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Naturalizing bodies and places: Tourism Media Campaigns and Heterosexualities in Costa Rica and New Zealand

Abstract
Drawing on feminist, queer and poststructuralist theories of sexuality this article contributes to the field of tourism branding. Research findings on tourism media campaigns-New Zealand’s ‘100% Pure campaign’, and Costa Rica’s ‘No Artificial Ingredients’—illustrate how places and bodies are co-constructed and heterosexualized. We argue that both campaigns employ familiar landscape tropes of ‘nature’, ‘pureness’, ‘wilderness’, and ‘escape’, which discursively construct places and bodies as ‘natural’, ‘exotic’, and ‘romantic’. We draw on ethnographic and interview data to consider the lived experiences of these discourses for tourists and tourism businesses. By paying attention to the sexualized representations made and remade through tourism media campaigns the article challenges hegemonic conceptualizations of sexualities and offers an exciting future research agenda for tourism studies.
Type
Journal Article
Type of thesis
Series
Citation
Frohlick, S. & Johnston, L. (2011). Naturalizing bodies and places: Tourism Media Campaigns and Heterosexualities in Costa Rica and New Zealand. Annals of Tourism Research, 38(3), 1090-1109.
Date
2011
Publisher
Elsevier
Degree
Supervisors
Rights
Publisher version