American Perceptions of Sicily as a Tourist Destination as Experienced Through Film

Thomas J. Puleo

doi:10.6092/issn.2036-5195/4961

Authors

Thomas J. Puleo Arizona State University

Thomas J. Puleo is an assistant professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. He researches the roles that landscapes play in the resilience of places at multiple scales and takes a transdisciplinary approach to studying them. Within these framings, he focuses on the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and privileges the functions that art and architecture fulfill in place resilience.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2036-5195/4961

Keywords:

Film, Representation, Tourism, Sicily, United States

Abstract

This study examines the ways in which residents in the United States perceive Sicily as a tourist destination based on representations of the island encountered through commercial cinema. Twelve participants viewed trailers or clips of twelve feature films and then rated their impressions of the people, places, activities, and moods of each piece. They then responded to an open-ended question about whether what they saw made them want to go to Sicily. Next, I reviewed each participant’s responses with them to investigate their perceptions further. I mix the findings of this process with insights gleaned from the literature on film-induced tourism as well as from analyses of the films themselves.

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American Perceptions of Sicily as a Tourist Destination as Experienced Through Film

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