ABSTRACT
Contemporary tourism is very diverse. Tourists are encouraged to explore the most incredible places on, under, or even above the earth (Lemelin et al., 2013). The opportunities provided by modern technologies push the boundaries of the travel market further each year, helping the market expand its product range (Rifai, 2015). As it expands, the travel sector interacts with other industries. A good example of such expansion is the giant entertainment industry, which has developed rapidly with the help of communication media. PwC’s Cities of Opportunity report from 2015 shows that 30 big urban cities alone are estimated to spend a staggering $184 billion on the entertainment and related media by 2018 with employment at 6.3 million people. Tourists are among the increasing numbers of those in the entertainment and media-driven audiences. Such travel is triggered not only by the real-world images but also by the images from the imaginary worlds (Reijnders, 2011; Shandley, Jamal, & Tanase, 2006). Strange though it may sound, people travelling to such locations are willing to enter the imaginary places of fiction through real places. Jean Baudrillard (1994), to a certain extent, has explained this paradox between reality and simulacra in his work on simulacra and simulation, which speaks of relationships among reality, symbols, and modern society. This paradox in turn has created a phenomenon such as popular culture tourism.
