The flavours of Verona: A corpus-driven analysis of food-related tourist promotion language

In the contemporary landscape of tourism 4.0, the fusion of textual content and visual elements stands out as a compelling force that shapes perceptions (Held, 2004), influences decision-making, and engages au- diences. Within the domain of tourism websites, where the objective is not only to inform but also to persuade and invite the prospective tourists to action (i.e., visit the destination), the harmonious interplay between text and images holds unparalleled significance (cf. Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). This contribution sets out on a multimodal analy- sis of a corpus of institutional and non-institutional websites promoting the city of Verona as a tourist destination. In particular, the analysis fo- cuses on the city’s food tourism perspective and explores whether both types of institutional and non-institutional websites promoting the city of Verona exploit the power of images in order to attract the attention of their readers when it comes to gastronomy. The evolving dynamics between destination attraction and its food and wine supply reflect several emerging tourist trends. Firstly, there is a growing visitor demand for a holistic experience encompassing rec- reation, culture, customs, traditions, and immersion in the daily life of the local population. Secondly, urban destinations are witnessing an increased demand for well-being, health, genuineness, and authenticity. Thirdly, the destination branding process, which constructs a distinctive tourist experience, is becoming more widespread and em- ployed significantly by stakeholders. Lastly, agro-food businesses are actively seeking novel ways to communicate their connection with the territory. Tourism benchmarks are no longer just providers of experi- ences; they are becoming integral names, images, or symbols in the branding and labelling process that shapes the consumer’s experience, aligning with their experiential, cognitive, and emotional expectations (Capitello et al., 2013). With this perspective, the present work takes into consideration an- other element, that of multimodality (cf. Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), to aid the analysis and delve deeper into the patterns of tourist promo- tion through language. In tourism discourse, the integration of lan- guage and visual elements on tourism websites shapes specific discours- es that influence tourist perceptions and satisfaction (Choi et al., 2017; Francesconi, 2014; Rim et al., 2015). The tourist gaze (Urry, 2002) is instrumental in decoding new images through carefully planned filters, and the interplay of text and images (Hiipala, 2015) constructs nar- ratives influencing prospective tourists (Maci, 2007; Urry, 2002). Re- search in marketing and advertising has also shown that motive visual imagery, subject to varying perspectives on its persuasive role, impacts both affect and cognition, with factors such as colour, image quality, and the congruency between image and text content influencing user engagement (Amit et al., 2009; Heckler & Childers, 1992; Kress & van Leewuen, 2006; Pieters & Wedel, 2004). As far as this contribution is concerned, multimodality is exploited to understand the interconnect- edness of linguistic and visual elements, what Hiippala (2015) would define as «multimodal cohesion» (p. 18), creating a holistic experience for audiences that shapes their perceptions and engagement. The anal- ysis of these language-image relations aims to unravel the visual-verbal coherence that gives multimodal text its texture (Royce, 2007). The study develops within a systematic framework, starting with the use of WMatrix (Rayson, 2008) to identify and assess the frequency of food-related keywords within a corpus of texts dedicated to Verona. Following this linguistic exploration, a search within the Ve- rona Corpus is conducted to gauge the prevalence of food-related dis- cussions compared to other thematic elements. The focus of the work is a qualitative evaluation of how seamlessly textual descriptions align with the visual narrative – a critical factor in shaping the perceptions and decisions of prospective tourists. The second section is dedicated to the literature on the developing field of food tourism and is followed by a third section on multimodal- ity; the fourth section presents the materials and methods used for the analysis; the last section delves deeper into the analysis and results of the study and is followed by the conclusions.