Chapter 15 - “Borneo, Nature's Paradise”: Constructions and Representations of Nature within Nature-based Tourism

Abstract

As a form of economic activity, nature-based tourism requires that nature be transformed into a commodity which can be readily sold to prospective tourists and a powerful way by which this commodification of nature can be achieved is through the visual and textual imagery contained in tourism media such as marketing and promotional material, postcards and published tour guides. The images contained in these media evoke Western cultural mythologies and ideas about nature and in so doing, create interconnections between the ‘wild’ places of the world, often but not always located in the ‘East’ and 'south’ in the Western imagination. This chapter focuses on the visual and textual imagery employed in tourist brochures, published tour guides and postcards that serve to construct and represent Bornean nature to Western tourists.