Research On Semiotic Construction Of Festival Tourist Attractions

Festival is an important representation of national and local culture,as well as the sign with rich meaning.As a special tourist attraction,the festival helps protect local cultural traditions,develop tourism and promote the economic,social and cultural developments of the destination.The recent growth in the quantity,diversity and popularity of festival has made it an important attraction in tourism industry,which has attracted worldwide recognition and attention.According to incomplete statistics,there are nearly 10,000 festivals held in China every year.However,few festivals successfully attract tourists’ attention and participation,which indicates that most festivals are still not attractive enough.Therefore,it is critical to explore the forming process of festival attraction in terms of the changes of market environment,to better meet the needs of modern tourists.Festivals are cultural celebrations,which have occupied a special position in society.Due to its social and cultural significance of rituals and celebrations,festivals have attracted the attention of sociologists and anthropologists.However,festivals are often regarded as tools for tourism,economic development and local marketing,and correspondingly,the majority of festival tourism studies focus on the economic impact of festivals.The cultural study of festival tourism always lacks a theoretical depth,and the theory of semiotics just provides a new perspective on it.With the vigorous development of tourism industry,researchers have also gradually in-depth study of tourism semiotics and festival tourism,and achieve fruitful research results.Nevertheless,there are few studies on tourism semiotics involving festival tourism,as well as the social and cultural studies of festival tourism.Previous studies have some limitations.Specifically,from the perspective of content,the research on the semiotic construction of tourist attractions is still very limited.Most studies focus on the semiotic construction of landscaped tourism attractions,ignoring the attention on the semiotic construction of festival tourist attractions.The theoretical depth of cultural research on tourism phenomenon is not enough,and the social and cultural research of festivals needs to be improved.From the perspective of methods,research on tourism semiotics mainly focuses on exploratory research,and explanatory research to reveal the internal laws of phenomena still needs to be further supplemented and deepened.Tourist attractions possess objective and symbolic properties,accordingly,the research on tourist attractions focuses on the study of objective properties and symbolic properties.The uniqueness of a festival tourist attraction is that it is centered on the festivalscape,so the objective and symbolic properties are more malleable.Organizers can provide a specific experience to tourists by manipulating the festivalscapes,while tourists can assign meaning based on their experiences.Both of them participate in the process of semiotic construction of a festival tourist attraction.However,how do organizers create festivalscapes? What is the sign production mechanism of festival tourist attractions? How do tourists experience the festivalscapes? How do tourists interpret the meaning of signs? The research on tourist attractions cannot answer the above questions well.Consequently,this paper employs the semiotic theory to define the semiotic construction of festival attractions as a process by which festival organizers and tourists jointly assign meanings to attractiveness.It primarily aims to explore how festival organizers create attractive festivalscapes for sign production,and how tourists participate in these festivalscapes by the organizers for sign interaction through festival experience,and finally how tourists interpret the meaning of signs in the process of sign consumption.The production,interaction and consumption of sign constitute the whole process of semiotic construction of festival tourist attractions.This paper chose the Guangfu Temple Fair as the case to study.In 2011,the Yuexiu District government of Guangzhou held the first Guangfu Temple Fair with the opportunity of rebuilding City God’s Temple.Since then,the scale of the fair has been enlarged and the contents have been constantly adjusted,enriched and innovated,which makes it an annual grand festive occasion for Guangfu folk culture.As the modern festival,the Guangfu Temple Fair has rich activities and strong influence,which provides a typical case for us to explore the attractions of festival tourism.This paper combines observation,interview and questionnaire methods to collect data.The materials we use are the survey from preparation to ending process of the 9th Guangfu Temple Fair,and the preparatory process of the 10 th Guangfu Temple Fair.The obtained materials include the overall plan,publicity draft of the previous Guangfu Temple Fair and interview materials of the main responsible persons,the on-site records of the meeting during the preparatory period of the organizing committee,and the on-site observation records,etc.During the Guangfu Temple Fair,the tourists’ interview materials and field observation records(photos,videos,research logs)were collected at the festival site which bring a more comprehensive understanding to the research.The network information includes official Wechat,Microblog and travel notes of the Guangfu Temple Fair.Besides,we also collected questionnaire survey data from the festival site and network platform.Ultimately,we obtained data of 650,000 words,photos of 1,045 and questionnaires of 761.Content Analysis,Grounded Theory,Semiotics and Statistical analysis are used,combined with NVivo,SPSS and AMOS for data analysis,the following main conclusions are drawn:Firstly,in sign production stage,adhering to the attractiveness concept,the festival organizers create experiential scenes through organizational planning.Guangfu Temple Fair experienced the initial stage of start-up and exploration,the normative stage of undertaking and adjusting as well as the stable stage of maturity and innovation.Organizers are constantly exploring an organization and management mode that can not only promote local culture but also meet the needs of tourism market.There are three changes: festivals concept has changed from adapting to needs to creating needs;festivals body has changed from being contracted by the government to being led by the government;festival content change from ornamental to participatory.These changes make the signs of festival tourism attractions constantly changing.Summarizing the organizer’s sign production process,it is found that the semiotic construction of festival tourism attraction includes four aspects: festival attraction is the foundation;festival organization and management are the paths;the concept of festival planning is the idea;the festivalscape is the content.Specifically,festival organizers,based on their understanding of festival attractiveness,mobilize the enthusiasm of multiple departments,establish a clear organizational structure and organize and manage various resources needed for sign production.Adhering to the planning concepts of promoting traditional culture,focusing on cultural innovation,keeping up with national strategies,and conforming to the trend of the times,they create festivalscapes composed of security,program performance,creative interaction,gourmet snacks,trade fairs,personnel services,auxiliary facilities and festival atmosphere.These festivalscapes are flexible,diverse,and highly creative,which condenses the cultural connotation of the festival.The organizers can continuously adjust it to reflect the uniqueness of the festival culture to enhance the experience of tourists.Secondly,in the stage of sign interaction,tourists carry out cultural,novel,emotional and social experience activities in the festivalscapes full of signs.The participation of tourists is a necessary condition for festivals to become tourist attractions.When tourists enter a temporary liminal experience beyond the daily time and space,they interact with people and things.At this time,the festivalscapes created by the organizer plays the role of carrying the significance of attractiveness.To explore the festival experience in the sign interaction of tourists,this study uses the semiotics method to analyze the photos taken by tourists,and finds that tourists not only passively receive the festivalscapes elements created by the organizers,but also actively create new elements.They pay attention to the participants and building facilities,which shows that tourists are not only simply involved in the scene,but also become an integral part of the scene together with other participants,which intersperses the festivalscapes consciously and unconsciously.Tourists can also learn about the local culture through the characteristic buildings around the festival area.This kind of initiative creation process of tourists makes tourists have cultural,novel,emotional and social festival experiences.This study followed the procedure of scale development to further verify the rationality of the four dimensions of festival experience.These experiences pave the way for tourists’ interpretation of meaning.Thirdly,in the stage of sign consumption,tourists follow the sign interpretation process of "Festival attractiveness-Festival attachment-Festival loyalty".When tourists begin to explore the connotation and significance of festivalscapes,it indicates that they have entered the stage of sign interpretation.Based on the interpretant three-point theory of "immediate interpretant-dynamic interpretant-final interpretant ",the study conducted a coded analysis of the tourist interview data,and found that tourists form the perceived festival attractiveness through interpreting festivalscapes.They believe that festival attractiveness is composed of strong festival atmosphere,harmonious interpersonal interaction,distinct cultural symbols and rich festival activities.This perception promotes tourists to cultivate festival attachment in terms of function,cultural identity and emotion.The formation of "people-festival" attachment promotes the behavior of attracting tourists to festivals to a certain extent,which is manifested in positive word of mouth and willingness to revisit.Therefore,this paper constructs a theoretical model of sign interpretation of festival tourism attractions,which is "Festival attractiveness-Festival attachment-Festival loyalty".To verify the model,we put forward hypotheses combined with relevant literature,and tested the hypothesis through the structural equation model,confirming that perceived festival attractiveness has a positive contribution to festival attachment,and that festival attachment also plays a crucial driving role in tourists’ festival loyalty.The three stages as mentioned above form a complete semiotic construction system of the festival tourist attraction,which will develop along with the periodic holding of festival.In this paper,the Peircean Semiotics Theory is used to explain the formation process of festival tourism attractions.The semiotics theory is extended to the perspective of the meaning transmission of festival attractiveness,and a theoretical model of semiotic construction of festival tourism attraction is proposed.The theoretical model expands the boundary of semiotics and deepens the cultural research of festival tourism.It breaks away from the original semiotic framework of tourism field,and provides a new way to understand the Peircean Semiotics Theory in tourism field.Furthermore,it deepens the previous research that the interpretation of tourism signs stops at the perception of signs,and points out that the interpretation of tourist signs is a dynamic process.This paper constructs and verifies the tourist sign interpretation model,establishes the progressive mechanism that festival attraction affects the formation of festival attachment and then festival loyalty,confirming that tourists are no longer passive recipients,but active creators of festival activities.