Enhancing destination image on tourism brochure of Barru Regency Sulawesi Selatan, Indonesia: A tourism discourse perspective

Along with the growth of tourism, tourism brochure has become the main resource for assessing information about the potential tourist destinations. Hence tourism brochure is a highly significant domain in enhancing destination image, which is posing challenges for the tourism industry. By focusing on the tourism brochure of Barru Regency Sulawesi Selatan, Indonesia, this paper attempts to examine how the tourism brochures portray the tourist attractions of the country. Adopting a discourse approach, the analysis was carried out on both language and visual elements. This paper discusses the lack of research on tourism promotional media, particularly on the effects of language and visual elements in tourism brochure in enhancing the destination\u27s image and reproducing discourses for the tourists. Using discourse analysis, text and visual imaginary from tourism brochures are selected for investigation. Lexical and syntactical choices in the brochures are the focus of textual analysis. Accordingly, main concepts in visual analysis such as modality and salience are also reviewed. The finding shows that language and visual imaginary are the important elements employed in the tourism brochures of Barru Regency, yet do not manage to represent the destination fully