Question:
Discuss a particular genre/ form of historical writing. Use a case study of your choice to examine the specific conventions of the genre you chose.
Travelogue is one of the forms of historical writing. It is used to describe travel in a particular country or a particular person’s travels, writing about “the other”, i.e. foreign countries and their inhabitants. The context and motivation for this genre has been changed in different centuries.
In the 18th century, the scientific travel writing tried to legitimize the colonialism and exploitation over the “backward”, “inferior” countries. Then, at the end of 18th century, the sentimental travel writing discussed more about personal experience as a tale of adventures. When the time came to 19th century, the romantic travel writing tried to balance science and sentiment, information and experience. However, nowadays, most of the travel writings are aimed at making profits through commodification. I am going to use the “Lonely Planet” as a case study of the modern form of travelogue.
Lonely Planet is one of the most influential and the leading travelogue in the world. It extends its travelogue writing into varies forms: the “Lonely Planet Guide”, the television channel and the website (http://lonelyplanet.com/). All of them attract a lot of audience as a guide for traveling. Since the television channel only presents the live- show of the journalists which is hard to discuss about. Thus, I will focus more on the written form of the Lonely Planet, the guide and the website.
Lonely Planet began in the early 1970s. The founders were Tony and Maureen Wheeler. They wrote the first Lonely Planet guidebook- “Across Asia on the Cheap” after they completed an overland journey from London through Asia and on to Australia. This laid the foundations of one of the world’s leading independent travel publisher.
From its website, we can find that it aims at bringing people together, understanding our world and sharing experiences that enrich everyone’s lives. It also wants to “inspire people to explore, have fun, and travel often”. And they “strive to provide travelers everywhere with reliable, comprehensive and independent travel information”.
It also states its principles on the website. It regards travel as a powerful force for tolerance and understanding. It wants to promote a “correct” behavior to the travelers i.e. travel with awareness, respect and care. It emphasizes the subjectivity and justice by claiming that it won’t accept any endorsements, advertising or kickbacks. Its authors do not accept payment of favours in return for any positive reviews. After introduction of the history and principles of Lonely Planet, I will describe the content of the guide, and then the website.
The Lonely Planet guide is a tradition written form of travelogue. It normally introduces one country as once. For examples, Britain, Ireland, Spain and China. Sometimes, if the country has not enough information for publishing a guide, it combines with other countries nearby such as Russia & Belarus, Middle East, Eastern Europe etc. The guide is mainly divided into several parts. They are “introduction” of that or those particular country or countries, “regional facts for the visitor”, “activities”, “getting there & away”, “getting around”, “facts about the place” and the maps of the place.
“Introduction” gives a very brief basic ideas or news about the place. “Regional facts for the visitor” provides all kinds of details of visiting the place such as how to get visas, where is the embassies, the currency, time, accommodation, how to get food and drink etc. “Activities” describes the popular outdoor activities that you can join such as walking, cycling and fishing. “Getting there & away” provides the information for you to arrive and leave the place. “Getting around” talks about the every kind of transports which you can use within the place. “Facts about the place” introduces the concrete information of the place in all aspects such as its history, economy, geography, climate and culture. The maps are just for the travelers’ use. Then, it follows suit the format and introduce the places one by one.
The website and the guide provide the more or less the same information of traveling. The main differences are surfing the website are free of charge while each of the guide costs quite a sum of money. Besides, you may find many information of varies countries or places on the website at same time. The hyperlinks do the favour for readers in reducing time for searching information. The website provides extra information which cannot be found in the guide. For examples, the history and principles of Lonely Planet, slides show of the places and platform to order any travel services. Furthermore, the website provides more chances for Lonely Planet to make profits. Here, we may see how commodification transforms a nature of a travelogue.
It is still true that Lonely Planet provides a lump sum of travel information. And we may regard it belongs to the romantic travel writing. It includes mass information, gets all the details of the places even those minute things like average costs for a meal. Meanwhile, it focuses on the unique, specialize adventure experience of the authors. The routes tried by the authors are quite different from the dominant commercial travel agents. This can be easily explained by the format of television channel as it always interviews the feeling of the journalists.
Nevertheless, it cannot escape from the trend of commodification. From the website, we can see many advertisements. At the home page, half of the content is related to trade. Lonely Planet B2B and Lonely Planet trade are obviously about trade. “Lonely Planet Images” charges for the download of the high quality photographs of the world. “LP (Lonely Planet) Shop” sells all its products online. “Holiday Gift Guide” again promotes the customers to buy its products as a gift for their friends and families. “Travel services” sells all kinds of transport packages through e-trade.
The popularity of the television channel arouses audience interests on its products. It also helps to develop a privilege position among the travelogues in the world. Nowadays when people want to travel by their own and experience a different travel, they probably get a copy of Lonely Planet. It already establishes an image of special, unique, free-will of travel. People who follow the routes introduced by Lonely Planet also consume its underneath ideology. Increasing consumption results in further commercialization. As the development of its website, the commodification of the travelogue will certainly go on.
References:
Lonely Planet travel survival kit: Britain. (Hong Kong, Colorcraft Ltd., 1995)
Lonely Planet website: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/
注：cus211 考試
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