Fourth International Conference on Tourism and Leisure Studies

Abstract

Starting with the end of World War II Hawai’i transformed from an exclusive holiday destination available to only a small segment of the US-American population into an accessible dream destination of the masses. The islands’ conception as a symbol of paradise solidified and Hawai’i functioned as projection space that amalgamated the people’s desire for leisure, exoticness, adventure, and nativeness. The project focuses on the US-American tourism from the mainland to Hawai’i after World War II. It aims at analyzing the audio-visual touristic imagination(s) of Hawai’i found in advertisements by the tourist industry and companies, in newspaper and journal articles, guidebooks, travelogues, and tonal sound concepts. It addresses numerous aspects of the islands such as Native Hawai’ians, traditional Hawai’ian culture and cultural expressions as well as nature and natural landscape. Key issues addressed are, what kind of touristic image of Hawai’i do the primary sources evoke? Which interpretative patterns, keywords, images, symbolisms, and forms of representation shaped the touristic presentation? Which specific aspects contributed to the presentation and perception of Hawai’i as paradise and dream of the South Seas? The project tries to fill the gap between the conscious promotion of Hawai’i as paradise and the question of the impetus of the pursuit of paradise by focusing on the contentual level of the image evoked and by dealing with the concepts of Self and Other, tourist gaze, performativity, consumption of places, informal imperialism, liminality, and paradisiac ideas.