between production and consumption. The narrative of their holiday experience ultimatelyfeeds into their understanding of themselves and their self-perception. Confrontation with the“other” ultimately becomes a confrontation with “the self”. Cultural objects, cities, andregions where one spends one’s holidays fulfil the function of a symbol that anchors an imageof the self and defines where one stands with respect to others. The narrative of MiddleEastern tourists in Lebanon, for example, is those of foreigners, who—freed from the socialconstraints of their home countries—party, go out and gamble, seemingly experiencingwestern freedom, while remaining in a familiar Arab context.Balzac differentiates in Scènes de la Vie de Provence between Paris and the countryside;“While Paris, the capital is everything, the province is nothing but itself”.xxxvi This distinctionbetween rural areas and cities remains valid. While many of the world’s capitals have seen anincreasing commodification of their cultural heritage and tourist experiences becomeinterchangeable , places such as rural South Africa and the Philippines offer nothing butgenuine exposure to authentic lifestyle and their uniqueness is assured. For rural areas thisoffers a particular window of opportunity. Essentially cut off from the mainstream discourseof a potential commodification of tourist experiences, rural areas can offer authenticity andgenuine creative experiences.xxxviiRural communities fearing to lose ownership and control over the tourist experience mayemploy collective marks to counteract this trend. The link of collective marks with touristclusters secures ownership and guarantees that the cultural and geographic property of acommunity is experienced by tourists in a context of mutual exchange, as opposed to ahegemonic order. Legally protected through collective marks, they satisfy the tourists’ questfor authenticity, yet allow the owner to moderate the pace at which this takes place.xxxviiiEmpirical evidenceWhile there is a solid theoretical argument for the creation of clusters through collectivemarks, the current use of trade marks in tourism shows the following features:1. Individual marks have been used as if they were collective marks, as in the examplesof St. Moritz and Venice. This has been achieved through the de facto collective use ofindividual marks, providing empirical evidence that commercial settings may notnecessarily be bound by the legal framework provided.2. Individual marks have been used to assure property rights over a tourist destinationwith brand value. Illustrative examples are the trade marks of Queensland (Australia) (Virginia, the State of New York and New York City (USA). These examples showawareness of the role IP protection plays in branding, but not of the managerial andstrategic potential of IP law.3. Collective marks have been used to foster community undertakings. While neitherparticularly profitable nor too well-known, these examples show that clusters havebeen created with the support of collective marks. Illustrations from the UK’s NationalHeritage Corridor (a national park) and the Philippines are described below. While theexample of the Philippines relates to the collective production and harvesting ofsugarcane and bananas, it shows solid development potential for the approachdeveloped in this paper.4. While tourist clusters have been created and appropriate logos and slogans coined, IPprotection has been ignored. South Africa’s “Eastern Cape Parks”. shows a lack of IPawareness.