The Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam is pleased to announce the publication of IAS Working Paper No. 41: The Portrayal of Rainforests and People in Tourism Promotional Videos by Mizuki Munakata and F. Merlin Franco. Please see below for details.

Abstract: Tourism promotional videos are known to play an important role in shaping destination image which motivates people to travel to the destination. Since destination images create expectations, marketing videos should ideally promote realistic scenarios that the tourist would experience at the destination. Failure to match the communicated destination image with reality would only lead to tourist disappointment. Applying content analysis, we analyse the Brunei Tourism Promotional Video produced by Brunei Tourism in 2012, looking into possible areas where viewers are presented with unrealistic scenarios on Brunei’s rainforests and people. We also look into the Biocultural content of the video, to understand how the biological and cultural diversities of the country has been portrayed. The video is then compared objectively with other prominent videos from the region to generate a comparative understanding. The results show that tourism promotion videos published from Brunei and Indonesia have a significant percentage of unrealistic content.

About the Authors:
Mizuki Munakata is an undergraduate student at Akita International University.

F. Merlin Franco is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He is an ethnobiologist interested in the interrelationship between human culture, language, and biodiversity (Biocultural Diversity).To see more IAS Working Papers, please visit the IAS Working Papers web page.