Culture, identity and tourism representation: marketing Cymru or Wales?

This article attempts to contribute to the development of a critical analys is of tourism representations through an investigation of destination brand ing strategies. Based on an analysis of the marketing campaigns of the Wale s Tourist Board and Welsh local authorities, it argues that the influence o f repressive and liberating historical, political and cultural discourses c an be discerned in the tourism representations used in contemporary brandin g strategies and these explain why Wales is differentially branded in its o verseas and UK markets. Whilst Wales provides the focus for this discussion of the relationship between discourse, tourism representations and destina tion marketing, the same analysis could be applied to representations of ot her tourism destinations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserve d.