关键词: 旅游; 本质; 政府文件; 话语分析

Abstract:

What is tourism is the fundamental question of tourism research and the basis for various stakeholders to dialogue together, yet it has not been soundly responded. In the context of China, the government plays a significant role in tourism development. With the purpose of exploring the government’s comprehension of tourism, the paper used the method of Discourse Analysis to analyze the documents about tourism published by the State Council and National Tourism Administration in recent years. The findings indicate that in most of the government’s documents, tourism is regarded as a kind of consumption activity which is the summation of a series of activities associated with tourism, and an economical industry. Namely, the economic attribute is considered to be the nature of tourism. However, the government turns its attention to the social welfare function of tourism and the individual experience feature of tourism recently. With regard to the scope of tourism, the results show that it includes tourist activities and tourist industry, while tourist activities include leisure, recreation, outdoor sports and so on referred to in academia. As for the relevance of tourism, government pays more attention to the development and construction of tourism, tourists’ rights, especially the tourist safety and the quality of tourism service, and the protection of the ecological environment and tourism resources. Though the nature and the scope of tourism comprehended by the government are inconsistent to the comprehension of most scholars, it is reasonable from the analysis of discourse, which implies that the government is affected by the government functions.

Keywords: tourism; nature; government’; s documents; discourse analysis