Abstract

Expression of visual image via brochures, billboards, TV commercials, newspapers, movies, etc. has been widely applied into promotion of tourism products, urban landscape, natural scenery, tourist destinations, and even changed communication way between tourist information and potential visitors. Many scholars have made substantial and valuable researches on still images, however, moving images are very critical to tourism industry, and should be further researched and attended academically.

It has been verified and proven from researches of some scholars that movie makes important influence on tourism experience, travel motivations, destination marketing and other aspects as one of dynamic image expressions; however, under different cultural backgrounds, a movie conveys different connotations, but orientalism reason is rarely considered by scholars. In addition, many scholars only consider movie as an influential factor, and few pay attentions to the language and meaning or cultural connotation conveyed by a movie itself. Therefore, the paper interprets two versions of the Chinese movie “Romance on Lushan Mountain”, which production time was separated by three decades, and competitively studies difference in expression and image establishment of the tourist destination Lushan between two versions.

Visual analysis method is applied to textual interpretation of the movie; it is shown from results the visual image of Lushan, the tourist destination in the movie, is both adhered and also carried forward through such two versions. The first version focuses on local natural beauty, and integrates values ??of love and historical background into the tourist attractions closely, thus making wide and lasting impact on tourists; the second version highlights to establish an emotional connection with the previous version, and enriches other images of the destination in addition to natural scenery, where modern city life and truelove are combined in the image promotion of tourist destination; however, from the point of expression method, the second version is excessively commercialized, and criticized as a formulaic and conventional story, which influence is poorer than the previous versions.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.