Symbolic Communication Of Regional Tourism Brand To Build Analysis

In a consumption time, tourism marketing is on a large extent decided by consumers' demand. Tourism destination's brand is a common language in a consumption society. In order to meet the consumers'demand, it is necessary to build the brand not only through material substance, but also through the symbolic message. Communicating semeiology is becoming more and more important in today's society. From the aspects of Theory of Communicating Semeiology, brand of tourism destination is a symbol related to a given objects with particular meanings for communication and consumption. However, the current situation of tourism destination brand building is not optimistic. It is in an awkward position:popular on mass media, disdained by scholars and researchers, neglected when marketing tourism destinations. For these reasons, this paper focused on the brand building problems of regional tourism destination with the application of the Theory of Communicating Semeiology.The subject, the content, the methodology as well as the approaches of this research were influenced by the western trends of thought such as the "cultural turn" and "visual cultural turn". In the subject section, issues were analyzed by the thoughts of diachrony and synchrony. Comparison method was adopted in this full text. Specifically, from the view points of diachrony, the development history of the sample of tourism destinations was reviewed and analyzed. The trends and patterns of symbols, representing tourism destinations in two kinds of tourism markets, were discussed and analyzed. From the view points of synchrony, three core elements were extracted from the symbolic system of tourism destination. These elements were related to the key questions of semeiology:the meaning of symbols(s-s), the objective concept of symbols(s-w), consumer's consumption and understanding of symbols (u-s). Finally, the results of the diachronic and synchronic analysis, along with the dynamic development of tourism destination brand, were used to give suggestion on the management of destination brand.There are major conclusions from this study:1) Based on the related researches of theory of communicating semeiology, a "three bodies, two wings" symbolic system of tourism destination was constructed. A dynamic formula of tourism destination brand management was set up. The symbolic system of tourism destination concluded three parts:tourism advertisement (representatum), tourism destination(object), tourists'consumption and interpretation of tourism destination(interpretant).2) Based on the diachronic analysis of symbols of Chinese tourism destinations, a number of trends and disciplines were discovered. In the domestic market, the symbolic system of tourism destination is getting more complicated and diversified. In this stage, the rapid development of tourism destination was just like a myth composed by the producers (government and administrators), propagators (mass media), and consumers. Three features emerged from the development trends of symbol of tourism destination: for tourists/destinations, from the value "in use" to the value of "symbol"; for medias/destinations, from the concrete "properties of materials" to abstract "life style"; for information communication/authorities, from "ideology" to "imagology". Compared with the great changes happened in domestic tourism market, the symbolic changes of Chinese destinations happened in western countries were relatively small. China has changed a lot, however, because of the ingrained differences existed in eastern and western culture, the perception of western tourists about China was still as a oriental cultural, exotic and primitive country. Nevertheless, the phenomena of "two images, one China" on western medias had gradually influenced the initial image of China.3) To analyze the question of "symbol as a representation for tourism destination" from the first aspect of symbolic system, it was argued that the tourism symbol of Shannxi was coincided with the object property. Perfect tourism setting was constructed by the symbols of tourism promotion throughout Shannxi province. It was constructed as a delicate, lovely, hospitable place. It was hard to find anything ugly. These features indicated that tourism destination had been commercialized in the process of producing the tourism handbooks. It indirectly affected the society of tourism destination. Meanwhile, when designing tourism symbolic, all kinds of symbols, especially the visual symbols and the oral symbols, should be matched with the destination.4) As to answer the question of "what is the symbol of tourism destination" from the second aspect of synchronic analysis, it was indicated that a picture of tourism landscape with mixture of historical humanism, nature scenery, delicious food, folk-custom and characteristics had been displayed on medias by the tourism symbols of Shannxi tourism. However, symbols were different when tourism promotions implemented in domestic market compared with international market, or published on official medias compared with unofficial medias.5) As to analyze "tourists'consumption and interpretation of tourism destination" from third aspect of symbolic system, cognitions, interpretation of symbols, tourism consumptions were different when comparing tourists from western countries as well as those from eastern countries. The behaviors of tourism spots choosing of these two kinds of tourists were accord with the theory of long tail. A good basis was provided for tourism promotion on internet. Ten classical symbols were interpreted and the influence of cultural value on tourism experience was examined. The results of diachronic analysis were confirmed.6) As far as the management of tourism destination's brand was concerned, first of all, the inner relationships of tourism destinations should be cataloged. Secondly, attentions should be paid to the accouplement of four elements of the symbolic system of tourism destination's brand, which means that the three scopes of diachronic analysis should coordinated with both trends and current situation.Innovations of this paper were mainly conclude as follows:1) The meaning of brand was decomposed by the methods of theory of Communicating semeiology. Symbolic system of tourism destination branding was constructed, and the accouplement of four elements were argued as the key issues of tourism branding management.2) A new angle and practical methods of operation were provided by the analysis of the accordance of tourism symbols with its brands.3) Approaches of diachronic as well as synchronic analysis were integrated.