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The mysterious character of the commodity-form consist therefore simply in the
fact that the commodity reflects the social characteristics of men’s own labour
as the objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the
socio-natural properties of these things (Balibar 2007, p. 57)
This general characteristic of the commodity also applies for
production and consumption in the realm of tourism. Indeed, one could
describe the whole business of tourism as a process of commodification by
which use values are converted into touristic exchange values. The original
use value of an old church is religious, but it may be transformed into a
tourist commodity with an added exchange value as a tourist attraction. A
location is just where people live their lives, but it may become a tourist
destination if it manages to appear with touristic exchange value on the
tourism market. Without tourism commodification, places and whatever
their amenity values cannot be sold on the tourist market. The river close
to Varmahlíð is just a river, but it may be used for river rafting. The
ontological trick that has to be performed by those in the tourism industry
is then to transform things and services into commodities, often called
tourism products, which one can put a price tag on. Negri, linking tourism
to image frustratingly and critically remarks that “[c]orruption of the
image has now found an extension in the universal prostitution represented
by tourism” (Negri 2008, p. 63).
Of crucial importance is that tourism commodities are very much
consumed as experiences, i.e. their exchange value lies in the experience
delivered. At the same time, it is not altogether easy to commodify
experiences, for example of a landscape or a tourist attraction. These are
spatially fixed assets that cannot as such be sold and bought. A major part
of tourism commodification thus consists of developing products that are
either supplements to the real and instant tourism experience, like a
souvenir, or lead people towards a scripted experience with trails and
interpretations set in place. This illustrates a fundamental “parasitic”.
feature of tourism, i.e. that it eats at the table of others. To a relatively
large extent tourism is dependent upon on other resources, such as roads,
whales, houses, natural environments etc. For tourism to occur, these need
to be appropriated and commodified for specific touristic purposes.
The commodification of tourism has not only been understood in
terms of use value and exchange value, but also as symbolic value. This
refers to tourists assigning something with symbolic value, for example as
“typical”, “beautiful”, “authentic”, or being able to tell friends back home
about their travel adventures. The creation and usage of symbolic value in
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