Alternative Literature and Tourist Experience: Travel and Tourist Weblogs

The paper explores and initiates the examination and discussion of the cultural andpromotional power of weblogs and blogging. Travel blogging is a form of digitalstory-telling. In the past tourism was considered a luxury of a few select people.Travel narratives were published and publicised in the form of brochures, monologues, newspaper accounts, novellas, novels, sketches and paintings. As the worldevolved and travel became available to greater groups in society, these writtenstaples captivated and inspired generations. The later part of the 20th century hasear marked the coming of age of Internet technology and traditional forms oftourist communication are being transformed into a more modern electronicversion. The Internet has fostered a recent resurgence in journaling of travel adventures and self publication. Blogs are a visual and written descriptive of the day today excursion of a tourist society. The purpose of this paper is to examine this formof narrative in a modern age and initiate arguments of the discussion within threeinitial paradigms: (1) tourism as a language, (2) tourism as a place of experiences inspace and time and (3) the authenticity of tourism.