| Symbols are perceptions that are considered to carry meanings and are the carrier of social culture.As early as in the ancient Greek period,the problem of symbols had aroused the attention of scholars;some literature in the pre-Qin period of China had already explored symbolic phenomena."Semiotics" in the modern sense originated from the West.It is the science of studying symbols and their systems as a mode of communication.It became an independent discipline in the 1960 s and gradually developed and expanded in France,the United States,and the former Soviet Union.It was introduced into China in the 1980 s.Since the 21 st century,Western semiotics has entered a period of accelerated development and application,opening up entirely new areas of interdisciplinary research.The contemporary society has already transitioned from Commodity society to Landscape society and Symbolic society.It has evolved from the functional consumption of objects to the pursuit of symbolic and cultural consumption and has become a "Symbolic consumption society." According to this development trend,some domestic and foreign scholars have applied semiotic methods to tourism research,opened up new research fields,and conducted many useful explorations.Tourist landscapes are the main objects of tourist consumption activities,and important components of tourism attraction function as well.They are often given the "Signifier" and "signified" functions,and become symbols that visitors can intuitively grasp.In the post-tourism era,symbols have infiltrated all the processes of production,dissemination,consumption,experience,and evaluation of tourist landscapes,bringing with them profound influences.Hani Terraces is known as a "Sacred place of light and shade" and attracts photographers and tourists from all over the world.The Hani Terraces cultural landscape reflects the unique local cultural features of the Hani people.It has its own complete symbol system and reflects distinctive semiotic features.After being listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2013 as "Honghe Hani Terraced Field Cultural Landscape in China",the number of local visitors has developed into a blowout style due to the increase in popularity.With the government-led management and business participation,after years of hard work,the cultural connotation of Hani Terraces landscape has been further enriched.It has went through the stage of free symbols,image-language symbols,and public experience symbols;undergone the procedure of "tourism development— tourism combination— tourism marketing — tourism perception— tourism experience— tourism reproduction";while at the same time it has completed the construction of "symbolic encoding— symbolic transmission— symbolic propagation— symbolic reception— symbolic interpretation — semiotic evaluation".However,the overall development of local tourism is still at a relatively elementary stage,which is not commensurate with the status of World Cultural Heritage.What is particularly worthy of attention is that under the "tourist gaze" of tourists,under the influence of official media and tourism propaganda,the terraces landscape is constructed as a stereotyped visual image symbol,showing obvious symbolization,one-sidedness,superficiality and distortion tendency.Although this symbolization adds a certain amount of additional symbolic value to the tourism landscape,it will help to increase awareness and facilitate the overall marketing of the scenic spot;on the other hand,it also brings obvious negative effects,such as alienation between the hosts and guests,lack of discourse power and self-identity of the hosts,limited tourism participation and benefits of the hosts,uneven tourist season(temporal division),uneven distribution of tourist hot spots(spatial division),short tour time,lack of tourist participation and creation,affection of tourist experience authenticity,lack of "cultural core" in tourist town construction,and it is not conducive to the sustained and healthy development of local tourism.The development of tourism landscape is a transitional process of "material resource" to "symbolic capital" and "symbolic power".The promotion of tourism landscape symbols has a positive effect on the realization of stakeholders’ interest objectives.Under the role of symbolic capital and symbolic power,there will be various levels of interest games among various stakeholders,which need to be managed effectively.This study starts from the perspective of semiotics and comprehensively applies the relevant theories and research methods of sociology,anthropology,and tourism management.Based on field surveys,network images and online evaluation data analysis,this study analyzed the semiotic construction process and its impacts of Hani Terraces landscape.It is pointed out that the current Hani terraces landscape development has changed from language image symbols to public experience symbols and personal experience symbols,from single symbols to multiple symbols,from one-way symbols to interactive symbols,from quotidian symbols to artistic and poetic symbols.Based on the leadership of the government and tourism management department,combining with the local practices,this study proposed the promotion methods of tourist landscape symbols,constructed a stakeholder-based interactive semiotic management model,by enhancing the creative participation of hosts and guests and changing the promotional model of the tourism media.The interest appeals are centered and coordinated with each other,while multi-dimensional semiotic interactions are conducted in this model.At the same time,third-party forces such as NGO,industry associations,and scholars are introduced to provide semiotic advice and services for local tourism development.This model is expected to take into account the appeals of different stakeholders as far as possible,meet the needs of various stakeholders and maximize the sustainable development of the Hani Terraces World Heritage Landscape under the premise of protecting and enhancing the local ecology and culture.This article has some innovations in research perspectives and research methods,enriches and supplements the related theories of semiotics and cultural heritage tourism management research,and has a certain practical value,hoping to provide references for tourism development and management of other cultural heritage landscapes. |
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