Literary Visitors’ Experience to the Edensor Village

DOI

10.2991/icoborot-18.2019.3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

literary tourism, authenticity, UK’s visit experience, Andrea Hirata

Abstract

This research paper explores the visitors’ experience of the Edensor village (UK). The primary question is how visitors experience the place (Edensor village) and what they have experienced there. The research project was inspired by reading Andrea Hirata’s works, particularly the Edensor novel (firstly published at 2007). Related studies (i.e., Squire, 1994; Herbert, 2001; Busby & Klug, 2001; Stieble, 2007) were consulted; and to walk in their footsteps a phenomenological approach using depth interviews was followed. The interviews; were conducted with Indonesian participants, who lived in the UK and had visited the Edensor village. Participants; known as fans had read the Hirata’s novel and were inspired to visit Edensor whilst non fans had been motivated to visit by other media such as Laskar Pelangi’s movie and shared experiences of fans that an Indonesia author had visited Edensor. We, therefore, wanted to explore the differences in the visitor experience. The findings showed that the visitor experience of fans has been primarily motivated by their reading of Edensor novel which shaped their preconception of the Edensor, prior to their visit and their perspectives whilst experiencing it. The fans and non-fans responded differently regarding the meanings they consumed during their visit to Edensor with fans recreating and understanding the meanings of places and spaces based on the novel. On the other hand, non-fans developed their own meanings. It was also found that authenticity is needed by fan visitors; who expect to be transported into and feels feel experiences they had read about in the book. Non-fan visitors do not have prior expectations. It is recommended for the tourism business related to include literary tourism within their longer-term strategy, promote themselves through many media channels, and encourage visitors to share their experiences through media; particularly when referring to Edensor as this inspired non-fans to visit. Methodically, without identifying and separating participants by fans and non-fans during data gathering process provided us with a more interesting output, both theoretically and practically.

Copyright

© 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Misran
AU  - Alexandra J Kenyon
PY  - 2019/12
DA  - 2019/12
TI  - Literary Visitors’ Experience to the Edensor Village
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st International Conference One Belt, One Road, One Tourism (ICOBOROT 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 157
EP  - 161
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icoborot-18.2019.3
DO  - 10.2991/icoborot-18.2019.3
ID  - 2019/12
ER  -