Abstract
This chapter will focus on media and fan tourism via a case study of a trip made to Florence in Italy which was inspired by fandom of the television series Hannibal. It brings together work on media tourism and fan pilgrimage with wider studies of tourism that explore the importance of food and drink to the tourist experience. In addition, it draws on work on the material cultures of fandom (see Hills 2014) to argue for the importance of analysing the links between fan cultures, media/fan tourism, and consumption.
Studies of Food Tourism have discussed how “food is directly or indirectly connected with specific destinations; it encourages tourists to taste and experience a region’s cuisine. More importantly, researchers indicate that food can be used as a means of marketing and branding a tourism destination” (Lin et al, 2011: 31). However, finding places and experiences specific to Hannibal must be undertaken as an individual act since there is limited official fan tourism in Florence; there are no official TV or film tours there and information on the Florence tourist site is limited to a list of locations used in the 2001 film. The visitor must thus trace their own steps through the city and distinguish between the places utilised in the film and television versions of the story, whilst seeking out culinary experiences most suited to attempts to replicate the practices and tastes of Hannibal.
Drawing on an account of a fan trip to Florence, the chapter will consider how the fan-tourist can seek out and engage in extra-textual practices related to consumption. Drawing on the notion that food and drink functions as a form of media para-text (Gray 2010) the chapter argues that acts of creation and consumption of food and drink offer fans the opportunity to form and maintain affective connections to a fan object and, in the case of fan tourism, inhabit important spaces as well as bodily experiences of consumption. Analysing both the experience of visiting locations from Hannibal and engaging in related fan/tourist culinary activities, the piece considers how “the creation and consumption of food and drink related to a fan object offer avenues for connection, participation and pleasure” (Williams 2015: online) and how doing so in locations related to a favourite media text offers the chance to move one’s fandom from the textual into the bodily and the spatial.
Studies of Food Tourism have discussed how “food is directly or indirectly connected with specific destinations; it encourages tourists to taste and experience a region’s cuisine. More importantly, researchers indicate that food can be used as a means of marketing and branding a tourism destination” (Lin et al, 2011: 31). However, finding places and experiences specific to Hannibal must be undertaken as an individual act since there is limited official fan tourism in Florence; there are no official TV or film tours there and information on the Florence tourist site is limited to a list of locations used in the 2001 film. The visitor must thus trace their own steps through the city and distinguish between the places utilised in the film and television versions of the story, whilst seeking out culinary experiences most suited to attempts to replicate the practices and tastes of Hannibal.
Drawing on an account of a fan trip to Florence, the chapter will consider how the fan-tourist can seek out and engage in extra-textual practices related to consumption. Drawing on the notion that food and drink functions as a form of media para-text (Gray 2010) the chapter argues that acts of creation and consumption of food and drink offer fans the opportunity to form and maintain affective connections to a fan object and, in the case of fan tourism, inhabit important spaces as well as bodily experiences of consumption. Analysing both the experience of visiting locations from Hannibal and engaging in related fan/tourist culinary activities, the piece considers how “the creation and consumption of food and drink related to a fan object offer avenues for connection, participation and pleasure” (Williams 2015: online) and how doing so in locations related to a favourite media text offers the chance to move one’s fandom from the textual into the bodily and the spatial.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Routledge Companion to Media and Tourism |
| Editors | Maria Månsson, Annæ Buchmann, Cecilia Cassinger, Lena Eskilsson |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Chapter | 26 |
| Pages | 277-286 |
| Edition | 1st |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1138366282 |
| Publication status | Published - 23 Jun 2020 |