercialisation, become entangled with other constructed identities, for example subsuming notions of New Zealand and South African identity into antipodean-ness (Crawford, 2009). These quasified notions of identity are subsequently mobilised within the experiential propositions of hospitality venues (Robinson, 2011;West, 2006). Robinson (2011), adopting a cultural studies rather than management perspective, discusses a chain of Australian themed restaurants in the US (the Outback Steakhouse) and considers how Australian identity and culture is constructed in the organisation's commercial proposition.…”

Re-enchanting Nationalisms

“…In other words, an initial consumerist level of interaction with the nation can result in it taking on deeper cultural significance for participants and through the establishment of a ritual tradition the propagation of these meanings. This can occur as popular cultural projections of the nation like other symbolic communication are polysemic, able to have multiple meanings simultaneously (West 2006). As they exist independent of the state they also provide a more culturally open environment for the nation to be reimagined.…”

Tourism and Hospitality

“…Of course, studies of "alcotourism" reveal more than the vital urban social lives that Montgomery highlights; they reveal a complicated set of practices and imaginings, whereby "local" drinking cultures are selectively appropriated, selectively transformed, and selectively ignored by tourists, while at the same time tourists' drinking tastes and habits remake "local" alco-cultures (Moore, 1995). For some travelers, drink is a taste of homeaway-from-home (West, 2006), while for others, drinking "local" drinks is a way of experiencing the exotic. Some cities have traded on their local drinking cultures as symbols of the broader hospitality on offer to tourists-as in the growing phenomenon of "hen and stag party" tourism from the UK to cities of Eastern Europe such as Tallin, Prague, and Budapest (Bell, 2008).…”