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Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 269–289, 2012
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AUTHENTICITY & AURA

A Benjaminian Approach to Tourism
Jillian M. Rickly-Boyd
Indiana University, USA

Abstract: As a dynamic concept, authenticity has ignited many debates regarding its meaning
and utility, thus resulting in several theoretical perspectives (objective, constructive, postmod-
ern, existential) with various analytical focuses, from object to experience. In light of its con-
ceptual variability, it should be asked—What does authenticity do? This paper revisits Walter
Benjamin’s notions of authenticity and aura; ideas introduced by MacCannell and worthy of
further consideration. Similar to its development in tourism studies, Benjamin’s theorizations
of the concept are complex and relational—authenticity is established through ritual and tra-
dition and is connected to aura. They are mutually constitutive and simultaneously products
of other phenomena. As it bridges analytical perspectives, his work offers a useful addition to
the authenticity discourse. Keywords: authenticity, aura, ritual, Walter Benjamin, tourism
experience. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION
Authenticity, as a multi-faceted concept, has long held a central
position in tourism studies (see Belhassen & Caton, 2006; Belhassen,
Caton, & Stewart, 2008; Bruner, 1994; Buchmann, Moore, & Fisher,
2010; Cohen, 1988; DeLyser, 1999; Gable & Handler, 1996; Kim &
Jamal, 2007; Lau, 2010; MacCannell, 1976, 1999; Metro-Roland, 2009;
Oakes, 2006; Olsen, 2002; Reisinger & Steiner, 2006; Rickly-Boyd,
2009; Steiner & Reisinger, 2006b; Wang, 1999). This academic engage-
ment with authenticity has yielded multiple perspectives regarding its
relationship to toured objects, tourism sites, and even touristic experi-
ence. While the multiple conceptualizations of authenticity may be
ontologically problematic (Belhassen & Caton, 2006; Reisinger &
Steiner, 2006; Steiner & Reisinger, 2006a, 2006b), its prominence as
a term used by tourists and tourism marketers alike suggests further
examination (Belhassen & Caton, 2006). Regina Bendix, responding
to Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett on this topic, argues, ‘‘the crucial
questions to be answered are not ‘what is authenticity?’ but ‘who
needs authenticity and why?’ and ‘how has authenticity been used?’’

Jillian M.Rickly-Boyd (Indiana University, Department of Geography, Student Building

120, 701 E. Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, Indiana 47405-7100, USA. Email <jrickly@
indiana.edu>) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at Indiana University.
Her tourism research interests include landscape studies, notions of authenticity, and the
intersections of travel experience and identity.

269
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270 J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289

(1997, p. 21) In addition to these questions, it should be asked—what

does authenticity do?
Because of the vast assemblage of meanings and values associated
with authenticity in relation to the tourism experience, it has received
mixed responses from scholars. Some have proposed various ways of
simplifying the concept. Whereas Reisinger and Steiner (2006) suggest
abandoning the object-oriented forms of authenticity in favor of exis-
tential authenticity, Lau (2010) advocates a social realist focus on the
objective forms and a redefinition of the ‘‘relationship’’ forms. Mean-
while, other scholars call for an embracing of the concept’s complexity
and relational qualities (see Belhassen et al., 2008; Buchmann et al.,
2010). This paper, likewise, proposes a way to hold authenticity’s vari-
ous constitute meanings together by presenting some of Walter Benja-
min’s writings on the concept. His theorizations of authenticity hold
the concept in relation to aura, ritual, and tradition, as he recognized
its complexity and was unable to tie it to one singular characteristic.
This paper, therefore, aims to present a theoretical engagement with
the authenticity literature in tourism studies that endorses the con-
cept’s ability to bring the object, site and experience of tourism into
one framework.
In his well-known, essay, ‘‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction,’’ [1935] Benjamin states that ‘‘the presence of the ori-
ginal is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity’’ (1968d, p.
220). However, he also suggests a more complex understanding of
authenticity as tied to tradition and ritual—‘‘The authenticity of a
thing is the quintessence of all that is transmissible in it from its origins
on, ranging from its physical duration to the historical testimony relat-
ing to it’’ (2008b, p. 22). Furthermore, aura, ‘‘the unique value of the
‘authentic’ work of art always has its basis in ritual’’, argues Benjamin,
‘‘[t]his ritualistic basis, however mediated it may be, is still recogniz-
able as secularized ritual in even the most profane forms’’ (2008b, p.
24). ‘‘Aura’’ is an experience, an engagement, defined as a ‘‘strange
tissue of space and time: the unique apparition of a distance, however
near it may be’’ (2008b, p. 23). The desire to get in touch with this
uniqueness, to engage more closely with aura, is the catalyst for repro-
duction; ironically however, it is the aura, and therefore authenticity,
which deteriorates with mechanical reproduction, as it, ‘‘detaches
the reproduced object from the sphere of tradition’’ (2008b, p. 22).
While Benjamin’s argument in this piece seems quite clear—
mechanical reproduction degrades aura and therefore authenticity—
and thus suggests the great difficulty of relating his concepts to
authenticity in tourism today, it also seems worth noting that if Walter
Benjamin’s writings are anything they are enigmatic. Benjamin scholar
and philosopher, Andrew Benjamin, writes on this matter, ‘‘[a]ny at-
tempt to establish unity from a series of texts as clearly diverse as Ben-
jamin’s will always be thwarted from the start’’ (1986, p. 30). Perhaps
this is due in part to his premature departure from this world in
1940 that left unfinished collections, manuscripts, and essays, or
perhaps it is his metaphorical style and ability to make even the every-
day no longer familiar (Arendt, 1968). ‘‘The trouble with everything
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 271

Benjamin wrote’’, notes Arendt (1968, p. 3) ‘‘was that it always turned

out sui generis.’’ It is because of this, that Benjamin ‘‘will never be
canonical but has rather emerged as the site of different canons’’
(Benjamin, 1986, p. 30).
Consequently, this work is less concerned with Benjamin’s theories
regarding the effects of mechanical reproduction on authenticity and
aura and more so with the mechanisms that he suggests create such
phenomena. This requires moving beyond more well-known works to
his other writings on authenticity and aura. In doing so, one finds that
he was torn between the positive and negative responses to a loss of aura,
a result of the political atmosphere of 30s Europe. Moreover, he could
not have predicted the artistic expression and personal uses brought
about through the evolution of photography and film. In fact, as Hansen
(2008, p. 375) notes, despite Benjamin’s concern that aura, and there-
fore authenticity, were perhaps ‘‘historically belated and irreversibly
moribund, he imported fragments of the concept—secularized and
modernized—into his efforts to reimagine experience under the conditions
of technologically mediated culture’’ (emphasis added). Unfortunately,
he did not have the chance to fully develop these ideas. However, what
most fascinated Benjamin were not ideas, but phenomena (Arendt,
1968). It is the phenomena of ritual and authenticity as they apply to
tourism that will be the focus of this paper.
Walter Benjamin’s work has been interpreted and used across disci-
plines, including sociology (Wolin, 1994), literary criticism (Eagleton,
1981; Jennings, 1987), cultural studies (Benjamin, 2005; Hansen, 2006;
Leslie, 1999; McRobbie, 1992), urban studies (Burgin, 1993; Savage,
2000; Szondi, 1988), and tourism studies (Crang, 1999; Goss, 2004,
2005; MacCannell, 1976, 1999). Therefore, I do not suppose to further
develop our general understanding of his theories, but to revisit them.
Using his work as an open-text, this paper suggests an addition to the
theoretical perspectives from which we approach the issue of authen-
ticity in tourism studies.
In the context of tourism as a secular ritual (see Graburn, 1983,
1989, 2004), authenticity of the tourist experience and the object of
the tour have been judged differently—ontologically versus epistemo-
logically. Benjamin’s theorizations of authenticity were derived from
art and are therefore object-oriented, however, his concept of aura,
as an engagement with uniqueness and authenticity in the context of
ritual, extend beyond the objective to the experiential. This is particu-
larly why his work on authenticity is so useful for tourism studies. He
did not isolate the concept, but rather discussed it in relation to other
phenomena. He argued that authenticity is connected to aura, as they
both result from and are embedded in ritual and tradition, which are
not static, but highly dynamic as performative and communicative de-
vices. Therefore, it will be argued that while the authenticity of the ob-
ject/site is a result of its embodiment in a tradition of which tourism is a
ritual; the authenticity of the experience is a part of an engagement with
aura. This connection between object and experience offers a tool to
bridge this gap within tourism studies, as well as approach the ques-
tion—what does authenticity do?
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272 J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289

AUTHENTICITY AND AURA FOR TOURISM STUDIES

Authenticity in Tourism Studies
Reacting to Boorstin (1961), MacCannell (1976) catapulted the con-
cept of authenticity to the forefront of tourism studies. Boorstin (1961)
argued that tourism is a pseudo-event in which tourists seek inauthentic-
ity as a justification for their inauthentic lives. MacCannell (1976) re-
sponded to these claims, arguing that as a result of the alienation of
modernity tourists seek authenticity. These opposing theorizations of
the basic motivation of tourism, with regard to authenticity, have argu-
ably, been the catalyst for the copious amount of literature on the con-
cept henceforth. Wang (1999) has surveyed this discourse in tourism
studies and observed several theoretical approaches to authenticity—
objectivism, constructivism, postmodernism, and existentialism.
Objective authenticity focuses primarily on the genuineness of ob-
jects, artifacts, structures, and the like. Wang (1999, p. 213) argues that
this perspective ‘‘involves a museum-linked usage of the authenticity of
the originals’’ (see also Trilling, 1972), which is judged, or measured,
by ‘‘experts’’ (Reisinger & Steiner, 2006). Barthel (1996) uses the
objectivist perspective in her analyses of historic sites, determining
authenticity based on the originality of the site, its structures, and its
social context. According to this perspective, no copy could ever be
authentic. Experientially, objectivists argue that the ‘‘search for
authentic experiences is thus no more than an epistemological experi-
ence’’ (Wang, 1999, p. 214). In this case, an inauthentic object yields
an inauthentic experience. Boorstin (1961) set the trajectory of
authenticity analysis in the field from this modernist, realist perspec-
tive. And although it is less common in the academic community today,
it still continues in business circles (Reisinger & Steiner, 2006).
The constructivist approach accepts that ‘‘tourists are indeed in
search of authenticity; however, what they quest for is not objective
authenticity but symbolic authenticity’’ (Wang, 1999, p. 217; see also
Culler, 1981). Because symbolic authenticity is not based on an exact,
discoverable original, it allows tourists to determine what is authentic.
As they reject the binary nature of authenticity, constructivist authen-
ticity is, therefore, fluid—a judgment (Moscardo & Pearce, 1999),
negotiable (Cohen, 1988) and contextual (Salamone, 1997)—which
gives rise to pluralistic interpretations (Bruner, 1986; Schwandt,
1994). Semiotically, constructivism justifies authenticity based on ste-
reotypical images, expectations and cultural preferences (Culler,
1981; Silver, 1993). Bruner’s (1994) use of the constructivist perspec-
tive uncovered multiple meanings of the concept at work by both tour-
ists and staff at his study site—originality, genuineness, historical
verisimilitude, and authority. While Wang (1999) describes constructiv-
ist authenticity as object-oriented, Olsen (2002) suggests the incorpora-
tion of ritual and performance theory into this perspective offers
another way to understand experiential authenticity. Moreover, this
perspective, argues Bruner (1994), is particularly important to
revealing touristic motivations and meaning-making processes (see
also DeLyser, 1999). Constructivism also provides for ‘‘emergent
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 273

authenticity’’, that an inauthentic object or site may become authentic

over time (Cohen, 1988; Graburn, 1976),
Postmodernists, although not unified in approach, do not consider
inauthenticity a problem and, therefore, engage concepts such as
‘‘hyperreality’’ and ‘‘simulacra’’. The hyperreal is a simulated experi-
ence that fulfills the desire for the ‘‘real’’ (Eco, 1986), while simulacra
is the increasing representation of the hyperreal with signs (Baudril-
lard, 1983). Both concepts work on the acceptance that there is no ori-
ginal, only simulations of a real without an original referent. Thus,
postmodern approaches justify the inauthenticity of tourism spaces—
tourists seek the inauthentic merely because it offers a better, more
stimulating experience (Wang, 1999). Cohen (1995) suggests that in
the ‘‘search for enjoyment’’, tourists accept ‘‘staged authenticity’’ as
a protective substitute for the ‘‘original’’. Moreover, they welcome
modern conveniences, albeit violations of historical or cultural accu-
racy. According to postmodernist perspectives, ‘‘authenticity is irrele-
vant to many tourists, who either do not value it, are suspicious of it,
[or] are complicit in its cynical construction for commercial purposes’’
(Reisinger & Steiner, 2006, p. 66). Bolz, however, asserts that the inau-
thenticity of the hyperreal and the simulacra are not so much decep-
tive, but seductive (1998, p. 1, see also Eco, 1986; Ritzer & Liska,
1997). Thus, Wang states, ‘‘a postmodernist deconstruction of the
authenticity of the original implicitly paves the way to define existential
authenticity as an alternative experience in tourism’’ (1999, p. 358).
Existential authenticity has received much academic attention in re-
cent years (see Belhassen et al., 2008; Buchmann et al., 2010; Kim &
Jamal, 2007; Pons, 2003; Steiner & Reisinger, 2006b). As an activity-
based approach, existential authenticity may ‘‘have nothing to do with
the authenticity of toured objects’’ (Wang, 1999, p. 212). Instead it re-
fers to a state of Being, thus this approach is frequently grounded in
Heideggerian philosophy. Wang summarizes, ‘‘to ask about the mean-
ing of Being is to look for the meaning of authenticity’’ (1999, p. 220;
see also Hughes, 1995; Pearce & Moscardo, 1986; Reisinger & Steiner,
2006; Steiner & Reisinger, 2006b; Turner & Manning, 1988). Authen-
ticity, therefore, is argued to reside in the subject, or in terms of
Heidegger’s Dasein—a fusion between the self and external world.
According to Wang (1999, pp. 360–361), an ‘‘’authentic self’ involves
a balance between two parts of one’s Being: reason and emotion,
self-constraint and spontaneity; Logos and Eros . . . inauthentic self
arises when the balance between these two parts of being is broken
down in such a way that rational factors over-control non-rational fac-
tors’’. But, as Steiner and Reisinger point out, ‘‘[b]ecause existential
authenticity is experience-oriented, the existential self is transient,
not enduring, and not conforming to a type. It changes from moment
to moment.’’ (2006b, p. 303) A search for existentially authentic expe-
riences results in a preoccupation with feelings, emotions, sensations,
relationships, and self. Therefore, Wang (1999) puts forth two aspects
of existential authenticity—intrapersonal (bodily feeling and self-mak-
ing) and interpersonal (family ties and communitas)—that are central
to tourism. An authentic self is most easily realized in a liminal time
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274 J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289

and space in which societal constraints are suspended (Graburn, 1989,

2004; Kim & Jamal, 2007). The ritual aspects of tourism facilitate the
establishment of liminal (or liminoid) zones (Graburn, 1989; Turner,
1973).
While there are clearly multiple ontological and epistemological per-
spectives of authenticity, few researchers use only one paradigm.
Although MacCannell’s assessment of authenticity in the motivation
and experience of tourists is among the earliest and most referenced,
it is objectivist, constructivist and postmodern (Lau, 2010; Selwyn,
1996). MacCannell (1976, 1999) argues that tourists seek out authentic
experiences, but in this quest for authenticity they are often victims of
‘‘staged authenticity’’. Additionally, MacCannell takes a semiotic ap-
proach, based on the importance of a marker or sign as authenticating
the tourist experience. ‘‘Truth markers’’, which may or may not be fac-
tually correct, are created in touristic discourse and contribute to a so-
cially constructed reality (MacCannell, 1976, 1999).
While there are distinct categories of analytical perspectives on
authenticity, most scholars cross these boundaries and include multi-
ple approaches in tourism studies (see Buchmann et al., 2010; DeLyser,
1999; Gable & Handler, 1996; Handler & Saxton, 1988; Heynen, 2006;
Kim & Jamal, 2007; Rickly-Boyd, 2009). Indeed, it is rare when the
authenticity of experience is examined without an analysis of the object
toured. There is a strong interaction between object, site, and experi-
ence; they are not mutually exclusive. However, that is not to say that
one determines the others. The authenticity of an artifact can be
judged objectively, but that may have no merit in the preconceptions
and touristic perception of that artifact. Likewise the authenticity of
experience may be separate from the authenticity of the site and ob-
jects toured, as it is action- and emotion-based. This dynamic, multi-fac-
eted concept suggests there is something more to the significance of
‘‘authenticity’’ in tourism studies and in tourists’ minds. Conceptually
functioning simultaneously as a measurement, representation, experi-
ence, and feeling it must be a register for something more. What does
authenticity do? It is this interaction or exchange between object and
experience that suggests the strongest contribution from Benjamin’s
theories.

Benjamin’s Authenticity and Aura

On its own, Benjamin’s concept of authenticity is objectivist, as his
writings on the concept are, for the most part, focused on works of
art. However, his theorization of the experiential connection between
authenticity, ritual and individual as an engagement with ‘‘aura’’ sug-
gest the applicability of his work in understanding the authenticity of
the tourism experience. While his ideas about authenticity are more
simple and easier to decipher, over the course of his life Benjamin’s
theories of aura grew more complex. His earliest writings on this
phenomenon outline aura as a property inherent in objects and felt
by the viewer. His later writings, however, worked to tease out the
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 275

intersubjective qualities of aura and overcome the subject-object

dichotomy. He began to think about the aura of cities, landscapes,
and people, not just art objects, which led in his last writings to de-
scribe aura as more of an expectation of reciprocity of one’s gaze. This
further inspired his work on another aspect of the aura—afterlife. The
ability of an object to exist outside its moment of time, to be reinter-
preted facilitates the recuperation of experience (see Benjamin,
1986; Hansen, 2008; Wolin, 1994). This becomes particularly impor-
tant when considering his theories of authenticity and aura in light
of tourism objects—souvenirs, mementos, and photographs.
Benjamin never set a specific definition of ‘‘aura’’ but continued to
develop his ideas about the concept throughout his life. As an experi-
ence it is a difficult phenomenon to understand and therefore define.
In his earlier work, ‘‘Hashish, Beginning of March 1930’’, he makes
three points on the subject: ‘‘aura appears in all things’’, it encases
the object, and it is a dynamic force that moves and changes with
the object (1999, p. 328; 2006). Interpreting this work, Boon (2006,
p. 11) argues that it is aura which gives rise to feeling and emotion.
The most well known definition of aura is found in Benjamin’s 1935
essay, ‘‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’’, as
‘‘a unique phenomenon of a distance however close it may be’’
(1968d, p. 243 n.5). Both spatial and temporal, it is described as a qual-
ity that one can never quite grasp.
However, in ‘‘Some Motifs in Baudelaire’’ [1939] he writes, ‘‘looking
at someone carries the implicit expectation that our look will be re-
turned by the object of our gaze. When this expectation is met [. . .]
there is an experience of the aura to the fullest extent.’’ (1968c, p.
188) He goes on to explain, ‘‘[e]xperience of the aura thus rests on
the transposition of a response common in human relationships to
the relationship between the inanimate or natural object and man
[...] to perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with
the ability to look at us in return.’’ (1968c, p. 188) This is among his
latest elaborations of aura; he died the following year. Andrew Benja-
min argues that this elaboration not only broadens the definition of
aura by introducing its intersubjective nature, but also ‘‘links it quite
dramatically to the experience of the other’’ (1986, p. 31).
Investigating the intersubjective aspects of Benjamin’s aura, Hansen
(2008, p. 340) emphasizes its habituation—‘‘the aura of objects [. . .]
stands in a metonymic relation to the person who uses them or has
been using them’’. While Benjamin’s early theories on aura suggest
that it is an aesthetic property inherent in objects, his later formula-
tions recognize that the power of aura stems from its intersubjective
nature. Jacks (2007, p. 283) asserts, ‘‘[a]ura is not a given property
of the real; we create the experience of aura so that we might enjoy
the sense of reciprocal experience’’.
Benjamin, however, was uncertain as to the significance of the loss of
aura as a result of mechanical reproduction and his writings on the
subject lack consistency (Benjamin, 1986; Buck-Morss, 1977; Wolin,
1994). While in some writings he comments on the positive aspects—
the loss of aura as a result of reproduction frees art from tradition
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276 J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289

and ritual and therefore it can become more democratic (Benjamin,

1968d)—in other writings he is more negative, suggesting that this re-
sults in a loss of autonomy and is symptomatic of changes in society—
‘‘the disintegration of the capacity for experience’’ (Buck-Morss, 1977,
p. 161). Yet, his work on the experience of urban landscapes as op-
posed to works of art, argues that media representations cannot strip
the aura from cities; they always retain their uniqueness (Benjamin,
1968a). This is because the landscape requires more than vision to
experience it, the other senses contain the potential for the recovery
of memory (Savage, 2000, p. 46). Interpreting Benjamin’s works on
urbanism, Savage argues, ‘‘[v]isiting strange cities disrupts one’s estab-
lished routines and habits, allows established conventions to be placed
into question, and can restore the childhood experience of wonder,
fear, and hope’’ (2000, p. 45).
According to Benjamin, aura and authenticity are connected
through the act of ritual. Authenticity ‘‘transcends mere genuineness’’
(1968d, p. 244, n.6) but is tied to tradition and historical testimony.
Tradition, he argues, ‘‘is thoroughly alive and extremely changeable’’
(2008b, p. 24). In accordance with McCole’s translation from Benja-
min’s Gesammelte Schriften volume one, ‘‘experience is a matter of tradi-
tion, in collective as in private life. It is built up less out of individual
facts firmly fixed in memory than of accumulated, often unconscious
data that flow together in memory’’ (1993, p. 2). ‘‘What he meant by
‘tradition’’’, suggests McCole, ‘‘was less a particular canon of texts or
values than the very coherence, communicability, and thus the transmis-
sibility of experience.’’ (1993, p. 2)
By embedding an object in tradition, associated rituals establish aura
and authenticity. Although ritual can have religious purposes, Benja-
min contends that this process holds true even for the secularized rit-
ual. Just as ‘‘the unique value of the ‘authentic’ work of art always has
its basis in ritual . . . [the] auratic mode of existence is never entirely
severed from its ritual function’’ (2008b, p. 24). Jarkko notes that while
rituals, in general may have become secular, they have not lost their
ability to generate ‘‘sacredness’’ between men and things (2006, p.
11). Because tourism is a ritual, accompanied by various rites of pas-
sage, (Graburn, 1989, 2004) with numerous aspects of authenticity
associated with its experience, Walter Benjamin’s theories are most
pertinent.

A Benjaminian Approach to Tourism Experience

Tourism ‘‘is one of those necessary structured breaks from ordinary
life which characterizes all human societies’’ (Graburn, 1983, p. 11);
it is a secular ritual (Graburn, 1983, 1989, 2004). While tourism does
not exist universally, argues Graburn, it is in many ways ‘‘functionally
and symbolically equivalent to other institutions—calendrical festivals,
holy days, sports tournaments that humans use to embellish and add
meaning to their lives’’, as well as to mark the modal, linear passage
of time (2004, p. 23). Its basic structure—rituals of preparation for
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 277

departure, travel away from home, liminal duration, rituals of the re-
turn and rites of re-entry—is nearly identical to all ritual behavior
(Graburn, 1983). In the performance of this ritual, there is likewise,
the distinction between the profane and the sacred, the mundane
and the liminal/liminoid (Smith, 1987; Turner, 1969). While the
tourism ritual and resulting experience is not entirely opposite from
the everyday, it is different and characterized by various individual
and societal motivations. In reference to Walter Benjamin’s theories,
which will be developed further, it is ritual that establishes authentic-
ity and aura.
MacCannell analogously examines sightseeing as modern ritual, sug-
gesting, ‘‘[t]he ritual attitude of the tourist originates in the act of tra-
vel itself and culminates when he arrives in the presence of the sight’’
(1999, p. 43). This may be the case for sightseeing as ritual, but in terms
of tourism more broadly, the ritual culminates in the return home.
Therefore the ritual of tourism engages a liminal zone and embeds
both the object of tour and the act of touring in a tradition, so to speak,
not exclusively as ‘‘a particular canon of texts or values’’ but also in the
coherence, communicability, and transmissibility of experience
(McCole, 1993, p. 2; see also Olsen, 2002). Moreover, in the case of
sacred space (from religious to civil sacred space) it is the ritualization
of the space that consecrates it (Chidester & Linenthal, 1995; Lane,
2001; Smith, 1987). The active ritualization of space distinguishes it
from the profane (Smith, 1987). The ritual of tourism establishes
sacred/liminal space and time, which begins with departure from a
profane/home space of everyday institutions as well as ends there
(Graburn, 1983, 1989, 2004).
Tourism, ‘‘even of the recreational sort [. . .] is a ritual expression—
individual or societal—of deeply held values about health, freedom,
nature and self-improvement, a re-creation ritual which parallels pil-
grimages’’ (Graburn, 1983, p. 15) This is most strongly seen in ‘‘annual
family vacations’’, ‘‘summer road trips’’ and ‘‘rites of passage’’ tours, in
which the act of tourism becomes a tradition. For example, the ‘‘see
America first’’ campaigns used tourism to establish a national tradition
and tourism ritual, as can Birthright Israel and other diaspora tours to-
day. Participation in the rituals of tourism of this nature embeds it in a
tradition, authenticating the tourist experience. The tourist’s engage-
ment with the uniqueness of the journey and the destination allows
for an engagement with aura. Benjamin was not an existentialist, thus
he does not provide a framework for examining the authenticity of
being a tourist. However, his concept of aura is quite appropriate for
linking objective authenticity to an authenticated tourist experience
because it is a concept developed around the idea of an interaction,
an engagement, an experience between person and object/site.

Authenticity and Aura in Tourism Experience. MacCannell introduced

Benjamin’s theories of authenticity and aura to tourism studies; how-
ever, he asserts that Benjamin ‘‘inverted all the basic relations’’
(1999, p. 47).
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278 J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289

‘‘He should have reversed his terms. The work becomes ‘authentic’
only after the first copy of it is produced. The reproductions are the
aura, and the ritual, far from being a point of origin, derives from
the relationship between the original object and its socially con-
structed importance. I would argue that this is the structure of the
attraction in modern society, including the artistic attractions, and
the reason the Grand Canyon has a touristic ‘aura’ about it even
though it did not originate in ritual’’ (1999, p. 48)
This paper argues that Benjamin’s relations were not entirely inverted
(see also Frow, 1991). MacCannell was correct in his assertion that a
tourism sites’ socially constructed importance, such as the Grand
Canyon’s, inspires ritual—the secular ritual of tourism. Insofar as its so-
cially constructed importance places the site/object in a tradition, how-
ever mediated, whether it is for example a national or a family
tradition, it will inspire ritual. However, MacCannell also suggests that
the ritual of tourism ends at the destination with the act of sightseeing;
yet, there is more to this ritual. The ritual of tourism is not only about
the destination, but also about the journey, for which the site is liminal
(Graburn, 1983, 2004; Graburn & Barthel-Bouchier, 2001; see also
Garlick, 2002). The destination cannot be severed from its ritual func-
tion as tourism involves both the going to and coming back from the
destination and the rites of passage that accompany each of these
phases. So while MacCannell’s contention that the aura of socially con-
structed sites is a result of their reproduction supports his original
argument for tourism as sightseeing, if one examines the process of
tourism as ritual its structure allows for a different interpretation of
the possibilities of authenticity and aura. In other words, the presence
of a discrete destination for sightseeing may undermine the spirituality
of the experience, but when considered at the level of the tour, the
spirituality has the potential to reappear.
Aspects of this process have been illustrated in numerous studies on
authenticity in the tourism experience. MacCannell (1999), in fact,
maintained the ambiguity of the term ‘‘attraction’’ as both an object
of regard and a feeling. And while the process behind his ‘‘ritual atti-
tude’’ is contested here, there is a similar underlying structure. Obe-
nour (2004), for example, found that for ‘‘budget travelers’’, the
journey is most important to establishing authenticity. While visual
cues suggest varying degrees of authenticity of the objects of the tour,
it is the journey as whole that gives the ‘‘attractions’’ and their experi-
ence aura, as it includes ‘‘a state of mind, eventual physical movement,
engagement with a liminal world, and emergent nature of experience’’
(Obenour, 2004, p. 1).
Likewise, Noy’s (2004) study of backpackers shows that while they do
seek authenticity, it is the ritual of their ‘‘non-conventional’’ journey
‘‘off the beaten track’’ that helps to establish an aura of their destina-
tions as ‘‘untouched’’ and ‘‘exotic’’. For these backpackers, a cyclical
relationship of authenticity is observed—a constructed authenticity
(uniqueness of the destinations), the authenticity of the tourist’s expe-
rience (existential authenticity), and the authentication of a self-
change narrative (Noy, 2004, p. 91). This ‘‘self-change’’ narrative is
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 279

essential, as both Noy (2004) and Shaffer (2004) provide evidence that
backpacking functions as a ‘‘rite of passage’’ to adulthood—a tradition
for Israelis (Noy, 2004) and western youth in general (Shaffer, 2004).
Shaffer (2004) further notes rituals of this rite of passage—journaling,
sending postcards, photography, boarding in hostels, and building
small, ephemeral communitas.
The establishment of communitas in a liminal tourism space is also
essential to the renaissance festival tourists examined by Kim and Jamal
(2007). In fact, the authors observe a tradition of ‘‘seriously committed
repeaters’’, some of whom have extended these spontaneous tourism
communitas to normative ones. ‘‘Repeat ritualistic participation in this
medieval themed festival may be understood as a quest for authentic
self and human relationships via a socially constructed alternative real-
ity’’ (p. 198). The aura of the festival, thereby, comes from collective
enactment of the carnivalesque atmosphere facilitated by props, cos-
tumes, and suspension of societal constraints.
Belhassen et al.’s (2008) observations of Christian pilgrims in the
Holy Land gave rise to a ‘‘theoplacity’’ conceptual framework, which
highlights the intersection of authenticated physical places, shared
theopolitical beliefs, and collective ritual actions of the journey. The
relationship of these aspects results in existential authenticity for these
evangelical tourists/pilgrims. ‘‘Authenticity is complex’’, they argue,
‘‘it not only points to one’s experiences and constructed meanings,
but also connects with the act of touring a destination.’’ (p. 673) Buch-
mann et al. (2010) adapt the theoplacity model to Lord of the Rings film
tourism. These tourists, the authors find, are a community of Tolkien
fans seeking active participation in mythological themes from his sto-
ries—fellowship, adventure, sacrifice—by traveling to New Zealand
and touring film sites. The sites have an aura when their objective
authenticity—‘‘the spot where that scene was filmed’’ (p. 244)—en-
gages the tourist’s imagination with Tolkien’s mythic themes. ‘‘The
tour is a collective creation and, in that purposeful and creative pro-
cess, the authenticity of the experience is judged.’’ (p. 242).
Benjamin’s writings suggest that an object’s aura inspires its repro-
duction, yet MacCannell argues that in regards to a tourism site’s so-
cially constructed importance, ‘‘the reproductions are the aura’’
(1999, p. 48). Likewise, Gable and Handler (1996, p. 568) assert muse-
ums have become the repositories for cultural artifacts, ‘‘the physical
remains [. . .] the ‘auras’ of the really ‘real’’’. Once again, however, if
we focus on the entirety of tourism as a ritual, rather than just sightsee-
ing, we find that Benjamin’s original formulation holds strong and the
aura of the object/site of tourism is generated through this perfor-
mance. The ritual of the act of tourism requires further rituals of entry
and exit, between home and liminal tourism space (Graburn, 1983,
1989, 2004). The experience of the tourism destination could not be
possible without the entire tourism ritual. Therefore, the aura engaged
with at the site is a culmination of this ritual and the experience of its
aura inspires its reproduction. In this instance a later formulation of
aura is more appropriate—‘‘the experience of an expectation or a
possibility’’ (Benjamin, 1986, p. 33).
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280 J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289

It is important to note that, for Benjamin, the experience of the aura

of a site or a landscape, as opposed to an object, is one of a ‘‘spatialized
time’’ (Benjamin, 1973; Savage, 2000, p. 40). The textual juxtaposition
of modern and old in the landscape along with multiple senses used in
its perception inspires an emotional response which contains the po-
tential for the recovery of memories, ‘‘it is precisely the modern which
always conjures up pre-history’’ (Benjamin, 2002, p. 40; see also Jacks,
2007; Mali, 1999; Savage, 2000). Touring unique landscapes disrupts
established routines, habits and conventions and brings about renewed
emotional experiences (Graburn, 2004; Graburn & Barthel-Bouchier,
2001; Savage, 2000). Therefore, neither landscapes nor their media
reproductions can be entirely stripped of aura, suggests Benjamin’s
writings. Thus, while the authenticity of the object/site is a result of its
embodiment in a tradition of which tourism is a ritual, the authenticity
of the experience is a part of the engagement with aura.
Benjamin’s writings on authenticity, and its connection to aura, rit-
ual and tradition, highlight the relational quality of the concept and
its widespread applicability—as a measurement, representation, experi-
ence, and feeling. This has important implications for tourism studies
and the multifaceted consideration of authenticity. While research in
the field tends to focus on authenticity as an either/or, epistemological
or ontological quality (Belhassen & Caton, 2006; Bruner, 1994; Reisinger
& Steiner, 2006; Steiner & Reisinger, 2006a, 2006b), numerous studies
also move across such categories to discuss both the authenticity of the
object/site to the authenticity of experience (see e.g. Belhassen et al.,
2008; Buchmann et al., 2010; DeLyser, 1999; Gable & Handler, 1996;
Handler & Saxton, 1988; Kim & Jamal, 2007).
While Walter Benjamin’s writings are inconsistent in regards to the
cause and effect relations of modernity on authenticity/aura/ritual,
his discussion of relations among these phenomena are pertinent as
they allow a transition between the object-oriented definitions of
authenticity and the experiential. Furthermore, while Benjamin was
grappling with these issues in the early modern era, we must consider
their implications for a postmodern era (see also Frow, 1991; Hansen,
2008). Indeed, it is argued that these phenomena, although in a new
context today, are quite valuable to our understanding of authenticity.
Therefore, additional aspects of Benjamin’s notions of authenticity
and aura can be considered for their implications to tourism studies,
particularly the material embodiment of tourism experiences into sou-
venirs, photographs, and the like.

Material Embodiment of Tourism Experience. An important aspect of the

tourism experience and touristic efforts at meaning making is the
embodiment and recollection of memories through souvenirs, photo-
graphs, and even home movies (see Gordon, 1986; Haldrup & Larsen,
2003; Morgan & Pritchard, 2005). While mechanical reproduction has
allowed for the production of objects in which we embed these experi-
ences and memories, at the most basic level Benjamin’s writings would
suggest that the very mechanical/mass production of such objects
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 281

degrades their aura. Benjamin’s theory of the degradation of aura

through mechanical reproduction may further suggest complications
in regard to the concept’s utility when concerned with the materiality
of the tourism experience. It is, however, not incompatible with the
affective qualities of souvenirs, as demonstrated by the ritual aspects
of tourism and his later formulations of aura. These material embodi-
ments of tourism experience have their own aura, not in the ‘‘here-
now’’ of art that Benjamin (2006a) theorized, but as they represent
the ‘‘there-then’’ (Barthes, 1977).
The tourism ritual, similar to Benjamin’s religious ritual (the struc-
ture of which he notes still holds true even for the most secularized
of rituals (Benjamin, 2008b, p. 24)), places the memory object in a tra-
dition (performative and communicative devices), reestablishing its
aura and authenticity; however, in the case of tourism, this is on an
individual, personally affective level (see also Edwards, 1999). A partic-
ularly important and unique characteristic of tourism in the postmod-
ern age is self-reflexivity (see Feifer, 1985; Haldrup & Larsen, 2003;
Handler & Saxton, 1988; Ritzer & Liska, 1997). The post-tourist is
self-aware in their movements and experiences; this is revealed in their
photographic practices (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003; Larsen, 2005; Sather-
Wagstaff, 2008) and is significant when examining authenticity in tour-
ism experience. Their self-reflexivity in the production of photographs
and accumulation of souvenirs facilitates a reciprocity of gaze that is a
characteristic of aura.
‘‘As a ritual of the domestic cult, families use the camera to display
success, unity, and love; it is put to work to immortalize and celebrate
the high points of family life’’ (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003, p. 26; see also
Crang, 1999). Thus, travel souvenirs and photographs are not the aura
of the tourism destination, as MacCannell has suggested, but are in-
spired by the aura of the object/site/experience. Furthermore, these
memory objects have aura. The authenticity resides, Harkin (1995, p.
660) argues, in the ‘‘context and the conditions of its acquisition, that
is, of the experience it frames’’. Photographs, as powerful communica-
tive technologies, construct identities and subjectivities by bridging the
individual, experiential, and private realms with collective, public ones
(Sather-Wagstaff, 2008, p. 91). Photographs, and souvenirs, result from
the desire to capture the aura of the tourism experience, an aura which
is made manifest through the collective tourism ritual.
Souvenirs, broadly, are the exemplar objects of touristic consump-
tion. It is a ‘‘thing that refers metonymically to a temporally and spa-
tially distant origin, and metaphorically evokes collective narratives of
displacement and personal stories of acquisition’’ (Goss, 2004; Goss,
2005, p. 56). Just as the sacred sites of pilgrimage were always places
of commerce, where pilgrims could purchase provisions, absolution,
and reproductions of holy relics so too are tourism landscapes similarly
sacred (Goss, 2005, p. 67). In landscapes of tourism experience the
souvenir is found at the material-symbolic center, it inherits a certain
sacredness as an intermediate form ‘‘between transcendent essence
and mundane materiality’’ (Goss, 2005, p. 57).
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Photographs, and souvenirs in general, ‘‘allow the possibility of a

capalisation of experience’’, argues Crang (1999, p. 251), and the
memory that accompanies it is an intentional memory, suggests Benja-
min. Souvenirs, he writes, are complements of ‘erlebnis’, a type of shock
experience identified with the rise of modernity which has replaced
‘erfahrung’, which is a deeply rooted, practiced knowledge—‘‘it signals
something discontinuous, eventful, and fractured’’ (Leslie, 1999, p.
115; see also Benjamin, 2003). Benjamin is arguing that ‘‘the ‘souvenir’
is the schema of the commodity’s transformation into an object for the
collector’’ (2003, p. 190), yet in his essay, ‘‘Unpacking My Library: A
talk about book collecting’’ [1931], his thoughts on collecting and
engaging with collections are much more positive. Thus he writes of
the ‘‘tactile sphere’’ upon engaging with his collection, as well as a
‘‘topography of memory’’ (Leslie, 1999)—‘‘spring tide of memories
which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his posses-
sions’’ . . . ‘‘dates, place names, formats, previous owners, bindings
and the like’’ (1968b, pp. 60–63). Their authenticity is a result of their
ritual acquisition as well as their historical testimony.
Moreover, in his diary notes on travelling the ‘‘Northern Sea’’
[1930], his child-like desire for a particular souvenir hints at his inabil-
ity to resolve the desire for experience with the alienating affects of
modernity (see Leslie, 1999). Leslie further interprets his impressions
of this travel experience—‘[t]he journeys were all along not into an
‘out there’, but a trip inside into memory and time. And the land-
scapes—and the objects found—may be read as allegorical hiero-
glyphs’’ (p. 120). And his souvenirs (commodities turned collector’s
items) are at the meeting point of the recollector and the object—
‘‘[t]he recollector’s moment, history, intersects with the encrypted
meanings of the object as historical witness, to produce a spark of
charged memory.’’ (Leslie, 1999, p. 114)
The ability of such objects to facilitate the recuperation of experi-
ence through memory is essential to their having aura, suggests Benja-
min’s writings. ‘‘The snapshot, like all souvenirs, is not simply a
pictorial form but an object. An object that connects us to other times
and spaces by its material presence. The logic is not purely metaphoric
and iconic but also metonymic—its presence reminds us of a larger
whole’’ (Crang, 1999, p. 253). Wolin, interpreting Benjamin’s writing,
argues that souvenirs, as personifications of allegory, have the ability to
return our gaze of expectation, suggesting they are manifestations of
aura (1994, p. 237; see also Goss, 2005). Likewise, Strathausen writes
of Benjamin’s aura as, ‘‘an aesthetic projection that both soothes
and rekindles the desire for a more immediate contact with things be-
yond the subject-object dichotomy’’. (2001, p. 9) As Barthes suggests,
while the original ‘‘here-now’’ of the place and moment is gone, the
aura of the experience is not—the ‘‘there-then becomes the here-
now’’ (1977, p. 44; see also Edwards, 1999).
Post-tourists are self-reflexive in their performances and practices. In
Haldrup and Larsen’s study of the ‘‘family gaze’’, the authors find that
for vacationing families recreating ‘‘postcard images’’ that do not con-
vey personal experiences and stories has little appeal, instead their aim
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 283

is to produce ‘‘personalized postcards: to stage the family within the

attraction’s socially constructed aura’’ (2003, pp. 31–32). In these tour-
ism activities, families are the ‘‘producer, performer and audience’’
and because the family is both in front of and behind the camera ‘‘they
do not see a photograph of a ‘loved one’, only the person’’ (Haldrup &
Larsen, 2003, p. 41). So while Benjamin’s basic argument that photo-
graphs are non-auratic because they result from mechanical produc-
tion (2008a; see also Wolin, 1994), one finds that the way tourists
use photography today, particularly when photographing loved ones,
the images are ‘‘humanized’’ and therefore are auratic, as a result of
the reflexive nature of their production.
Through the photographic practices of tourism, post-tourists return
the gaze of the camera (Crang, 1999) so that looking at the faces in
photographs returns our gaze, a characteristic of aura described by
Benjamin (1968c; see also Hansen, 2008). Moreover, since these pho-
tographs have ‘‘enduring afterlife’’, as they ‘‘become a vital part of
people’s life-stories and spaces of everyday’’ (Haldrup & Larsen,
2003, p. 42), they go on, open for re-interpretation, recall of memories,
and recuperation of experience. Andrew Benjamin suggests that a key
to the experience of the aura of an object is after life, ‘‘the potential to
exist beyond the restriction of any instant’’ (1986, p. 34). Photography
concerns not only time, but space; ‘‘[w]hen we look at a photograph
we reopen a particular space of experience, there is a relation existing
through both time and space to the moment encapsulated [. . .] this
moment is at once eternal, and at the same time ephemeral, it has
passed and yet it continues to exist in the present.’’ (Garlick, 2002,
p. 296).
Therefore, while Benjamin’s distaste for photography arose out of
his suspicion of its ability to ‘‘fix the image of a thing at a given mo-
ment in time’’ (Wolin, 1994, p. 238), the way contemporary tourists
use personal photography is in actuality quite different; it is not fixed
at all, but dynamic and continually recast in self-constructions, existing
in the present therefore recuperating the experience. Tourist photog-
raphy ‘‘can potentially have the effect of opening up mini-liminal
spaces each time the photographs are subsequently viewed and reinter-
preted’’ in which events located in another time and space bring their
force to bear on the present (Garlick, 2002, p. 302). This use of tourism
photography, and souvenirs, as objects of identity construction sug-
gests their authenticity to those personally affected by them.

CONCLUSIONS
Some have suggested that it is ‘‘not appropriate to ask a single term
to represent myriad conflicting and irreconcilable meanings’’, and we
would be well served, therefore, to agree to limit authenticity to a
Heideggerian, existential usage (Reisinger & Steiner, 2006, p. 81). Oth-
ers advocate for ‘‘object authenticity to be constituted as a completely
independent concept, instead of being made parasitic upon other con-
cepts (MacCannell’s alienation and Cohen’s spiritual meanings)’’
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284 J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289

(Lau, 2010, p. 494). Indeed, authenticity as a concept has come to be

used simultaneously as measurement, representation, experience, and
feeling, which, no doubt has been the cause of such rigorous debate
over its meaning and utility. However difficult it may be, authenticity,
in all its forms, is ‘‘nevertheless alive and well in the minds of many
tourists, tourism brokers, and members of host communities’’ (Belhas-
sen & Caton, 2006, p. 853). Thus, while debates over the meaning and
utility of authenticity could very well never find a resolution, perhaps
we would be better served to address other questions surrounding
the concept.
Tourism scholars are quite close to answering the question—how has
authenticity been used? Tourists, tourism developers and marketers,
and researchers have used its multiple forms to describe and explain
experiences, feelings, representations, and objective properties. How-
ever, the questions ‘‘who needs authenticity and why?’’ and ‘‘what does
authenticity do?’’ are more complex. While these questions may never
be fully answered, to approach the issue it is important to consider the
relation of authenticity to other phenomena, namely tradition, ritual,
and aura.
As the multiple perspectives used to address the concept in tourism
studies (objective, constructive, postmodern, existential) have shown,
authenticity is relational. It is measured, perceived, experienced, and
felt in relation to other phenomena. This is particularly why Walter
Benjamin’s work on authenticity is so useful for tourism studies. He
did not isolate the concept, but rather discussed it in terms of other
phenomena, namely aura. He argued that authenticity is connected
to aura, as they both result from and are embedded in ritual and tradi-
tion. Thus, while the authenticity of the object/site is a result of its
embodiment in a tradition of which tourism is a ritual; the authenticity
of the experience is a part of the engagement with aura. Therefore, in
Benjaminian terms, authenticity is and can be simultaneously mea-
sured, experienced, and felt. In regard to the tourist experience, it be-
comes a register for the participation in a tradition (however
mediated), its rituals (however secularized), and an experience of aura
which is a result of this participation. And for that reason, we all need
authenticity, as it conceptually represents a whole complex of relations.
Therefore, while some have suggested a breakdown the concept of
authenticity to various, more manageable pieces (see Lau, 2010; Rei-
singer & Steiner, 2006) this paper advocates authenticity be recognized
for all its complexity (see also Belhassen et al., 2008).
Because this paper relates Benjamin’s theories of authenticity and
aura to Graburn’s structuralist perspective of tourism as a secular rit-
ual, it does not address the dynamic performances of being a tourist
within each of the phases but aims to highlight the overarching jour-
ney, the entirety of the tour. Thus as rituals must be performed, tour-
ism as a ritual break from the everyday is also a performance.
Benjamin’s conceptualizations provide a way to explore the relations
of authenticity to other phenomena in the context of ritual; however,
the subjective performances of being tourist in the midst of these
broader rituals and traditions are in need of further study. Yet, the
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J.M. Rickly-Boyd / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 269–289 285

material embodiment of tourism experiences in souvenirs and photo-

graphs suggest that the dynamics of meaning making are not incom-
patible with Benjamin’s theories of authenticity and aura. Because
souvenirs are both metonymic and metaphoric they refer to the ritual
of tourism, the collective narratives of the tourists, and the personal
experiences. While souvenirs and photographs are obtained at sites
of socially constructed importance, it is the embodiment of experi-
ences that gives them the ability to return our gaze—aura and authen-
ticity. Because these objects go on and continue to build meaning in
our lives, they have after life, which further builds their aura and there-
fore authenticity as objects of ritual.
The arguments presented in this paper are not intended to overrule
theories of authenticity at work in tourism studies, but to offer an addi-
tional perspective from which to approach the issue and bring them to-
gether. While the debate over authenticity goes on, it is important to
recognize that authenticity is relational. Benjamin’s work offers a useful
perspective from which to consider the analysis of authenticity in tour-
ism studies because his theories of authenticity incorporate tradition, rit-
ual, and aura. His perspective, therefore, crosses theoretical perspectives
and bridges the gaps between object, site, and experience.

Acknowledgements—The author would like to thank Daniel Knudsen, Charles Greer, Jon
Simon, and Lisa Braverman for comments on earlier drafts of this paper, as well as the
anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.

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Submitted 6th July 2010. Resubmitted 31st October 2010. Final Version 28th April 2011.
Accepted 12th May 2011. Refereed Anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Ning Wang