Morocco in Cinema: Between Global Fantasies and Local Realities in Shaping Tourism Image Destination

Abstract

Tourism can be considered as a business model that is built on selling images that seeks to fuel imagination with seductive and exotic visions of “a lost paradise on earth”. These images can be a byproduct from intentional and chosen marketing strategies and from incidental portrayals shared through other various types of media.Cinema finds itself as one of the key contributors in constructing the touristic image of a territory, thanks to its vital ability to influence tourism through the representation of places and territories. It has the power to transform unknown destinations into the next must see locations by mobilizing various compelling narratives or by showcasing scenes that ignites the curiosity of the audience.Given the direct impact of cinema on how destinations are perceived, this papers aims to explore the difference and dichotomy between Moroccan representations in foreign and local films, and their influence on shaping the image of the destination through the Barthes’ semiotic model of analysis. The objective resides in identifying the elements that build those representations, compare them to identify and uncover the fragments of reality within cinematic imagination.