Pseudo-Authenticity and Tourism

This book explores the concept of authenticity in tourism through the analysis of six tourist sites in Guangdong Province and Macau, China. Through a review of tourism literature, it develops the concept of pseudo-authenticity in which tourist sites and cultural products function to give signs of authenticity for tourists. This is achieved through the influence of media, authentic fakery, and façadism. Readers will gain greater insight into tourist sites in China that operate through cultural preservation, the miniaturization of cultural assets, and the replication of foreign signs through reproductions of foreign cities. The authors outline the tourist sites, an aesthetic analysis, on-site interviews with tourists, and an examination of online reviews of the sites.A useful work for scholars and students of tourism studies in China and around the world, especially those concerned with issues of authenticity and the effects of commodification on cultural assets.

Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman is Associate Professor of International Journalism and the Head of the Department of Communication at Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College. Lihua Chen is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication of the joint research postgraduate programme of Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College and Hong Kong Baptist University.