The development process of the Nanki-Shirahama Spa Resort and images of other places: A consideration of the production of tourism space in the modern period

Abstract

This paper examines the development process of Nanki-Shirahama Spa Resort, located in southern Wakayama Prefecture in the modern period, in terms of its association with images of other places. In this paper, an attempt is made to examine the triple relationships of "tourism", "otherness", and the "spatiality of capitalism", current concepts stemming from the "cultural turn". To understand the images of other places in tourism space, such images are characterized into two dimensions and their mutual relationship is analyzed. In the first dimension, the image of the tourism space as an "other" place contrasts with images of ordinary and familiar places. In the second dimension, images of geographically remote "other" places are evoked in the imagination. Thus, tourism space becomes the site of "other" encounters. Since the modern period is an age of globalism and nationalism, images which imply a connection to distant "other" places tend to evoke desires and idyllic thoughts and contribute to national identity, and are thus more suitable as the core image of tourism space than one which merely contrasts with ordinary images. In addition, liminal place-myths are more easily formed by this core image through combining a set of images in tourism space. This study aims to further understand the relationship between images of other places and the material creation of tourism space. H. Lefebvre's work (1991) on the outline of space recognition in "The production of space" was therefore consulted. In short, the production of tourism space is treated as a triple dialectic of spatial practice, representation of space and space of representation. Using R. W. Butler's hypothesis (1980) of a tourist area cycle of evolution, three evolutionary stages of the modern tourism space are distinguished: exploration, involvement, and development. The relationship between the images of other places and the process of producing tourism space is considered for each stage.