Modes of engagement with a national
landscape:
Perception and representation of Exmoor
National Park and impact on the local
tourism economy
Tim Wilkinson
CBC Research Showcase, 8th June 2011
Awareness of National Parks in England and Wales
Relatively high
awareness
(GfK NOP, 2007)
National Parks ever visited in England and Wales
Relatively
low
visitation
(GfK NOP, 2007)
Tourism
geographies
Dan James, Sustainable
Economy Officer
non-representational
theory: practice,
performance, embodiment
Place
reproduction
Human
Geography/
Sociology
Exeter University
This project
Tourist Studies
Media Studies
Study of
representational
Narrative/
practice
Discourse
analysis
Historical Geography
National Park
Movement
Exmoor
landscape
Nonvisitor
research
Tourist
motivations
analysis
History of
tourism
Insights from Tourist Studies and Tourism Geography
Concrete, practical, physical reasons for non-visits:
 Lack of transport, lack of time, competition from other activities
 Quantifiable
Intrinsic-terminal reasons for non-visits:
 Abstract needs, personal values, enduring beliefs, social constraints
 Qualities
(Prentice and Davis 1995)
Representations shape, and are part of, tourist practice
 Mediating texts like guidebooks, websites, television and film and
newspaper articles reproduce tourist places in certain ways
Encoded into representation are discourses and cultural narratives
 These select and omit various parts of the physical referent, legitimising and
excluding certain sorts of tourist practice
Modes of Engagement with a National Landscape
Working towards generating data about intrinsic terminal/personal
reasons for non/visits to Exmoor will provide academic insights into
relationships and engagements with national landscapes
Tourist perceptions of Exmoor are part of a longer socio-cultural history
which has established a repertoire of ways of seeing and ways of being-in
the ‘natural environment’
Interactions between tourists, representations and Exmoor-as-a-physical
place result in various modes of engagement with Exmoor and these can
be seen to rework past social, cultural and political identities and praxes
Methodology
Phase 1: Study of representations of Exmoor
• contemporary online promotional images
• historical tourist representations, films, mass media, social media
 Aim: to link discourses/narratives about Exmoor to modes of
engagement with Exmoor
Phase 2: Study of modes of engagement with Exmoor
• focus groups with under-represented groups
• ethnographic work at gateway towns (e.g. Minehead, Barnstable)
 Aim: to understand how representational practice shapes physical
engagements/ visitation behaviour
Thank you – any questions?
• Research presented here was conducted during an ESRC Studentship
under its Capacity Building Clusters Award (RES-187-24-0002) in
partnership with Exmoor National Park Authority.
• For more information about this project and the work of the Centre for
Sport, Leisure and Tourism research, see www.ex.ac.uk/slt.
• Tim Wilkinson, tjw208@exeter.ac.uk.