We study the symbolic value of places using the case of global tourism where places are explicitly objectified for valorization. Unlike most prior research that uses tangible measurements like UNESCO's World Heritage Sites for global comparison of place-based symbolic values, we harness the power of computational text analysis to measure the symbolic value of places based on travel writings of the New York Times Travel Section. Our results demonstrate that there is a symbolic hierarchy among places depending on the various meanings of culture and nature and the degree of engagement with either topic. NYT travel writers valorize European regions for cultural tourism according to the broadest meanings of culture, and often engage with the region's history as a main topic of the travel article. However, other regions – particularly the ones with legacies of past colonization – are valorized for their nature's scenic beauty while obscuring the significance of their “cultural” values. Even when a place's “cultural” values are recognized, the meanings of culture tend to be limited in non-European regions. Our findings have implications for the enduring symbolic inequality of places at the global level.

中文翻译：

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象征性的地方等级制度：《纽约时报》旅游版块的旅游叙述中的全球不平等

我们利用全球旅游业的案例来研究地点的象征价值，在全球旅游业中，地点被明确地客观化以实现增值。与大多数先前使用联合国教科文组织世界遗产地等有形测量来对基于地点的象征价值进行全球比较的研究不同，我们利用计算文本分析的力量来衡量基于《纽约时报》旅游版块的旅行著作的地点的象征价值。我们的结果表明，根据文化和自然的不同含义以及对任一主题的参与程度，不同地点之间存在象征性等级。 《纽约时报》旅行作家根据最广泛的文化含义来评价欧洲地区的文化旅游，并经常将该地区的历史作为旅行文章的主要主题。然而，其他地区——尤其是那些有过去殖民统治遗产的地区——因其自然风景的美丽而受到重视，而忽视了其“文化”价值的重要性。即使一个地方的“文化”价值观得到认可，文化的含义在欧洲以外地区往往受到限制。我们的研究结果对全球范围内持久的象征性不平等具有影响。