SEMINARS 2007
"BRANDCELONA": TOTAL TOURISM AND BRANDED CITIES seminar
Francesc Muñoz
During the last two centuries, the city has evolved from being an exception in a non-urbanised territory to appearing as the main trend of space. At the same time that local urban settlements were becoming “total” urban regions, tourism was transforming itself in a very important way: an activity that used to be temporal, specific and clearly orientated towards concrete places defines itself nowadays by continuity, stability and the multiplication of situations that can be qualified as tourism. More spaces and because of more reasons are nowadays targets for global tourism flows. The continuous presence and the spatial ubiquity of this “total tourism” consumes a very important part of the time of population in developed urban societies, one year after another. They are “part-time” inhabitants that flow in a very discontinuous but stable way around the world. They temporary occupy and inhabit streets, squares, museums, cathedrals, natural parks, jungles, golf resorts, and even prisons or military camps. “Total tourism” has even given birth to a specific culture that characterises any temporal visit to any place even in those cases in which the touristy activity is not the main purpose.
Considering urban space and landscape, total tourism is, among other elements like gentrification, reinforcing processes like the new role acquired by the urban image or the increasing “brandification” of the city. The urban image is no longer peripheral considering the process of urban production. It is true that in the 19th century the image was part of the mediatic narration of city change. However, at the present moment, the image has become the main element animating and encouraging the transformation of the existing city. In plain words, the image is needed before a brick is laid. In this sense, urban images have become “brands”. The global market of branded urban images has developed so intensively that everything can be used to create an attractive image –from local architecture to local food, from local landscape to the local inhabitants–.
The seminar covers theories and concepts on these issues and explores Barcelona’s branding process as study case.