Accessibility through the Staging of Authenticity in Tourist Discourse

The present chapter aims to highlight some aspects of the role of authenticity in creating accessible tourist discourse. First of all, we will describe how authenticity in tourism discourse is carried out in the construction of tourist identity, and how accessibility is determined and established in the portrayal of a destination identity. The linguistic perspective will be used to describe forms of evaluation, exaltation of cultural uniqueness of destination, and rhetorical features. Following such traditional rendition of tourist discourse, the chapter will aim at presenting the cultural studies perspective to consider how narration and the narrative paradigm can be a useful tool of analysis within the research framework of authenticity and accessibility of tourism discourse. Some examples of tourist representation analysed within such perspective will be given.