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Encyclopedia of Tourism pp 586–587Cite as

Marker

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Understanding the tourist experience and consumption of products has been a challenging focus of interest for decades. Through the lens of traditional semiotics, MacCannell argues that attractions consist of a tourist, a sight, and a marker, a piece of information about a sight (1976:41). Markers form an essential component of attractions, for they project meaning and signify it as a place worth visiting and create expectations about a place (Leiper 1990). Without markers, attractions would have no meaning and consequently be of no interest to tourists. Culler defines them as “any kind of information or representation that constitutes a sight as a sight” (Culler 1988:5).

Leiper (1990) identified three geographic locations of markers: in the source market (generating markers), in transit (transit markers), or in the destination (contiguous markers). MacCannell (1976) suggests a simpler classification based on “on-site” and “off-site” markers. The former offers explanations about the...

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References

  • Culler, J. 1988 The Semiotics of Tourism. In Framing the Sign: Criticism and its Institutions, J. Culler, ed., pp.1-10. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

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  • Leiper, N. 1990 Tourist Attractions Systems. Annals of Tourism Research 17:367-384.

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  • MacCannell, D. 1976 The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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  • McKercher, B., and C. Wong 2013 Web Markers for Various Tour Products: The Case of Hong Kong. Tourism Management Perspectives 8:126-130.

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  • Pretes, M. 1995 Postmodern Tourism: The Santa Claus Industry. Annals of Tourism Research 22:1-15.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17 Science Museum Road, Hong Kong, China

    Philipp Wassler & Bob McKercher

Authors
  1. Philipp Wassler
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  2. Bob McKercher
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philipp Wassler .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, USA

    Jafar Jafari

  2. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    Honggen Xiao

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Wassler, P., McKercher, B. (2016). Marker. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01384-8_569

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