Translating sustainability in tourism promotional texts.

Practices of persuasion through language are believed to enhance the decisions of addressees and the image a destination has on the customer, as language enhances the associations that tourists draw to the destination. The purpose of this article is to look at how sustainability is realised linguistically in tourism texts, sprung from the general turn towards alternative, soft types of tourism, as an antidote to years of what is called mass tourism and “irresponsible” practices. Through the examination of Greek-English parallel texts and pairs of translated official tourism texts, drawing on notions such as the tourist gaze (Urry, 1990/2002/2011), notions of strangehood and authenticity as well as the construction of host/tourist roles, this article seeks to explore linguistic choices promoting values linked to alternative/soft types of tourist activity. Differences across languages are believed to reveal cultural variation in the promotion of sustainable practices.