Tourism Discourse Analysis and UNESCO websites: Sicily and Malta

Abstract

It has long been recognised that a positive relationship exists between UNESCO World Heritage Sites and tourism (Buckley, 2002; Mondini, Re, 2012; Patuelli, Mussoni, Candela, 2012; Frey, Pamini, Steiner, 2013; Cuccia, Guccio, Rizzo, 2014). More specifically, many UNESCO sites are popular tourist destinations. However, relatively little research has been undertaken to explore the type of Tourist Destination Image (Gunn, 1972; Crompton, 1979: 18; Embacher & Buttle, 1989;Echtner& Ritchie, 1991; Gartner, 1993; Baloglu& McCleary, 1999; MacKay & Fesenmaier, 2000; Buhalis, 2000; Beerli & Martín, 2004) that English as specialised and promotional discourse in the tourism field (Dann, 1996; Gotti, 2006; Maci, 2013; 2020) conveys to potential tourists through UNESCO websites, despite not being specifically devised as promotional material. In particular, very little comparative research analysis has been undertaken on Sicilian and Maltese UNESCO websites. The purpose of this work is to address this gap in knowledge.