American Perceptions of Sicily as a Tourist Destination as Experienced Through Film

This study examines the ways in which residents in the United States perceive Sicily as a tourist destination based on representations of the island encountered through commercial cinema. Twelve participants viewed trailers or clips of twelve feature films and then rated their impressions of the people, places, activities, and moods of each piece. They then responded to an open-ended question about whether what they saw made them want to go to Sicily. Next, I reviewed each participant’s responses with them to investigate their perceptions further. I mix the findings of this process with insights gleaned from the literature on film-induced tourism as well as from analyses of the films themselves. Il presente lavoro, utilizzando la letteratura sul cineturismo, esamina i modi in cui i residenti negli Stati Uniti percepiscono la Sicilia come destinazione turistica basata sulle rappresentazioni dell’Isola attraverso il cinema commerciale. Dodici persone hanno visionato i trailers o i clip di dodici film e poi hanno valutato le impressioni delle persone, i luoghi, le attività e gli stati d’animo di ogni singolo. Hanno poi risposto ad una domanda che aveva come obiettivo la raccolta delle loro impressioni e percezioni e l’eventuale motivazione che li potrebbe spingere a visitare la Sicilia.