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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Le storytelling dans la communication touristique d'un pays : L'exemple de l'Ecosse

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A travel involves money, time and imagination. It plays a significant role in the creation of the tourists’ identities. Theoretically, touristic communication consists of an organization that formulates a message and an audience, who interprets it, with different motivations but at least an interest. This enunciative relation has twists and turns: perceptions, emotions, influences affect the message and change its intended meaning. The people who advertise the destination must consider these gaps in interpretation to incite potential tourists to discover a place. There is a category of communication called “storytelling”, especially with the contribution of local people, which presents testimonials of real characters, as speeches of authenticity.Through three websites about Scotland and questionnaires given to potential tourists, we will try to describe their perceptions of the main communication strategies. We will especially focus on the narrative (content) and figurative (expression) fields of storytelling. Does this particular technique have more influence on choices than more pragmatic techniques? The evolution of touristic communication has made “the story” a more central subject than the travel itself. What is storytelling in this trend? Although storytelling by local people conveys an image of the destination and its community, the use of emotions in storytelling does not arouse the interest more than in other techniques, especially because it constraints the imagination too much and does not allow the potential tourist to see himself as a character of the destination story.