ENGLISH TOURISM DISCOURSE SUMMARY + LECTURES

1. THE ROLE OF DISCOURSE IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY

1.1 Introduction
Tourism plays an important role in the European economy. Because it includes a variety of products,
destinations and stakeholders, it is a powerful socio-economical phenomenon and has produced financial and
other benefits. (UNWTO: tourism is a socio-economic phenomenon, whose expansion has contributed
towards its development into one of the fastest increasing economic sector in the world). In this context,
discourse is a fundamental element which implies the study of both the discourse itself and the social context
in which it takes place. However, the spread of tourism in so many different domains has been responsible for
the lack of attention to the language of tourism, often only analysed from the promotional viewpoint. The
tourism industry transformation led to a focus on customers’ behaviour and decision- making process. They
are no more considered as passive but rather as experienced, educated, destination-oriented, independent and
more ecologically-aware clients. The Internet plays now a central role as dynamic source of information for
them. In order to be sold on different markets and to different customers, tourism products have to be presented
in adequate and convincing linguistic ways. The language of tourism has indeed some precise features which
identify it as different from general discourse.
It is highly persuasive language, since its ultimate purpose is to sell a product by describing a reality which has
to be perceived by the potential buyer as an authentic experience he makes of the holiday before actually living
it (note that tourist experiences are bought without the possibility to see and try them before and you cannot
give it back if you don’t like it, as happens with other products). In the texts created for the tourism industry
verbal and iconic elements are interconnected - the potentialities of these multimodal relationships are evident
in tourist guides and brochures but increase on the net. Hypertexts indeed are designed to attract attention and
there are made of internal and external weblinks, reflecting a communicative choice of the webdesigers.
1.2 Definition of the genre
The marketing language of tourism promotion of a product to be acquired by potential clients have made the
identification of tourism discourse as a specialized discourse, since it complies with norms that govern the
realization of specialized text genres. For this reason, an in-depth investigation of these textual genres has
been carried out in recent years by discourse analysis <the study of language use beyond the sentence
boundaries>. Specialized discourse implies the realization of specialized text genres, with specific linguistic
choices. Information structures and syntactic/lexical choices have no longer only a stylistic function but they
also contribute to effective communication.
A genre is a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes.
Nevertheless, the traditional definition of speech community does not coincide with the concept of discourse
community:
- Speech community: sociolinguistic grouping, whose member have a common knowledge to reach the
communicative needs of the group.
- Discourse community: people whose objective are prior to socialization and solidarity, even if those
should occur later.
This means that genres are used for socio-rhetorical grouping to reach goals beyond individual need and
membership is obtained with persuasion, training and qualifications.
Genres constantly evolve and may also blend together. Cross-cultural factors should also be taken into
consideration. When dealing with new/unfamiliar genres, a 7-step model may be followed:
1. Placing the genre in a situational context.
2. Surveying existing literature.
3. Refining the situational/context analysis. Addresser and addressee, relationship, goals, socio-historical
placement, network.
4. Selecting a corpus.
5. Studying the institutional context. Rules and conventions.

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 6. Carrying out the analysis at different levels. Lexico-grammar features (linguistic features), text
patterning (value of specific linguistic features) or structural interpretation (to accomplish the
communicative purposes).
7. Obtaining specialist information. Experts catch things that you don’t perceive.
Genres are composed of a series of communicative events, realized in moves (a rhetorical unit established by
a mixed bag of criteria that performs a coherent communicative function in written or spoken discourse. They
are meaningful communicative units reflecting the specific cognitive structure/function of a genre) and steps (a
lower unit that a move, representing non-discriminating strategies used to realize a particular communicative
purpose at the move level). Genre integrity can be defined both by text-internal features (contextual, textual
and intertextual) and text-external features (discursive practise, discursive procedures, disciplinary culture).
Genres are inherently dynamic rhetorical structures, so that they often interact with other genres. This causes
an interdiscursivity = invasion of the integrity of one genre by another genre or genre convention, often
leading to the creation of a hybrid form. For this reason, we can try to categorize texts, but we have to take
into account that tourist text types are hybrid genres that share various linguistic and discursive strategies
belonging to other genres.
Furthermore, tourism develops on different levels: tour operators, transportation, ecotourism, event
management, law field, digital communication. Each of them needs a specific language and we need to
understand them all to deal with tourism.
Dann classifies tourist text types according to the Nigro on the other hand, identified 5 typologies:
communication medium they use and to their stage
within the tourist cycle:
Pre-trip: adverts, leaflets, brochures Leaflets
On-trip: travel guides, travelogues Brochures
Post-trip: trip reports, reviews Tourist posters
Travelogues
Travel guides

The most typical genres characterizing tourism can be classified in two groups, according to their pragmatic
function:
1. Professional communication, which are used between, agencies and customers, agencies and agencies,
agencies and hotels, tour operators, airlines, institutions such as the Europe Union, the United Nation World
Tourism Organization, the British Travel Authority and agencies or tour operator associations such as the
Italian Federazione Italiana Associazione Imprese Viaggio e Turismo. It comprises contracts, norms and
conventions, legislations, marketing and tourism planning and governance. It is more impersonal.
2. Promotional communication, which are aimed at potential travellers and visitors – it is persuasive:
a. Tourism advertising, which usually advertises a location and provides useful information
b. Brochures and leaflets, whose main purpose is that of selling tourist products and are highly persuasive
c. Itineraries, contained in leaflets and produced by travel agents, containing descriptive information about
places and activities to do
d. Articles in specialized magazines, which convey information on locations but at the same time provide
details of various offers for the same destinations, comparing prices, services and their quality
e. Tourist guides, which contain description of places from artistic, historic point of views and give practical
information as monuments opening
f. In-flight magazines, are provided free on planes and offer products that appear less expensive. They
convey the idea of being global and open-minded tourist
1.3 Tourism as specialised discourse
Tourism language, as all specialized discourse, has a multidimensional feature, that can be seen in the
interaction between specialists, from the specific expressions and codified textual genres adopted and in the
interaction between specialists and non-specialists, from the vocabulary items related to the topic dealt.

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The multidimensional of tourism discourse are visible both from a horizontal dimension (domains, fields,
subdomains) and vertical dimension (sociological levels). Linguistically, tourism can be seen as macro-
specialized discourse which groups together (micro)-specialized languages of the different disciplinary
domains and sub-domains it deals with.
The language of tourism as LSP (language for specialized purposes) cannot be described as special language
because it differs from general language for its exploitation of certain linguistic rules rather than for the use of
linguistic conventions absent from general language. We can define it as a form of specialized discourse (=
specialised purpose), because it shares with general discourse most phonetic, lexical, morpho-syntactic and
textual resources, by means of which the communicative functions are realised – certain rules are used more
frequently. It is not a micro-language, as it does not lack of expressive richness.
Definition of specialized discourse in tourism. A discourse which maintains the intrinsic communicative
purposes of general language, but which mixtures specific lexical, syntactic and semantic features that are
present in a different quantity with respect to general language. Specialisation derives from lexical, syntactic
and semantic elements.
Lexical features of specialized discourse
 Monoreferentiality = the most distinctive feature which consists in a word that in a given context has
only one meaning, guarantying conciseness and reduce ambiguity, Ex. The word carrier, in tourism
is almost applied to a plane representing a category of transportation.
 Lack of emotion = because they are monoreferential, these words have only a denotative function
and lack of any kind of emotional and connotative meaning (if the text is mainly informative).  connotative
= metaphorical meaning and feeling.
 Precision requires transparency = the surface form, be it a word or an affix, immediately identifies a
concept, avoiding ambiguity and polysemy. Ex. The word biometric, having the bio affix, we immediately
connect it with something organic.
 Conciseness = the expression of terms in the shortest possible form, based on the principle of minimax
(minimal efforts of the addressee to reach maximal specificity). It is assured by acronyms (LOS = length
of stay), abbreviations, eponyms (naming places after people = JFK airport), zero derivation (use a verb
as a noun and vice versa = check in noun derived from the verb), blending (campsite), juxtaposition (omit
prepositions = fly-cruise package), specialisation of general words (bed-place).
SEE PDF “Testi da analizzare - lexical features”
Semantic features of specialized discourse
There is a semantic evolution which derives from the specialization of word-meanings originally belonging to
general language; in other cases, specialization has been possible because of the creation of new lexemes
alongside existing ones, which are not appropriate for the field in question (ex. E-commerce and commerce).
Metaphorization is the most widely-exploited strategies used to say concisely what could need a longer
description. It requires a source domain (subject from which the attributes are derived), a target domain (target
to which attributes are ascribed), a common ground and a general domain (the semantic field which connects)
You are a rose Metaphor
You Target
Are
A rose Source
Delicacy,, love, flower Domain – as readers we are not sure about the parts
of domain that the author selects, we must deduce it
from the context
Metaphors can use Catachresis = the use of a word with some new meaning in order to fill a gap in
existing vocabulary. The advantages to use it are terminological transparency, conciseness and
depiction, but also persuasion. Metaphors are also used for catachresis to be more transparent, concise,

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clearer and to exploit images of real word to represent complex concept. Ex. “A twin room” (a bedroom
with two identical separate single beds). This type of language can lead to ambiguity and needs a
process of de-codification. Shortened similes are also used: when two terms have similar semantic
values linked by an equivalence. Ex. “Ecotourism is a sustainable form of […] tourism”. This technique
is useful for adding connotative sense but at the same time creating a connection between the tenor (the
concept meant) and the vehicle (the image that carries the weight of the comparison); it is created
through the elimination of like or as. A third option is Elliptic similes = when specialized discourse
undergoes a process of popularization. Ex. “Sri Lanka is the pearl of the Orient”.
Shortened similies Elliptic similies
The source domain gives a definition of the The source domain describes the target
target domain domain and is more frequently used in
promotional text to persuasive purposes
Syntactic features of specialized discourse
Specialized discourse uses the same syntactic rules as general language, but the apparent diversity lies in the
frequency of syntactic features used (they are more frequent in SD). The main features are:
• Conciseness = it is achieved through the omission of phrasal elements such as articles, prepositions
or auxiliaries (function words) but also content words if their omission does not cause ambiguity. This
feature favours depersonalization. Ex. Valid 2 months = it is valid for 2 months.
• Expressive conciseness = relative and subordinate clauses are avoided in order to make the sentence
structure lighter, favouring dense, long nominal groups and coordination. It can be achieved by:
o Substituting them with lexemes with and adjectival role (by means of affixation)
o Omitting the relative pronoun and the auxiliary when the relative clause is in the passive form,
ex. the rules stated
o Exploiting the negative value of the prefix un- added to the past participle of the relative
clause (if it is a negative form), ex. the unknown soldier
o Substituting relative clauses by the present participle of the main verb, ex. clients staying
o Simplification process = Using a noun specified instead of a complex expression, ex. a 5-star hotel
• Premodification = a left-dislocation of terms with an adjectival function which modifies the qualities
or the properties of the head-noun. It can create complex nominal groups whose modifiers are nouns
which have acquired an adjectival role, causing a loss of conceptual clarity or cognitive difficulty. It
makes the expression denser syntactically and dives it greater semantic importance. Ex. check-in
time, or word where the hyphen is dropped such as timetable. Also an entire sentence can be
premodified and become an adjective, as before-the-baby-diet.
• Nominalisation = the process of transformation from one syntactic category to another. The most
common type is the transformation of a verb into a noun and the noun/verb into an adjective, ex. upon
arrival (when you arrive) at the hotel. Its aim is to convey more adjective and precise data, favouring
the organization of textual construction in a theme-rheme pattern (theme = know topic, rheme =
unknown topic which expands the theme) and so facilitating cohesion. Sometimes it also work with a
noun into a verb, ex. When passengers are bussed (=driven by bus). Nevertheless, it is responsible for
lexical density/longer sentences, so that the text is more difficult to understand.
• Special uses of personal pronouns = they acquire a special role in guidebooks and similar genres,
achieving the goal of ego-targeting in which the author establishes a direct relationship with the
reader so that empathy, identification and loyalty are established. = persuasion! The text seems a
dialogue between a we (exclusive we – never inclusive) and you – the tourists.
• Use of superlative forms = the massive presence of superlatives used with positive terms to
transmit both a sense of euphoria and of distinctiveness and authenticity = exclusive quality.
• Verb tenses =
o The present simple is the most used, especially in tourist guides, brochures and itineraries
because it gives the stay in the city a more permanent and lengthy time span.

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 o The imperative is mainly exploited in guides and brochures in order to stimulate tourists to go and
visit (not for orders).
o Modality  expressions which indicate how the world is = necessity, permissibility,
possibility, negation. It can be epistemic (truth) or deontic (evaluation).
Modal verbs are used a lot, especially can, must and will, but neither with epistemic nor deontic
meanings. They represent expression of necessity, permissibility and probability, in order to
express a way of behaving, a mode of action to be undertaken bythe tourist. They help to create
the illusion of a friendly relationship with the writer. Must is not used as an obligation but is
nominalized, ex. Must-see.
o Passive forms are widely used, in order to reach a high level of depersonalization, and to
diminish the importance of the role the agent, giving more emphasis on the object. However,
when the emphasis is not only on the tourist as a person being taken care of but also on the tour
operator who takes care of the tourist, the agent is expressed, to convey the idea that the tourist
will not be left alone. Passive forms may be used to thematise information within the sentence.
Textual features of specialized discourse
Specialized discourse is characterized by feature related to the textual framework, which seems to be more
extensively used than anywhere else. The exception is anaphoric reference, that in specialized texts is usually
replaced by lexical repetition, in order to avoid ambiguity (especially in legal writing). Conjunctions and
connectives clarify the following sentences and illocutionarily orientate the text (they can have positive or
negative semantic polarity). They are responsible for longer paraphrases but at the same time they give the text
more transparency.
The use of deixis is also spread. It is a reference by means of an expression whose interpretation is relative to
extralinguistic context of the utterance. Sometimes they are not explicit in the text:
1. Endophoric deixis = reference to other elements within the text (Mark is here; He is 10 yo).
2. Exophoric deixis = reference to other elements outside the texts (let’s go there.  There where?? Only
the speakers know).
3. Anaphoric deixis = reference to an element appeared before (I love sting’s sogns, His CDs are the
best).
4. Cataphoric deixis = reference to an element which appears after – ambiguous (I love his songs. Sting’s
CDs are the best).
The textual framework of specialized texts depends on the sequence of:
➢ theme = items introducing the topic or theme. A given item of information (sth known to the
addressee) not always coincides with the theme.
➢ rheme = items containing the expansion of what has been presented in the thematic position. Any
new item usually corresponds with the rheme.
The sequence theme-rheme makes the text more cohesive and coherent. To emphasise the sentence,
the structure theme-rheme may be subverted and use rheme before theme. Ex. Set in a beautiful
landscape, Stonehenge is…
2. TOURISM DISCOURSE IN SPECIALIZED GENRES: PLANNING AND
GOVERNANCE
In order to be successful, the tourism industry requires a great planning and many coordination
activities. Tourism planning is the process of identification of the objectives and determination of all the
possible methods through which achieving such objectives. This process involves environmental, social,
economic sectors but also the relationship to the type of business a community or region chooses to
engage in. For this reason, it can be analysed from the discourse perspective: the presentation of tourism
policies and decisions is expressed linguistically through highly significant terms and it implies the use
of words which dehumanize, impersonalize and objectify the subject.
2.1 The Corpus
This analysis is based on a corpus of 68 documents collected from the European Commission,
Enterprise and Industry. Tourism (2009 and March 2010).

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2.2 Generic patterns of tourism planning discourse
What results from the analysis of this corpus is that planning is something carried out by state or
government agencies in networked cooperation with private individuals. In this scenario, planning may
be regarded as a form of conflict and negotiation of interests amongst the institutions and the private
individuals involved, i.e. it is a power game carried out through discourse, by means of thoughts,
intentions, values and actions expressed with language. This language is dehumanized, less emotive and
more direct than in any other activity, mainly because its purpose is not to persuade but rather to offer
information regarding new potential targets, markets and profits. The texts analysed follow a generic
pattern:
1. Move = expression of negative trends related to the socio-eco context
2. Move = indication of awareness about possible changes and explanation of how to benefit from them
3. Move = introduction of the project
4. Move = realization of new policy agenda within already-existing institutional actions aimed at
favouring the ecosystem, energy, industrial system and the sustainable development of cities
5. Move = recommended steps for successful action
Analysing the documents we can notice that there is a wide use of ppt presentations, since it is a multimodal
form of communication that allows the exploitation of both iconic and verbal modes of communications. Ppt
presentations imply a type of language that is informative, characterized by bulled sentences, featured by non-
finite clauses and with frequent exploitation of nominal groups used to describe in an impressing way the
qualities of the projects, and finally defined a block language, meaning a language characterized by keywords
(especially nouns, also some adjectives but no verbs). Cycling, bicycle, cyclists, train, sustainable, eco-tourism
are at the top of the keywords founded, used to emphasis the tourism of eastern Europe. We can analyse 2
interesting words in particular:
➢ stakeholder = according to the OED it is “a person, company with a concern or interest in ensuring
the success of an organization, business, system”, so the context of this word seems to be the
economic or financial one. However, in tourism discourse the word can be related to “all those
people, institutions and organizations who need to be considered in achieving project goals and whose
participation and support are crucial to its success”, so it seems to be concerned with social pro-
action, rather than with financial investment.
➢ Competitiveness = “represents the level of productivity of a continent, in a global market where it is not
the
product which is offered to the customer but where it is the customer who approaches the product”.
The strongest collocates of this word are the adjective European and the genitive Europe’s.
The economic benefit deriving from tourism are easily identifiable and this is why also eastern Europe is starting
to develop his tourism. The central message of tourism planning is:

1. Identification of negative economic trends, conservation and environment protection

2. Hopes for more sustainable
3. Ability of institutions to manage such developments
4. Entrepreneurship behavior in establishing policy agenda
5. Call for action
3. TOURISM DISCOURSE IN SPECIALIZED GENRES: EUROPEAN TOURISM
RECOMMENDATIONS
The European Union has always recognized the important role of tourism in his economy, but until 1990
governments felt their role was unnecessary in the tourism industry, so that many Ministries of Tourism ceased
to exist and DMOs only had a promotional role. When in 21st century Western societies and their economies
emerged, public policies were needed, even because supply exceeded demand and tourists has endless choices
in front of them. In 2006 the EU proposed a renewed European tourism policy in Communication on a renewed
tourism EU policy: toward a stronger partnership for European Tourism. Its aim was:
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  To promote better regulations, both a national and European level
 To minimize the negative impacts of tourism of society and the environment
 To maximize the positive and creative contribution made by tourism to local economies
In 2010 a meeting of Ministers of Tourism was held as a summit for the sector in order to create a competitive,
sustainable, modern and socially responsible tourism sector. The Madrid Declaration was issued, comprising a
series of recommendations concerning the implementation of a consolidated European tourism policy. In this
field, Europe does not issue any real regulation, but rather provides guidelines which each member state
applies according to what legal system the country has adopted. This means that the texts analysed have no real
legal validity, but the recommendations or guidelines are juridical acts, so anyway all the generic conventions
deriving from legal discourse can be adopted to these texts. If two different professional fields blend into one,
the resulting discoursal genres cannot maintain any integrity because one genre is colonized by the other
(interdiscursivity). For this reason, these texts have a language that is inclined towards the acquisition of
aspects whose function is strictly related to normative and authoritative discourse in order to convey a more
ruled context for the tourist community. Its main characteristics are:
 Long sentences and cross references.
 The lack of emotions and conciseness.
 The presence of specialized lexis, archaic terms, Latin expressions, binomials and nominalization that are
extremely precise and transparent, as all reveal one single concept (they must provide clear information).
 To respond to the criteria of monoreferentiality, denotation, precision and transparency. Indeed, there is a
lack of metaphorical or connotative meanings, due to the pragmatic nature of the texts.
The investigation aiming at finding to what extent legal discourse and tourism discourse are interrelated was
based on a number of texts found via the Euro-lex search-engine, the EU website granting access to European
Union Law, using the keywords tourism and tourist and taking into account the results from 1984 to 2011. All
texts were digitalized in order to allow a quantitative computation using Wordsmith tools = an integrated set
of programs used to examine how words behave in texts and WMatrix = a type of automatic tagging software
that assigns part-of-speech and semantic field tags.
The impression is that there is an exploitation of legalese, and also the keyword list created with wordsmith
Tools supports this theory with the presence of terms such as commission, article, directive, annex and
regulation. They appear consistently, but less frequently than other terms more related to the tourist industry.
The strongest keynote term is the lexeme tourism, and an analysis of the collocates and the clusters, revealed
that the term is inserted in expressions related to specific official policies of each member state, apparently
more in line with tourism planning and management than with legal discourse (ex. the tourism sector, the field
of tourism, the tourism industry, the development of tourism, in favour of tourism...). Among the first 20 key
clusters of tourism there are few key technical or legal terms indicating that the topic is being dealt with from
a normative point of view. On the contrary, there are indications concerning tourism as a business or an industry
which is to be developed and administered. The clusters expressing legalese from the syntactical angle are only
those containing epistemic and deontic modal expressions (tourism shall mean, domestic tourism shall, tourism
must be..). The clusters comprising lexical terms dealing with legalese normally refer to already existing
European policies, frameworks and protocols which better define the issue under consideration.
Interdiscursivity is realised perfectly in these documents favouring the concept of the development of the
European tourism industry, through the harmonious planning and adoption of common strategies, and
characterized by legal outdated and crystallized expressions marking the permanent nature of statutory
provisions. Among the terms found in the EU normative guidelines on tourism are:
 Archaic expressions, which convey a sense of stylistic formality and have a pragmatic function, as they
signal the enduring legal validity that the EU recommendation should put forward. The use of these
expressions is based on the need to avoid troublesome changed as far as legal meaning is concerned. Ex.
whereas, thereof, hereinafter, hereby, thereby.
 Latin expressions, which have increased considerably over the years, and have a strong historical
connection with the development of European law. Ex. memorandum, maximum, inter alia, interim.
 Technical legal words, pertaining to the professional culture of the legal system of the EU:
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 -Words associated with legal personnel (with reference to people), ex. pursuant, auditor, s’appliquant
-Words associated with particular areas of law and institutions, ex. audit, directorate, derogation
-Other technicisms, ex. liaison, defray, gaseous.
 Doublets and binomials, which consists of two words belonging to the same lexical class, and of the
same syntactic hierarchy, whose semantic relationship can be synonymous, antonymous or
complementary. These words are used to cover all possible situations and eventualities, which accounts
for redundancy and wordiness. Ex. […] alerting and alarm systems, […] curtains and drapes, […]
components and materials.
Syntactic analysis
 Sentence length = the sentences in the corpus analysed are shorter than the sentences featuring legal
language. With an average of 28.28 words per sentence, these appear as brief, clear and easy to read and
they can be:
o Simple, containing one predicate and are generally easier to understand because of the simplicity of
their syntactic construction. These sentences are the one of the statement of the guidelines, where the
text has a linear structure and the use of the present simple help the comprehension of the norm.
o Complex, consisting of one main clause and one or more subordinates, often left- and right- dislocated.
They are complex to understand and in readability because the subordinates interrupt or even invert
The English structure SVO. The most common are those containing relative clauses (21%) which are
used to unambiguously limit and define facts, people and norms. Usually these definitions or
explanation sections are inserted in the annex, where the aim of the writer is to realise an objective and
impartial provision of the recommendations. These sentences are normally found in paragraphs whose
main relevant legal point are normally numbered, in order to make the EU directives less complicated
for laypersons.
 The use of modality = there is an exploitation of modals verbs, especially the ones of the semantic
domain of “strong obligation or necessity”, i.e. verbs such as should, must, need, have to, but also
adverbs and adjectives such as necessarily, necessary, obligatory, mandatory (all the expression of
juridical obligation) while there is no key semantic domain showing permission.
Modality can be:
o Epistemic, when it expresses the speakers’ judgment of the world. It is normally perceived as
realizing a:
▪ Certainty, which can be paraphrased “since it is evident that, ex. he must be rich
▪ close/remote possibility, which expresses a doubt and ranges between various degrees of
probability, ex.
he is likely to be rich
In the corpus analysed this modality is expressed with the modals can, could, may and might, all
employed to express possibility.
o Deontic, when it expresses the way in which people should behave in the world. It is realized as
the speaker’s responsibility/authority in giving permission, imposing commands, offering
suggestions is identified in terms of:
▪ Obligation, rendered by an expression meaning it is required, ex. he must work tomorrow
▪ Permission, expressed by a verb meaning that sth is allowed, ex. you can go out

This type of modality has a strong incidence in the texts of EU guidelines, since there is consistent
presence of the verb shall, mainly used in its active form. This verb here is a linguistic marker of
a performative juridical obligation with a permanent validity. The other verbs frequently used are
(in order of occurrence): should, must, will, may and can ( the only two occurring in two
different types of modality).
o Dynamic, when it expresses a condition external to the subject’s will and indicates his degree of his:
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 ▪ Ability, ex. I can swim
▪ Willingness, ex. I will give you a lift home
This type of modality is expressed in the corpus only by means of would, in sentences expressing
the idea of non-subjective willingness, i.e. determined by an external factor.
 Impersonal constructions = the first and second person pronouns (I, you) are avoided, since legislators
refer to themselves in the third person singular as the Commission, the Court, the Parliament, or plural
which helps to reinforce the idea of impartiality and authoritativeness.
 Nominal forms = there is a frequent use of the transformation of a verb into a noun. These forms are
responsible for the dense cognitive wording pattern of the texts as complex concepts are often places side
by side in apposition to a copula construction. The most common ones are regulation, report,
development, requirement.
 Passive forms = it is exploited this form with which the object (rheme) occupies the subject position but
still has a rhematic rather thematic function. Passivization, together with nominalization, allows agency
deletion and conveys a more objective text.
 The use of double negatives = double or even triple negative structures make sentences seem more
complex and are responsible for conceptual vagueness, ex. it is not unusual. This crystallized form has the
function of conveying emphasis on the intended negative meaning, together with all-inclusiveness and
authoritativeness.
4. TOURISM PROMOTIONAL DISCOURSE
All specialized texts have a hidden skeleton forming the textual pattern of the document, which affects the
type of conceptual, rhetorical and linguistic aspects of the text itself. = the pragmatic function of the document
determines the choice of the conventional framework characterizing the textual genre. Tourism text types are
hybrid genres which share linguistic and discoursive strategies belonging to other genres. Tourism, in the act
of promotion has a discourse of its own: via static and moving pictures, written texts and audio- visual
offerings, the language of tourism attempts to persuade, seduce and convert people from potential into actual
clients. Four major theoretical approaches can be adopted in order to understand this type of language, that can
be present simultaneously in complex text types:
• The authenticity one, which emerged in 1970-80s and derived from criticisms of the tourist industry,
which considered tourism as being based on escapist fantasy. The language of tourism increases the
impression of authenticity through abundant explicit expressions, describing what is native and
typical of the destination. However, this authenticity is in many aspects fictitious because the
destination has been manipulated and commercialized.
• The strangehood one, which emphasis the search for something different and for new experiences as
being the driving force behind travel. The desire for sth exotic (far from mass tourists) is reflected in the
language, mainly in descriptions of places and people, ex. with qualifying adjectives untouched, remote,
unspoilt, colourful, newly discovered. Here the tourists verbal accounts (which can be read before the
actual experience) are not only a feedback to services provided but also form a discursive background
contributing to arousing potential tourists’ expectations of the location.
• The play one, identified with the concept of recreational tourist, whose main feature is the search for the
out-of- the-ordinary when travelling, with the aim of breaking from the everyday life. This approach
provides tourists with experiences which do not often match up with the cultural and environmental
conditions of the visited destinations, since the visitors generally avoid any contact with the native culture;
what it is important is only the spectacle. People are prepared for what they will see by the media and by
tourism communication channels (ex. Disneyland resorts  immersion in an imaginary world, past time
and places of the world).
• The conflict one, originated in 1978 with the work of Edward Said, who wished to explore how the West
and East met, and believed that the world is divided between the familiar and the strange. Here language
aims to make what is unknown become less fearsome and dangerous, sets it in some form of representation
of great figures of the past and it is full of stereotypes. This language does not describe, it reconstructs,
9
 reassembles and shapes the unknown, placing things in a context of
timelessness. (ex. Jumbo dance – it was a passage-to-adulthood dance
but now it is only performed for tourists).
The different perspectives are based on different theoretical points of
departure but they may converge.
4.1 Corpus collection and methodological approach
Being the theme a very huge one, it was necessary to select some very
specific items; The corpus analysed includes:
• Tourist ad posters  concerning pre-holiday plans
• Catalogues and brochures and itineraries  concerning pre-holiday plans
• In-flight magazines  concerning travel to the holiday destination
• Tourist guides, which surprisingly cannot be found on the web because of copyright and profit-making
reasons, although the web has acquired more and more importance in interactions concerning
activities during the holiday
4.2 Multimodality in promotion tourism genres
The goal of this analysis is to assess how multimodality discourse has been created and to focus on the
linguistic content of the texts from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. Indeed, promotional
genres largely recur to using illustrations in order to better focus on the locations they are describing. The
positions of the illustrations, the texts, the frames in which they are set, their interrelation and interaction,
follow a precise layout, defined as composition. The way in which this composition is realized depends
on the fact that Western cultures follow a Z-reading pattern of perusal: from left to right, from top to
bottom, from centre to margins, line by line. Therefore, elements are positioned to attract readers attention
and direct it to different levels of importance. Various levels are connected though vectors: ideal lines are
created by the shape and the positions of the elements, helping the eye to pass from one element to another,
creating an information system.
1. Information value:
 Ideal: top of the page, how the world should be, what is the best
 Real: bottom of the page, how the world is, more practical and useful information
 Given: on the left, information already known by the reader = theme
 New: in the right = rheme, elaboration of the theme
 Centre: essential nucleus of information
 Margins: less important
2. Information salience: choices of color, size, images, with the aim to attract the reader
3. Information framing: connection of different elements of the layout, ex. Continuity or
discontinuity in color and shape to suggest either differentiation or homogeneity based on the
necessity.
It is more difficult to apply these theories to hypertexts, as links change the way we read/visit an online
page. We already follow the z-pattern but then interactivity is added.
5. TOURISM ADVERTISING TEXTS
Headline
Advertising is a communicative event with special persuasive (sub-headline)
purposes. Ad is successful only if the message is correctly
Visual
encoded by the addresser, and if the address is able to recognise the
addresser’s communicative intention. Because holidays cannot Copy
be inspected for purchase, expectations are constructed on Slogan/slogo
product representation and description which cannot be viewed Trademark
Logo
before the experience. In order to be as appealing as possible,
the tourism industry applies all the iconic and verbal strategies
adopted by marketing criteria. The main requisite is immediate comprehension. Ad texts usually follow the
layout in the figure, whose design helps to reach out the readers, attract their attention and hold it long enough

10
to communicate its appeal and link it to the name of the destination area or country (= brand name of tourism),
so as to lodge in the reader’s memory and finally to prompt some kind of action. Ad tourism texts normally
consist of a large picture and an illustration making a visual statement, made of:
 The slogan = a phrase designated to be memorable
 A headline = large-print words at the top of the page that immediately attract tourists and encourage
them to look more closely at the text. It has to be designed in an eye-catching way, with short sentences,
especially those with a double meaning, script in large, brightly-coloured letters. Puns and play in words
may be also used.
 Sub-headlines = which help the reader to better assimilate the text
 The bodycopy = the main text, set in readable size print, describing the main characteristics of the place
and its benefits deriving from the choice of a holiday there. Here the language is precise, factual and
explanatory.
 The trademark = the distinctive word, phrase, logo, domain name, graphic symbol, slogan used to
identify the destination
 The logo = the destination’s trademarked version of its name
 The slogo = the slogan used in an ad campaign
The elements may all be present at the same time, but it is not necessary. To be effective advertising must
attract and sustain the interest, be remembered and prompt action. In order to have a strong selling power, it
should have an attention value, obtained through both an appealing image and the violation of some obvious
rule of the language (spelling, phonetics, grammar, jokes, metaphors, paradox, puns, play in words), which
allows the exploitation of persuasive strategies based on the use of rhetorical tropes – a figurative or
metaphorical use of a word or expression-, mainly irony. Therefore, their main characteristics must be
Readability, attained with the use of simple, colloquial and personal forms and Memorability, in the sense that
they must make a lasting impression.
5.1 Attention value strategies: code switching.
The easiest way to make a poster look exotic is by using words expressed in the language spoken in the
destination country (code-switching). This effect offers an insight into the cultural background of the source
language, but at the same time it goes against the concept of the necessity of ad texts to be comprehensible.
The use of native words in tourism invokes linguascape, that is the creation of images of authenticity and
exoticisation on the one hand, and familiarity and trust-in a holiday destination on the other, through language
crossing. It is also a way of displaying the identification in a specific social and cultural context, that is
fundamental in a world constituted of global consumers for whom owning is more important that being.
Exactly for this reason, in our society where time is money, illustrations are more immediate, memorable than
writing, as more can be said or perceived in a single photo-frame than in a ten-page text.
Ex. Grana Padano advertisements in the airports of Italian cities (Catania, Milan, Naples, Rome, Venice
and Verona) where the quality of Italian food is associated with the cities wonderful architectural
masterpieces. Their headlines say either Arrivederci from or Welcome to followed by the name of the town
which tourists are supposedly arriving in or leaving.
In order to understand which of the two languages is the matrix one, we just have to look which language
sets the syntactic structure: if function items (and not content items) which serve as an adhesive device
linking the different elements, the organization, the word order and the grammatical frame follow English
rules, the matrix language is English, while Italian is the embedded one, the one from which the
constituents come. For instance, the function lexeme from connects the words Arrivederci and Roma.
In these ads, the headline appears in the upper part of the page, as it is the caption, the anchorage of the
image at the center of the layout. The Grana Padano cheese becomes the symbol of the town it depicts, an
artistic masterpiece, and creates an intertextual link between Italy’s artistic heritage and food. Therefore,
the visual amplifies the linguistic creativity.
5.2 Attention-value strategies: linguistic deviations
Puns and contextual deviation. The language in ads is very creative as it allows advertisers to
communicate with their audience on a number of levels in order to sell. One of the best ways to exploit
11
creativity is by means of rhetorical figures, which are linguistic devices which create an effect by
breaking or exploiting linguistic rules. Consequently, rhetorical tropes are expressions systematically
deviating from expectation: they depart from convention while communicating a multitude of meanings,
playing with words and distorting their literal meanings. However, this style provides their readers with
incomplete information or vague and implied messages, that they are required to solve in order to assign
the appropriate meaning. A pun is a form of speech play in which a word or phrase unexpectedly and
simultaneously combines two unrelated meanings. They surprise and entertain the reader, while
expressing multiple meanings in one word or sentence.
Ex.1 Place to BErgamo tourist advertisement, in which the different use of colors and the different size
of the syllables, discloses the hidden meaning place to be, which in turn recalls Hamlet’s famous soliloquy
to be or not to be.
20thousands leagues above the sea tourist advertisement, which recalls the title of Jules Verne’s Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, an intertextual link that allows for a recontextualization of Verne’s
novel and a contextual violation. The text is hyperbolic because the mountains cannot be that high, and
league semantically indicates the marine league or a distance, not a height. In addition, in the background
photo there is a submarine emerging from a lake, which confirms the contextual violation. The
nonsensical iconic text is assigned from a different meaning thanks to the copy: enchanted world where
your imagination will run free.
The references to Shakespeare and to Verne emphasize the strong roots of Bergamo’s cultural tradition,
while offering a fairytale holiday surrounded by the beauty of its natural landscape.
Ex.2 the GREAT Britain campaign, which focuses on 10 areas of British excellence, all emphasizing that
Britain is one of the very best places to visit, study, work, invest and do business. In 2011 the Prime
Minister David Cameron made official the partnership between VisitBritain and the tourism industry. As
a result, in 2012 the Secretary of state for Culture and Media and Sport launched the Great Britain Image
Campaign (£25 million) that was to reach 14 metropolises in 9 key tourist markets. The posters were set in
strategic locations in main cities, focusing on pillars representing the country’s excellences, that is
Countryside, Heritage, Culture, Music, Shopping, Food, Sport. The printed ads are very simple in their
creativity: the slogo says X IS GREAT Britain, occupying an impactful amount of the page, there is a
background image and on the bottom there is the British flag. In a sort of inverted logics, what is new is
described as being already known, since it is positioned at the top of the poster and it is written, whereas
what is known (the place, the event, the people) is represented as new and it is at the center of the ad with
an image. The implicit idea is that one has not to consider Britain as a static nation, but rather a dynamic
one, able to renovate old ideas into sth extremely new and great. The flag can be interpreted as the real
part, while the ideal is the photo, hiding the message that any dream can come true in Britain. A whole
world of concepts is realized through the pun on great, since the idea suggested by the ads is that the
opportunities offered in GREAT Britain are GREAT in themselves but are GREAT precisely because they
are in GREAT Britain, and also the red colour on the word great, that is the colour of the flag, confirms it.

Irony. It is a rhetorical trope by means of which a statement conveys a meaning different from the one it
professes to give, since it creates a discrepancy between what the words actually say and what they really
mean. A comic effect is thus obtained whenever one pretends to take literally an expression used figuratively.
It is frequently employed with a target clever enough to perceive the real meaning, so this audience actively
participates in the decoding of such message and feels special in understanding it. Once the consumer feels
enough clever to understand the hidden message, positive attitudes toward the brand are established.
Ex. the international tourism campaign launched by Australian Tourism in 2006. These printed posters
represent the very essence of Australia: the ocean, the desert, the rain forest and the Australian culture.
Here the country is metaphorically depicted as representing the four natural elements (water, earth, fire and
air). The visual element is presented as if it were a postcard: there is the Australia.com logo at the top-left
part, a picture in the centre, on which the headlines are written, a superimposed stamp and a fountain pen
12
 both at the bottom right-hand part. All the ads follow the Z-reading pattern: they can be divided into
quadrants depicting the ideal and real representation of world and the given vs new elements put forward.
The real in all texts is represented by the slogan So where the bloody hell are you? Which seem to be
handwritten, that is a paralinguistic feature which incites friendship-like feelings. This wh-question is full
of taboo words (it was considered offensive and withdrawn), and it is left unanswered, as it the tourist is
invited to answer. In particular, bloody hell was criticized for being vulgar but a corpus analysis revealed
that in the oral language the expression is an interjection, so it is friendly intensifier and not a taboo. In
general, the meaning of the sentence can be “Australia is waiting to welcome you, by showing off the
country as its best” or “the reader is invited by his friends, who are already visiting Australia and enjoying
it a lot, and they are saying to him so what are you waiting for? Why don’t you visit Australia now?”. The
register is very informal and conveys a colloquial interaction full of emotive involvement. Irony is created
by the association between the ordinary element described in the text and the image depicted in the
postcards which goes against all out expectations and is further emphasized by the slogan. (see notebook
for deeper analysis of each photo)

Tropes. Rhetorical tropes and figures of speech are used in persuasive language and normally refer to a play
on words in which a word is used in sth other than what is considered its literal or normal form (metaphor).
These devices contribute to achieving the speakers’ own rhetorical goals, that is specially to convey the way
of thinking about one thing in terms of another. For this reason, they can be called conceptual metaphors,
defined as systematic sets of correspondence across conceptual domains, whereby a target domain is partly
structured in terms of a different source domain. For instance, the phrase the war against drugs expresses
the attempt to reduce the number of people who takes drugs, using the word was to mean a struggle. Here
the target domain is our knowledge about such arguments related to drugs, while the source domain is our
knowledge about war. The target domain arguments related to drugs can be described because of implicit
and explicit attributes deriving from the source domain war.
Ex. the Sicilian Tourist Office offers a type of ads based on the exploitation of visual metaphors, that is
metaphors whose source domain is the visual element of the ad. In all ads, the Z-reading patter is followed:
the headline is positioned at the top-left part, the background picture seems to have beams of light starting
from the top-right part and ending on the bottom-right part, with a dark shade which serves as a base for the
logo of Sicily Grand Tour 06. This latter wording refers to the 17th and 18th century tradition of the
aristocracy undertaking a trip to Europe to improve the mind, and Etna, the symbol of Sicily, is depicted as
an open up-side down book. The headline is the only text appearing: This year Sicily will speak to you
through literature/ theatre/ cinema/ with music. Sicily is therefore personified, since it speaks, and this is a
sort of promise as revealed by the use to the modal will. The apparently nonsensical relationship between
the verb to speak and the images is immediately reconstructed from a semantic viewpoint: literature, music
and theatre are given voice in a synesthetic way by means of nature. The Arts and nature are metaphorically
depicted as inseparable, as one single thing, so that not only nature is the Manifesto of the Arts, but the Arts
are nature itself. Finally, there is an intertextual link because Sicily has close links with the cinema and
filmmaking, as one of the ad remembers, by using as background photo the Santa Maria del Monte staircase
which seems to be the set of an episode in a film.
6. CATALOGUES AND BROCHURES AND ITINERARIES
6.1 Catalogues and brochures
Catalogue indicate price-lists while brochures are marketing booklets. They are publications produced by both
public and private institutions such as tourist offices, hotels and tour operators. Although they provide practical
information which visitors may use in the decision-making processes of their trip, their function Is mainly
persuasive and tends to modify the potential customer’s behaviour. They display an almost fixed set of moves,
each having its own communicative function, which is best served by a set of language features:
• Evaluative claims about the place/facility to visit  present tenses, superlatives, place adverbs
• Brief history of the resort/facility  past tenses, temporal adverbs
• Guided tour of the main attractions  imperatives, personal pronouns
13
 • Practical details  modals, personal pronouns
• Regulations  shall, will, may, can
They have a highly codified textual structure, which means that the text is composed of standardized parts.
Their first and last pages are devoted to information about the chosen tourist destination in general terms, i.e.
weather, the countryside, time zones and currency, transportation, insurance policy, and flight timetable... (an
informative language is employed in the last two). The central and most important part is devoted to the
description of the receptive structures, conveyed by means of both iconic and verbal texts. The iconic section
is characterized by illustrations depicting both the destinations and the receptive structures, and they usually
occupy the top section of the page. They represent the ideal trip, offering the stereotyped visual information
with people always smiling, transmitting a sense of welcome and friendship, in a calm and unspoilt landscape,
which is in contrast with the pollution of the tourists’ hometowns = always pleasant climatic conditions and
the best season. The text is usually divided into 2 sections:
i. The headline at the top of the page, which indicates the name of the destination or of the hotel
ii. The text at the bottom of the page, semantically organized in a hierarchical order going from general to
detailed pieces of information = an overall judgement of the offer, a more accurate description of the
destination, the receptive structure, the services offered and finally availability and costs.
Lexis in catalogues and brochures. These texts do not have any specific target as far as audience is concerned,
so that they are characterized by a general vocabulary, very simple and accessible to most readers. It is an
emphatic and evaluative language because of the need to concentrate on the positive qualities of the locations
and services in order to be persuasive. It is structured according to a binary opposition which contrasts the
routine activities of home with novelty and excitement elsewhere, for example enriched with the use of positive
appraisals. We can indeed find adjectives such as attractive, fantastic, superb, great, friendly, comfortable,
stunning, modern and adverbs indicating epistemic certainty such as of course, certainly. Information about
location is necessary to contextualize the receptive structure (= to make the tourist momentary experience
what is being described as if they were already there), and it is realized with deictic terms, which do not qualify
or characterize the context but rather indicate it with a coordinated system of reference markers related to space
and time, ex. This, nearby, that, here (but when the tourists read it, things/places are not here but there). When
they offer complete services, they try to convey the idea of fulfilling all the need and because it is difficult to
state everything, they tend to be vague and use expressions like vast choice, large selection…. They also
contain useful information such as insurance, timetables, baggage allowance and so on and in this case
language is simply informative and not evaluative. Finally, they may present the use of specialized terms,
particularly in the case of acronyms or abbreviations which are generally used in tables indicating prices and
costs, availability and services offered.
To sum up, in general, there is the presence of both informative and evaluative elements.
Syntax in catalogues and brochures.
-Nominal phrases. Tourism discourse needs to attract the potential user, so it is highly evaluative. The language
is characterized by an exaggerated use of pre-modifiers such as attributes and adjectives which present
the tourist destination as a novelty (but also comfort) and a change from daily routine. The most exploited
pre-modifiers are beautiful, charming, used in brochures targeting the general public, different, exotic,
remote, unspoilt and new preferred in brochures targeting adult readers or people without children.
Brochures are designed to play with people’s emotions. Pre-modifiers can be also formed with
nominalization, i.e. the head of a nominal group is pre-modified by a noun with an adjectival role, ex. tour
operator, charter flight, air ticket, packaged holiday, baggage allowance. In some cases, these nominal
pre-modifiers tend to merge with their headword and a new noun is created as in timetable or airline.
Overall, the function of nominal phrases is to identify the target and to understand which are their
expectations, in order to use the most appealing words. For example, in LGBT+ brochures, the only thing
that changes is the presence of LGBT+ friendly terminology.
-Verbal phrases. Compound tenses are hardly never used. The most widely exploited forms are those
expressed either with:

14
o The simple present, used to describe the tourist destination as having unchanging features, and they
have the authority of straightforward evidence so that the reliability of the text is undisputed. = higly
objective
o Imperatives, which mark the presence of the enunciator who urges the addressee to visit the
particular destination, creating a pseudo-dialogue between the two (using you).
The least degree of uncertainty is avoided by the absence of any modality, even if verbal phrases can
have modal nuances expressed either as verbal or lexical markers:
o can is the most exploited, to convey the idea of the many possibilities and opportunities tourists will
have. The potential tourist is the real protagonist, who choses what to do between different possibilities.
o may is also present with a high frequency, indicating epistemic remote possibility, but it mainly
occurs in the terms and conditions sections (ex. Prices may change).
o will is used to indicate epistemic certainty and the activities in which potential tourists will take part in,
which is the promise of tour operators. It can also be used in informative parts, where services or
restrictions are stated.
o the adjective sure is used to explicitly indicating what is required or allowed to organize the holiday.
o the form must is present both as modal and nominalized verb, to express the terms and conditions of
regulatory aspects but also to give a strong advice/necessity ex. The museum is a must-see.
-Textual organization. They have a simple textual structure, in which coordination is preferred to subordination,
favored by the use of pre- modifiers linked in apposition so that the text appears semantically dense and
compact. Both secondary and relative clauses are avoided, in favor of simpler constructions, which follow the
criteria of conciseness and transparency, realized by lexemes obtained by means of:
o affixation with affixes endowed with a clear semantic value, ex. air-conditioned room
o simplified passive relative clauses, ex. in-flight meals
o nouns specified by a complex expression, ex. pre-bookable flowers
There is a highly exploited use of structures containing a hidden relative clause, expressed with the omission
of the relative pronoun and the auxiliary, and which introduce the subject of the main clauses, ex. set on a
beach, this spacious hotel has... that is a construction that emphasized easy readability, since a postposition of
the relative would interrupt the construction of the main clause. This need for a simple textual construction
serves for creating an informal atmosphere, that is also perceived in exclamations, which transmit a sense of
enthusiasm and a desire of participation. Involvement of the reader is sometimes created by means of
interrogative structures.
6.2 Tourist Itineraries
These texts are usually printed on a single sheet or folded piece of paper where practical information is
provided, since they present a tourist package with activities. To describe such activities, it is used a verbal
text and an iconic element. The text is usually short and clear, telegraphic, and the paragraphs are often divided by
time. The aesthetic component is very important: in our Western society, the brighter the colour is, the more
real the visual appears, vice versa the paler the colour, the less realistic the iconic component is judged to be.
Lexis in itineraries. The lexis of itineraries is full of terms pointing to state and movement, which are
transmitted through the use of such verbs as drive, walk, remain, stay. There is also a frequent exploitation of
lexis indicating the activities, which are indicated by verbs of existence, motion, perception, investigation,
learning, admiration, possession and so on… Given the persuasive function of the text, itineraries exploit
highly evaluative adjectives, such as spectacular, picturesque, wonderful, amazing, famous, unforgettable,
exotic.
Syntax in itineraries. These texts contain compact grammatical structures, using a disjunctive grammar = a
specific technique which includes nouns groups and minor clauses or fragments (verb-less and non-finite
clauses), as opposed to fully elaborated discursive grammar. The sentences lack both subject and a finite verb,
or have no predicator at all, that reinforce the declarative force of the sentence, conveying they idea that such
activity described is a must. When grammar is discursive, it is characterized by the exploitation of imperative

15
forms, so as to urge the addressee to visit the location and to prompt an action. When present tense forms are
used in the text, it is usually because they describe the tourist destination as having unchanging features.
Textual organization. These texts are characterized by short, clear messages, almost fragmented sentences
which are not linked in a linear discursive flow, but instead make the text appear as quite telegraphic. It is
organized in short paragraphs, each corresponding to the activity itself. Despite the common belief that on
holiday we can relax and forget about timetables, time is an essential part here because everything is scheduled
in a very rigid way. This is confirmed by the high frequency of such time prepositions as after, before, and
items of the different parts of the day such as today, tonight, in the afternoon.
7. IN-FLIGHT MAGAZINES
They are published by commercial airlines as to provide their passengers with informative and entertaining
reading, about tourism, business or general interest. They are provided free of charge on planes or in airport
departure lounges, and contain articles on various aspects of tourism. They are part of the flight marketing
process in the sense that while the airline provides information about the destinations it flies to, it also offers
products which appear to be less expensive if compared to those offered by travel agencies and web-based tour
operators, providing the traveller with a sense of security. Tourist is addressed as a globetrotter = an
internationally-minded citizen of the world, engaged in a search for authentic unspoiled destinations. This
global atmosphere and attitude are realized through visual and discursive elements and it is a very difficult
task, as they must go beyond the local cultural mindset.
7.1 Corpus and methodological approach
The corpus of this analysis are 20 monthly in-flight magazines between 2009 and 2013, 9 American and 11
European. These magazines were chosen basing on accessibility, reliability the requirement of being in English
(some are bilingual), and according to the airline’s popularity and reputation.

7.2 The format of inflight magazines

Marketing aspects. They represent growing sector of the media market and a great source of profit. According
to specialized agencies, the number of in-flight magazines readers surpasses that of readers of traditional
monthly magazines by 11 million = they are the leader in this market sector. Its audience, i.e. passengers, has
been identified as a homogeneous group belonging to the middle-upper social classes, and form a very
receptive type of public. Also advertisement companies have identified the importance. Because of the
recession, however, they are changing and re-designing their own image, adding or eliminating prominent
sections, in order to look less marketing-oriented. The fact of being free and individual (on the cover it is
written your personal free copy), is a marketing strategy because they convey a sense of uniqueness and
importance to the reader. Even their names confirm homogeneity and marketing strategies, evidencing their
cosmopolitan and global nature, ex. Sky (Delta) and Air Ways (American Airlines), Traveller (EasyJet), Let’s
GO (Ryanair), which give the idea of free, effortless movement in crossing national borders.
Linguistic analysis. From the content point of view, they all have their own peculiarities but overall they are
quite homogeneous, as they all include and avoid the same sections and themes:
✓ lifestyle/cultural articles, which are about topics of general interest such as fashion, celebrities,
science, technology, ecology, gastronomy, sports, fiction, adventure, wildlife, family, art and
culture, hotel and spa reviews, health tips, film/book reviews.
✓ business information, which are never too technical or specialized and provide common-sense tips
✓ travel and destination information, linked to the destinations reached by the flight, and presented in the
form of travelogues, guides or articles on specific cities.
✓ games/psychological quizzes.
✓ passenger and in-flight information.
✓ airline news.
X politics and issues related to religion are never reported.
X issued as terrorism, war, disease, natural disasters or any unsettling topic are avoided.
X negative aspects of the airline industry, such as lost baggage, last departures, airline personnel strikes and
16
 ruined vacations are never mentioned.
Destination described in an article is usually reinforced by illustrations which are carefully chosen as far as
colour is concerned (bright and crystal-clear colours). The photographs are a sort of visual cliché, since they
represent certain characteristics of the ideal trip and the ideal holiday. Locals are depicte as being always
friendly and smiling looking at the camera, as though to invite and welcome the tourist or as offering a genuine
example of the locality, when they are not looking in the camera, so that the tourist can observe the exotic
content maintaining a social distance.
A balance between local and global is found in feature articles on the destinations reached by the airline. The
tourist sites presented are both national and foreign and they are often towns rather than natural locations.
These destinations are either financial capitals or cultural capitals, have an iconic status and represent
globalization in terms of business and entertainment. In order to achieve a cosmopolitan result, there is a well-
balance presence of national and international celebrities of both sexes in the articles appearing in the
lifestyle/culture section. In this way, what is local becomes international. Finally, this idea of globalization is
reproduced in the description of the airline, usually found toward the end of the magazine. Here we can see a
destination map, which shows traditional routes, and points out newly-introduced routes and any future
planned route. In doing so, they offer a network of connections between local, regional and international. In
addition, we have to notice that the world map does not follow the more traditional placement with Europe in
the centre, but shows the airport/hub the airline operates from as the centre of the world.
From a linguistic point of view, all in-flight magazines of this analysis use English as the main language of
tourism. The reason behind this choice is that English, the lingua franca of tourism, reflects a community
whose key-point are power, prestige, wealth, so that objects and ideas proposed in such language become more
desirable and useful. It is also an attempt to position airlines in a global market. The articles can be divided
into sections: a headline at the top of the page, which gives the name of the destination or hotel, the text at the
bottom of the page, semantically organized in a hierarchical structure (from general to detailed information),
which contains an overall view of the offer provided, a more accurate description of the destination,
infrastructures and facilities, the services offered, such as excursions and cultural or entertainment events and
availability and costs. At the beginning of the text, the traveller is welcomed by a very globalised airline: it is
greeted in four European languages (Bienvenido| Bienvenue| Benvenuto| Wilkommen| Welcome), the airline
presents itself and points out the statistics in order to give a view of its success, and finally the editor sends best
wishes to readers.
An analysis aiming to see whether there is any balanced use of what is local and global in linguistic terms,
pointed out the presence of 311 keywords in the articles. There are not evaluative adjectives, there are a lot of
deictics, substantives and contracted verbs, there are many references to the Web and telephone (www, com,
tel), which are necessary to provide useful information and are placed in apposition or as an embedded
sentence. In doing so, they help tourists to be aware of product choices and allow an appropriate decision-
making process. Contracted forms it’s, you’re, you’ve, you’ll, you’d, don’t, I’ve and we’re are frequently
exploited, giving a very informal style, creating the atmosphere of a friendly dialogue in which the reader feels
to have an exclusive role. The majority of the articles are in form of a travelogue, and reflects the stylistic
genre of a diary in which all experiences are reported in a very detailed way. This reinforces credibility and
conveys authority to the author. The guide instead, is awarded a secondary role and it is never allowed to speak.
Contextualization is realized by means of geographical details and they are fundamental, since tourists must
be oriented. Orientation is provided by deixis, which does not describe the context but rather indicates it with
a coordinated system of reference markers related to space and time. The most frequently used are there’s,
that’s, “the (a determinative in a reported speech used to presuppose a temporal context and a personal one).
Also personal pronouns can be used as deictic elements to give a contextual reference but they are not very
exploited. Also adjectives don’t have a very high position in the keyword ranking. The adjectives found in
the articles can be divided into four semantic categories: evaluation (the largest group), nationality, general,
culinary tradition. Among the evaluative, which are used to reinforce stereotypes and clichés, we can analyse
the most exploited:
o ancient, which normally concords with nouns referring to archaeological sites
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o famous, frequently preceded by the determiner the or the superlative the most, taking for granted that
the reader knows that the location is famous
o favourite, accompanied by the possessives my and her, indicating a preference of the author that
should wisely be followed
o verdant, referring to the beauty of exotic nature
o legendary, referring to both people and place
o perfect, which normally occurs in such clusters as it makes perfect sense or it is the perfect time to visit
Verbs do not occupy a top position ranking either. The most exploited are visit, take, stroll, dine, stop, sell,
enjoy and some modal verbs which occupy the very last position.
Common and proper nouns are the nominal group with the highest position in keyword ranking. The majority
of proper names refer to tourist localities, and they are in the language spoken in the destination proposed by
the article, in order to reproduce the notion of authenticity. For the same purpose emotive words are also
exploited, referring to tourists’ expectations about the holiday package rather than to qualities related to the
destination.
8. TOURIST GUIDES
8.1 Historical background, from travel book to tourist guidebooks
Tourism has existed since the existence of roads; the earliest forms of leisure tourism werefor religious
reasons, medical treatment, trade or education. Guidebooks became available as early as the fourth century
B.C., covering a vast number of destinations such as Athens, Sparta and Troy. Under the Roman Empire that
international travel become important, and also domestic tourism flourished. During the Middle Ages, the
concept of travelling acquired a new sense, since a journey was undertaken to inform and illuminate the mind,
and it was a way of exploring the past. This is also the time of pilgrimages. During Renaissance, thanks to the
invention of printing, scholars involved in humanistic studies travelled in pursuit of book-learning. This is the
time of new explorations and scientific expeditions. In the 17th century, a new form of tourism developed, the
Grand tour, a travel that made part of gentleman’s education, who visited the major cultural centres of Europe,
accompanied by a tutor. By the end of the 18th century, from the Grand Tour finally emerged the figure of the
tourist, whose travel became global. Here emerged the final change of role of the journey from a discovery of
the self to the modern concept of a discovery of pleasure, also thanks to the first organized trip offered by
Thomas Cook (1842). This phenomenon brought also a literary change, whose main examples is the Handbook
for travellers of the Continent by Murray (1836), which was exhaustive, practical and accessible. It was a new
genre, based on four already existing types of texts: historical and geographical books, itineraries and books
concerning routes, ancient guides of towns and travel books. It serves as milestone for modern guides, which
nowadays are a powerful marketing tool in influencing the tourist’s decisions.
8.2 Tourist guidebooks: an introduction
Tourist guidebooks have a higher value and are considered more reliable than other tourist genres because
they are of a less promotional nature. They do not strictly belong to the promotional genre, but rather to the
informative one: they provide recommendations on where to stay or to eat and up-to-date maps, but also give
useful information on the culture, society and history of the destinations. They can be defined as culture
brokers, who reproduce the dominant mental models (opinions, beliefs and social representations of
knowledge, attitude and ideologies) of that sigh in terms of context, event and structures. These texts offer
foreign culture in a nutshell and at the same time, confirm travel myths, desires and fantasies and thus motivate
potential tourists. Guides differ in both type of target audience and in the type of language, which may be either
formal or colloquial. Nevertheless, they share the same aim: in preceding the tourist, they guide him or her
along an apparently “safe path” while actually directing and influencing the tourists’ interest in prompting their
responses. They are regarded as the least persuasive of the modes of tourist discourse because when the
potential tourists read them, they have already made their choice. However, interpretation is possible through
contextualisation and evaluation.
8.3 The corpus

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The corpus of this analysis are six tourist guidebooks between 2009 and 2013, targeting to different social
groups and describing different destinations: Italy, London, Mexico, Prague, Venice and Vienna. The
publishers taken into consideration are:
• Lonely Planet, the largest travel guidebook and digital media publisher in the world. It is meant mainly
for backpackers and low-budget independent travellers. In describing places, it usually pays attention to
socio- economic aspects or environmental problems. Its style is concise and rather informal, though rich
in evaluation.
• Rough Guide, which initially aimed at low-budget backpackers but have now incorporated more
expensive recommendations since the early 1990s and are marked for travellers on all budgets. In
guidebooks there is a massive presence of coloured pictures, they are written in colloquial style, often
exploiting irony as a strategy to describe negative aspects.
• Rick Steves’ Guide, whose target audience is composed of people over the age of 50 who want to save
money. Its guidebooks are made with an identical layout: after coloured maps, an introduction is presented
followed by the description of the location and its surroundings, and at the final chapters the history of the
destination is provided. The style is both colloquial and authoritative.
8.4 Linguistic analysis
Guidebooks can be distinguished from other tourist genres not only because of their layout, but also because
of their textual and linguistic features which form a narrative structure. Guidebooks have comparable
sections:
• Information on the history, geography, arts, culture and nature of the area
• Itineraries in which the main must-see monuments of location or must-do activities are suggested
• Descriptions of restaurants and hotels with their contact details
• Useful tips and practical information about such matters as postage, transportation, currency,
climate and shopping areas
• Maps

Some guidebooks provide a subjective portrait of the destination, others tend to state facts in a more detached
way, ex. in LP and RS descriptions are more subjective than in RG.
The lexical representation of authenticity. The lexical items chosen by tourist guide authors usually tend to
reproduce the notion of authenticity, which is achieved by two lexical strategies: the use of emotive words,
or keywords, which refer to the tourists’ expectations about the holiday package rather than to qualities related
to the destination or the use of words belonging to the destination language, which confers an exotic flavour.
These words are provided both without any explanation or with the translation or a comment. Some keywords:
➢ Authenticity is rendered by words such as great, interesting, worth and beautiful.
➢ Words such as colourful, wonderful, spectacular and gem are exploited in order to reinforce the
expectation of the tourist on the beauty and magic of the holiday.
➢ Terms stressing the importance of the history of the locations are much exploited, such as tradition,
medieval, magical. These words also emphasize the idea of an ideal continuity between past and
present, as the destination has indeed preserved its natural and primitive simplicity.
➢ Words such as undiscovered, different, exotic, unspoilt, virgin landscape, remote, isolated, unknown,
untamed and wild give a promise of experiencing discovery and adventure during the holiday. The
destination is therefore seen as a location untouched by mass tourism, a secret world to explore.
➢ Destinations are nevertheless described also as close to tourists’ world because they are modern,
fashionable, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, developed and industrial.
➢ Some words are used to promote leisure activities, such as trendy and hottest.
Rhetorical strategies to represent the notion of otherness. Tourist guidebooks offer the presentation of
the dynamics of cross cultural representation: they construct the image of the other, i.e. the target destination
and its people. In representing cultural gaps between the target destination and the place the tourist come
from, they accomplish the role of socialization and enculturation. The author accomplishes the role of the

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teacher, whose authoritativeness is provided by the writer’s wider knowledge, expressed through language by
means of instructions given to the reader. Quotations can be classified as stereotypes having the function of
reinforcing positive and negative evaluation byproviding authority to the text. They have a crucial role, giving
support in terms of prestige and discredit. Following the guide, the tourist can learn how to correctly interpret
the foreign culture. In this sense tourist guide act as mediators, and this is seen by the use of the pronouns I
and you. It is also exploited the inclusive pronoun we in order to establish a communication link between the
reader and the author, that is conveyed through a colloquial language, a conversational style with short
sentences, mainly coordinated. The cultural gap between the tourist and the chosen destination is:
➢ Expressed by means of metaphors, similes paraphrases and reformulations.
➢ Reassured by the presence of stereotypes and appellative clichés, which helps the
identification and comprehension of sth which may otherwise be unintelligible.
➢ Managed through the use of comparisons, which may act as a device used to fill the gaps between the
home and foreign cultures. So rhetorical tropes are useful means to bridge the cultural gap by comparing
aspects of the destinations culture with aspect of the tourists’ own culture.
➢ Emphasized and highlighted in a benevolent way by means of irony and colloquialisms some of which
belonging to the language used by young people, ex. gorgeous. They are used to express the author’s
participation in the tourist experience and at the same time to minimize cultural misunderstanding.
9. THE LANGUAGE OF TOURISM AS E-DISCOURSE - DIGITAL
COMMUNICATION IN TOURISM
9.1 Introduction: the case of VisitBritain
The British tourist authority (VisitBritain) has been involved in the promotion of British tourism in the world
market ever since 1969, aiming to building the value of tourism to Britain, working in partnership with the
industry and nations and regions to generate additional visitor spend. Although Britain is one of the top ten
tourist destination in the world, it occupies seventh position, preceded by France, the US, Spain, Italy and
Turkey. VisitBritain has persuaded the government to maximize public investment in tourism industry, and it
has utilised global event, such as the Royal Wedding, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Olympic games and
the World Pride celebration, as a platform to promote the GREAT Britain brand, both offline and online.
Both VisitBritain.com and the social network pages created do not present any form from which tourists can
fill in and upload in order to obtain information. They role is instead to act as a shop window promoting British
destination. It is in individual web-tourist offices that promotion is carried out and information is provided.
9.2 Tourism discourse and the Net
In the tourist quest for information, the internet has begun to be regarded as a convenient and dynamic source
of information by means of which tourists can virtually experience the holiday, thanks to the interactive
multimedia sites existing on the web. Strategies adopted to present destinations on the net are important:
decisions have to be taken about what networks to take into consideration and what projects to invest in,
whenever the success of the branding and promotional activities as well as online e-commerce are of interest.
Here a highly persuasive type of language has to be exploited, so that tourists perceive the destination as
authentically and genuinely off the beaten track. In order to do so, texts are characterized by networked
interrelations of verbal and iconic components. The fact of being hypertexts augment their potentialities. Their
main feature is that their information is selected and designed to attract attention by breaking conventional
reading patterns: the traditional textual organisation is lacking and is substituted by the presence of links, which
provide abundant information and reinforce the web user’s illusion of having total control on the website. Web
2.0 has allowed the potential tourist to take on a central role in the selection of the tourist destination, they no
longer have a passive role, but rather an extremely active one → they are prosumers = tourist consumers to
have become producers, since they share or actively comment on via the net.
9.3 Corpus and methodological approach
The 3 top UK destinations chosen in the period 1999-2011 were London, Edinburgh and Manchester. For this
reason, the analysis of digital texts has been carried out focusing on the semiotic perspective and the linguistic
contents of the websites of Official Tourism Boards of those cities, which are partners of VisitBritain. The

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linguistic content of the websites has been transformed in a corpus and analysed both quantitative and
qualitative.
9.4 Visual analysis
The official tourist website for London
1. The 2003 London Tourist Board site. The homepage is very simple in its layout. At the top part, that is
the ideal section, we see on the left the London Tourist Board logo, whereas on the right we have 5
superimposed pictures of must-see in soft colours. On the bottom part, that is the real section, we find
nothing except links to the rest of the website. Overall, it is a very harmonious and extremely minimal
webpage.
2. The 2008 www.visitlondon.com site. Here visual and verbal elements appear to be well balanced. The
homepage consists of a picture at the top showing the skyline of London, providing a harmonious view
in the ideal section. Weblinks have been inserted on the photo, so that the virtual tourist is taken to a map
of the area showing its most famous tourist attractions. The presence of links regarding accommodation,
places to go, events, maps, guides transforms the top part into a semiotic unit which can be divided
between ideal and real. The use of colour also appears to be well balanced, without any striking or
disturbing contrast. The sensation conveys is that of a metropolis in which the arts, traditions and events
are interestingly mixed together. Finally, interactivity is apparently offered, as people like you can enter
a competition, register with no language problems since at the top of the page you can choose the
language.
3. The 2011 www.visitlondon.com site. It offers an unbalanced representation of visual and verbal
elements, since only two very short texts are found at the top and bottom of the picture on the left-hand
part of the homepage, while on the right part some nominal word groups are found and are in line with
the stereotypes ideas tourists have of London. The web-page creates a harmonious view as perspective is
concerned: a certain textual sobriety is introduced through the manipulation of the photo on the
background on which the text appears. Even the use of colour seems to be well balanced.
4. The 2020 www.visitlondon.com site. It is extremely simple, with a big photo of the Tower Bridge and
the superimposed sentence Welcome to London. No other text is visible apart from the labels above with
the different section of the page and the trademark VisitLondon. At the bottom, in the real part, there are
welcoming addresses. It is possible to do a virtual tour of London, as covid-19 imposed.
The official tourist website for Edinburgh
1. The 2003 Edinburgh Tourist Board site. The web-page is formed by a text apparently divided into 3
vertical frames. On the left, the given part of the text, we have useful links where tourists can find practical
information. At the top, the given part is composed of other links regarding tourist information. The
central frame can be analysed as an independent semiotic unit, since it has both an ideal and a real part,
constituted by a photo and a written text.
2. The 2008 and 2011 Edinburgh Tourist Board sites. These web pages open with a cartoon like logo
on the left. The frames in which they can be divided are 4 for the 2008 version while 3 for the 2011
version, but the way it is constructed is identical. The left part, the given, consists of links regarding
practical information for tourists. At the centre there is a section which is a semiotic unit split into ideal
and real: there is a photo of Edinburgh and a written text (a welcome text). The brightly coloured layout
on which the text highlighted is perceived as sober.
3. The 2020 Edinburgh Tourism Board site. It is completely different from the previous ones. One photo
occupies the whole page and has the new part on the right and the given part on the left. The slogan This
is eEdinburgh underlines the digital representation of the city. There is a little text and many links to
other web pages.
The official tourist website for Manchester
1. The 2003 Manchester Tourist Board site. The layout is static, since only one small image is present in
the whole website. Information is conveyed in a plain text, which seems to be informative rather than

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 persuasive and occupies the central part. Two external columns balance the whole layout, offering links
to practical information.
2. The 2007 Manchester Tourist Board site. This site is much more dynamic than the previous version.
The frame is more interactive: it is divided into four frames, two vertical and two horizontal, whose
division is virtually created by photos.in this way, the division of given and new, ideal and real seems to
be successfully realized.
3. The 2011 Manchester Tourist Board site. Is the least traditional one, as here there is a complete
disruption of traditional reading practices. The site layout is revised into 3 columns, each containing
frames developing on the vertical axis and showing pictures at the top and very small texts at the bottom.
The webpage seems to rapidly scroll down by itself, giving the idea of great dynamism and immediacy,
also supported by pop-up texts. Manchester therefore, is seen as a lively metropolis with a cosy bed and
breakfast atmosphere whose best feedback is through the online comments appearing in the guest-book.
4. The 2020 Manchester Tourist Board website. Extremely simple, with the whole page occupied by an
image with a superimposed sentence “Manchester misses you”. At the top of the page we find the ideal
with all things that the perspective tourist can read about. The rest of the page is formed by small images
which are the links to new web pages.
9.5 Linguistic analysis
The layout has changed from a static quality, to a very interactive one, the latter being characterized by texts
which can either form a sort of spiral composed of a central text surrounded by frames containing both visual
and verbal texts or two columns where the visual and the verbal components appear side by side. Overall, all
the web-sites invite the on-line tourist to read the texts, but this action is a sort of accelerated in the last versions.
In order to be effective indeed, texts must be short, clear and up-to-date, even if the language remains the same
(persuasive). Reality is described as authentic and genuine, and perceived as such by tourists, who have thus
the illusion of experiencing the holiday before actually living it. Persuasion is achieved by appealing to the
audience’s emotions, and it usually exploits argumentation and rhetorical strategies to such an extent as to
influence personal choices in the selection of a packaged holiday. The fundamental strategy to use is therefore
the exploitation of linguascape, emotive words or keywords, and in particular of their pre-modifiers, which fire
the tourist’s imagination while reflecting the consumer’s tastes. An analysis of these keywords, as shown that
the type of words used in the 3 different periods mainly belongs to nominal groups, apart from the 2011 top
keywords characterized by the verb read and book.
In the 2003 sub-corpus both images and evaluation are absent, so that the web-page corresponds to an
informative brochure uploaded on the net. Here the prominent key parts of the speech are:
o proper nouns, referring to the destination being described
o common nouns, used when practical information is given
o general adverbs, used as modifiers to mitigate directives, and locative adverbs, with a deictic
function, guiding the reader in the text and throughout the location
o the person pronouns I and us (representing the tourist board stuff)
o modals, mostly occurring in the epistemic and dynamic modalities
o infinitive forms, describing the social experience of a holiday. They can be divided in the categories of
fulfilling, of lodging, of perception, of investigation, of the admire verb-class, of inherently directed
motion, of creation and transformation, of social interaction, of perception
o adverbs introducing appositional constructions such as for example and e.g., that are used to give
instructions to the reader to surf the web-page and is indicative of the novelty of digital
communication
In the 2007-2008 sub-corpus the relationship between images and texts is much more evident, through an
alternation of visual and verbal elements. Here the prominent key parts of the speech are:
o Common and proper nouns
o Cardinal numbers, which are an innovation and have an extremely high keyness. They include month
names, cardinal numbers referring to dates, adverbs of time, all seeming to deictically create a context
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o Genitive forms, another novelty, with most of them referring to the destination, indicating a
personification of the location
o Verbs in the third person singular
o Adjectives, that are very important since they aid the emotional impact, that is responsible for positive
evaluation. There are static, dynamic adjective, which convey a connotative sense, that is the writer
subjective perception. These adjectives bridge the gap between the know reality of the potential tourist’s
world and the unknown cultural universe belonging to the destination, imposing its stereotypical imagery.
In doing so, they supply a sense of safety to tourists and satisfy their expectations.
In the 2011 sub-corpus tourist communication on the net has non-verbal components. Here the prominent
key parts of the speech are:
o Determiners (articles)
o Common and proper nouns
o We-links, which are a novelty and are suggest the idea that tourists are viewed as an interactive and
sophisticated audience who know what to look for, so it is up to them to decide to go on reading by
clicking on the link or not.
o Part participle and past simple lexical verbs, that are exploited in order to enhance the location’s
credibility and reliability. In using them, texts are transformed in a sort of travelogue.
o Comparatives, among which more is used to form cluster patterns such as for more information, find
out more.
In the 2020 sub-corpus the prominent keyparts are:
o High frequency of singular and plural nouns referring to tourists/travellers, accommodation and food
o Common nouns provide information; proper nouns refer to destinations to be visited
o New prominent words never listed before are virtual and online, linked to the fact that covid-19
forced a lot of activities to be temporarly moved online
o Also emoticons appear  they do not activate meaning from a linguistic but from a visual perspective
o Prepositions mainly refer to movement and position
9.6 Writing reviews on Tripadvisor
People now use the web to provide information and Tripadvisor is one of the most powerful tool to give
a review. A review is a post-trip genre produced directly by the tourist; it is usually very short, written
in first person and rich of evaluative adjectives, both positive and negative. It is a testimony technique
which can influence travel decisions. For that reason, it is also a powerful tool for the tourism industry;
tour operators can immediately know tourists’ expectations and consequently use the proper language
tools. A review becomes in this sense both a form of testimony and promotion, making tourists
prosumers.

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