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Tourism boards serve rhetorically as "the institution" in this discussion because they often present a one-sided or very subjective view of a place. For example, it is the zeal of the provincial tourism boards that are responsible, to a great degree, for the general portrayal of Canada's Prince Edward Island as a green-gabled island wilderness untouched by progress or time, and of Alberta as a land of rodeos, nonstop barbecues, and wholesome ranch-style living. Surely, there are ocean vistas and pigtails to be found in the Maritimes, and certainly the Canadian west has its share of beef and ten-gallon hats. But these are reductive stereotypes that do two things: they lure visitors and they misrepresent places. While tourists might be charmed by the palatable two-dimensionality of these brochure ideals, the intricate realities of Charlottetown and Red Deer are overlooked or, worse, Photoshopped away. Tourist boards, doing their best to improve the economy and help the world fall in love with the places they stand for, sometimes commit the incidental folly of oversimplifying and misrepresenting these places as well. They are "the institution" in this argument, then, because they present a singular view of place, and because they have the money, resources, and global profile to obscure alternative views.
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