Thank you very much all of you for being here. It’s a pleasure for me to have this. This is the third public lecture I had here after the third year. I am bringing this time a new topic, I think it’s quite a suggestive topic because we are talking about legends. Sometimes we are thinking about myths and magics and these magics and legends, in some places they are becoming true tourist destinations. So my presentation has a lot of links with the PowerPoint so I have to sit here using my computer. Please excuse me because my English is not perfect but I’ll try to do my best with my Spanglish. As you can see in the pictures I would like to show you, I would like to explore with you some trends around Europe and Asia because we are here in Asia-Europe Institute. I would like to tell you also about some Latin-American countries because they have some iconic heritage sites like those you can see here in Peru with Machu Picchu and those Mayan pyramids in Mexico because they are very good examples and they are very much connected with some Southeast Asian places like Angkor Wat and Borobudur Temple.
So, in this presentation, we are going to first talk about cultural heritage and modern tourism. How can we connect this history at the same time with modern concepts. Secondly I would like to tell you about the place marketing related to history. There are many places around the globe who has a kind of symbolism, iconic places, who are symbolizing not only sites but also symbolizing sometimes countries. Finally I would like to explore the connections between Europe and Asia because Europe is a small continent. We are a small peninsula next to the big Asian continents. So, we have some common historic links throughout the history, I will hope in modern times as well.
So, let’s get off with the first one, cultural heritage. When we are talking about heritage and culture of course it’s a very big topic, it’s very big concept. I think modernly, we have been appreciating the legacy of the past, I would say in the last century or last century and a half. There are still some places who that they don’t still appreciate the heritage sites and it’s a pity. Throughout the history, I would like to tell you first about the times of the Enlightenment and Romanticism in Europe. We have to go back to the British upper class when the rich people from the British culture, they travelled to the south of Europe in searching for the classical culture. So, this we will call the grand tours. This is the first step when people were undertaking modern tourism. They came looking for their Rome and Greece heritage and of course the Renaissance; Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci etc. It was a time of new ideas. It was a time of discovering the last corners of the planet. It was a time of rational thinking, instead of traditional religion or traditional myths. It was a time of eminent human figures, explorers. Of course we can talk about Zheng Hu a Chinese explorer. But, of course Christopher Columbus, the first European who first stepped onto the American continent. They didn’t know there was a new continent already. The last corners of Africa by Richard Burton, John Speke, David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley. These people, they discovered the last corners in Africa. Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi, this Italian lord, he was the first one in travelling and climbing mountains just because of the pleasure of climbing the mountain. Not just because it was useful to go there, it was just the pleasure of discovering your own spirits inside of you. So it was the first step of looking for new modern tourism. It was a time when Portugal and Spain, and I am glad that Mr. Azmi and the Executive Director, they are visiting Spain and Portugal next week. They discover and if I show you my passport on the first page, Spain is showing the voyages by Christopher Columbus to what he was thinking that was China or East Japan. They called it Cipangu at this time, but it was not, it was a new continent. In the first page, this is a symbol of identity for us because it was probably the first historic moment for history of Spain. That is why so many countries in Latin America speak Spanish. Even in USA there are so many places that have Spanish names. Portuguese that came here, they founded the Malacca, they founded a number of cities in Asia. Then Christopher Columbus, he was rejected by the Portuguese King, so he went to Spain. Spain at that time, they were fighting with the Arabs, that’s why we still have Andalusia in the region of the south, some Muslim heritage. The last year of the Christian kingdoms, they conquered the whole peninsula again, they founded the last palace it was the last Arabic palace, the Alhambra. At that time they funded the voyages by Columbus to America, it was the same year, it was 1492. This is the palace of Alhambra, in south Spain. So, after they conquered this palace, they gave some money to Columbus and he travelled to the west. He thought he was travelling to Asia, but then they discovered a new continent. But they didn’t know at that time, they discovered that many years later. He went first to the Bahamas, and then after that it was Columbia, Mexico, South USA and then the Portuguese came to Brazil. Many years later the British they went to what is now today, the USA. That is why we have some common links between Spain and Latin America.
It was a time of scientists, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin. There were eminent human scientists at that time. Philosophers of course, modern philosophy was founded at that time. It was political figures, not only because of the French Revolution, but also the new modern democracy that came from the USA, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. It was a time of poets like Lord Byron, Arthur Rimbaud, a French one. Musicians like Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. So, you can see here it was a time of new ideas, the whole time. At that time it was when modern heritage tourism emerged because on one side there were push factors, explorers discovering the last corner of the planet. Archaeologists recovering many years later what was at that time forbidden places. At the other side, there were pull factors because there was a new middle class emerging many years later when the Industrial Revolution emerged. It was called post-modernism. Post-modernism because it was after the Enlightenment. New, what was called at that time, bourgeois people, middle class, emerged. These people emerged in post industrial societies. Societies that were not just living from rural activities or agricultural, not only industrial like what happened in Britain many years ago, but post-industrial societies. So, at that time, modern tourism emerged. Now we have the modern 20th century tourism. Tourism, as we have been analyzing with our students during these days, is a modern industry that we can develop to many different target markets, from business tourism, cultural tourism, eco-tourism. So, there are new mixtures here so it’s a lot of new, different activities involving tourism. Cultural tourism is just one of that. Places, looking for experiences like food and drink, people travelling because of religious significance places, people travelling to historic and heritage sites etc. So there are different kinds of activities here.
Now in the second point I would like to tell you more about the place marketing related to heritage sites. If we are talking about culture, culture is of course very broad. There’s cultural about literature, there’s culture about music, there’s culture about cinema, universities, museums, even popular celebrations could be considered culture in a modern way. I have some links here in the second presentation, so let me tell you something about these modern places. If we’re talking about music for example, if you go to Germany, then you find this city Bayreuth, which is attracting attention of the media throughout the world because of a music event, one or two days or one week. It is the Wagner Opera Festival. Those are similar to Verona with Verdi or Salzburg with Mozart. This is a small city, but for one week, the whole media across the world is talking about this city just because of a music event. This is kind of a cultural event. If we are talking about music for example, if you go to New Orleans in the south USA, this is a postcard I bought there. You can see here the connection between the city and the musical style. It’s a kind of reification between the city and the new music that was born there thanks to the black people. Here if you travel to Argentina for example, it was very nice to see that picture with my students the other day. Tango and gastronomy and tourism and here you can see that Tango music is the soul of a city. Let’s hear some Tango music. Here you can see the Tango and the artist, Carlos Gardel, the music of Buenos Aires. Here they speak Spanish with an Argentinean accent, the musical accent. So you can see here now this old man who will play this little accordion, the passion that he has, because this music is inside of him, here in a few seconds. There you are. He’s living the Tango. Tangos used to talk about terrible love stories, crying for our love, dishonest moments, whatever. So here they’re talking about the soul of the city. The identification of this big city Buenos Aires. Because Tango is music, Tango is dancing and Tango is spirit inside of the Argentinean people. So here you can see the relationship between city and place and the culture.
Theatre for example, if you go to cities like Avignon in France or Calcazone, here you can see the theatre festivals in the streets during the summer. The same is for Almaria in Spain. If you go to the middle of England in the small village Stratford is the village where William Shakespeare was born, so this is identification of this city with this famous writer and poet. If you go to USA, you can go to cinema, Hollywood and cinema festivals like the Cannes in France and Sebastian, Spain, Berlinale in Germany, Venice in Italy and so on.
Big museums, like in Madrid, in London, in New York, in Russia for example there is the Hermitage Museum is Saint Petersburg is known as a symbol of the Russian culture. As well as the Metropolitan or the MOMA or the Guggenheim for the USA and for New York Universities. Probably Oxford University or Cambridge University are much more famous than the cities. I bought these three postcards in Oxford and I bought these three postcards in Cambridge. If you mention Oxford, nobody will think about the football club but they will think about the university. As well as when they think about Manchester, probably they will think about Manchester United or Madrid with Real Madrid and so on. These institutions they are representing the culture.
Ok, so let’s go back to the previous presentation. Here, I would also like to tell you about popular celebrations because culture is not only history and heritage. Culture is also modern and modern culture. If you go to Rio De Janeiro for example or Salvador da Bahia in Brazil, these cities are famous because of the carnival. Rio De Janeiro is organizing the next Olympic Games. There is also a famous carnival in Venice and in New Orleans. If you go to these place in the north of Spain, Pamplona, the running of the bulls and in Munich they drink these kind of small beers in Oktoberfest, one litre, between the height of September and October, that’s why they call it Oktoberfest. This is popular celebration. After that we still have some minutes I would like to show you some pictures of San Fermín.
Ancient history, there are also great ancient civilizations. Rome, the capital city of the former Roman Empire. Athens, the Greek civilization and the Acropolis. Of course if you go to Beijing, it’s wonderful to see the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, also a symbol for China. If you go to Cairo then the pyramids are quite impressive. Islamic heritage also in the south of Spain, the Middle East, unfortunately there is a wall now in Syria, Isfahan in Iran. In East Asia you have a lot of culture here with the cities like Xian and the Silk Road, Bangkok and Ayutthaya in Thailand of course, Angkor Wat, Kathmandu, Nara, Kyoto, Bagan, there’s a lot of culture also here in Asia. At the same time we also have medieval European towns, very beautiful to visit. There are so many, we cannot read everything but if you travel to Europe, I really suggest to you that after Paris and London and the big cities you go to these places because they are really cute and charming to visit. In South America there’s also great heritage sites by both the Spaniards and before the Spaniards. Ok, this is colonial heritage cities and here this is Indian local prayer Hispanic sites. The Aztecs in Mexico, the Incas in Peru, the Taironas and the famous El Dorado legend in Columbia. Now we are researching with Stockholm University Business School in Sweden, those two legends, the connection between El Dorado and Shangri-La.
Apparently there’s no connection but in Shangri-La as I will tell you later there is a true product destination and in El Dorado not yet but there is a chance for Columbians to develop a legend on that. There are places where there are different religions there. Jerusalem for example, is Christian, it’s Jewish, it’s Arab and also there’s a small Armenian neighbourhood. Typical cities with religious significance like Jerusalem, for these three, Rome for the Catholics, I will tell you later about Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Mecca, Islam’s holy city, Varanasi for the Hindus and tomorrow we will have the Thaipusam here, Salt Lake City for the Mormons, Lalibela for the Christians in Ethiopia. These are holy places in a way. At the same time we have a number of medium cities, not so old, but still living culture, like Prague in the Czech Republic. Like Edinburgh, representing Scotland in the face of England. Like Krakow, representing the culture of Poland. Kyoto, of course, representing the traditional culture of Japan. Cusco, in Peru, representing the pre-Hispanic culture there. Quebec, a small French island in the whole Anglo-Saxons speaking North America and so on. We also have historical cities which are very much destroyed, all very much transformed. These places, although they have been destroyed, they are still famous. That’s the magic of branding because there is still famous heritage from past times. These cities also, but they are very much transformed from that time. Istanbul for example, they have many names. Istanbul is now part of Turkey, but it was formally Constantinople of the Byzantine Empire. Sometimes they change the names. So, having these places in our minds, many people are willing to travel to these places because of meeting the heritage and meeting the tradition of our history. Let’s try to compare some places throughout the world with some common links. For example, if we go to South America, here you can see the Mayan lost cities and the Inca site. Here you see the National Geographic travel magazine, they sponsored this expedition and they discovered the Machu Picchu in Peru. Machu Picchu is the icon for modern tourism in Peru. Same, for modern Mexico; here I would like to show you this video. Here you can see Western tourists. They are inviting the Westerners to visit this place and feel the atmosphere, the magic of their dancing, the Inca dancing. They are using this place, the Hispanic heritage, to promote modern place branding. You see they are in speaking Spanish, people enjoy the legend. They say the end in a nice Spanish from Peru. Same for Mexico and the Mayan pyramids. This small guy here, this is me, visiting these big pyramids in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. I was injured at that time, you can see my ankle was a little bit injured here but I still managed to climb it--step by step. And now, these modern places, representing modern Mexico. I took this picture in Madrid tourism exhibition FITUR, and you can see here this one is Chichen Itza here and this is Calakmul pyramid, both are representing the Maya pyramids. Again, the same, history and modern place branding for Peru and for Mexico. These places, they were abandoned because when the Spanish conquistadors went there, they forgot about this place and many centuries later they discovered it again. The same for Angkor Wat and Petra. Angkor Wat is now the symbol of Cambodia but Angkor Wat was about to be eaten by the jungle. Angkor Wat was a big Khmer city, here you can see the canals. So it was a big civilization at that time. You can see here the rows of the trees almost eating the temples and still a place with lots of religious significance. Petra the same. Petra in Jordan, the Middle East is also a heritage city in a mountain. So, these places, although coming from different places around the globe, these sites they have common links. Ancient civilizations, forgotten places for many centuries and later, they were discovered again by archaeologists and now they are representing modern tourism. That is the common point. Lalibela, in Ethiopia, the same. You can see these beautiful churches, they were not built, they were carved into the rock. They removed the rock and then they left at the centre this red cross building and this is now a UNESCO heritage site. It’s similar to that. When we are talking about heritage we can also consider beautiful places related to nature and literature. This is Canaima Park in Venezuela, they are beautiful mountains. I was able also to visit this place after a PhD course in Venezuela in Caracas and I took these pictures, it’s a beautiful landscape. This place is now representing modern tourism for Venezuela. I took this picture in FITUR, it was a tourism exhibition and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle he was inspired in this beautiful landscape to write The Lost World. Jurassic Park, it was also inspired by these kinds of places. So, again, the connection between modern place branding here for Venezuela and then literature and modern cinema and—that’s me there—sweating a lot. In a way I was having a bath, at the bottom of the waterfall and it’s a beautiful landscape. I’m here with some children and the landscape is absolutely beautiful. This is the highest waterfall on earth. Here you can see this video by the BBC. It’s raining at the top, this is the highest waterfall on earth, it’s almost one kilometre they call it Angel Falls because there was an airplane by an American called ‘Jimmy Angel’ that’s why they call it Angel Falls but there’s also a beautiful local lake called ‘the deepest place’. It’s so high that when it’s going to the ground it’s no longer a waterfall, it’s raining. So this beautiful place inspired this book and this legend. That’s me, up there. I took so many pictures in Canaima. The same for the Serengeti. Serengeti and Maasai Mara, now it’s a legend attracting so many tourists going there to travel to watch lions, but then again, literature and movie. Out of Africa, it was originally a book written by Karen Blixen. Karen Blixen, she was a Danish writer and after that, many years later, Sydney Pollack directed this movie and after this, especially this, new people like me, going to travel to Africa to meet this gorgeous place. This famous plane sequence of out of Africa was very influential in bringing tourism during the following year. Robert Redford is representing Denys Finch Hatton, a hunter, and she’s the writer, she’s Meryl Streep and she’s representing Karen Blixen. This gorgeous sequence with the music and the landscape by the Serengeti they have a lot of influence to bring tourism to that place because after this movie many people said wow, where is that place? It had a lot of influence to bring tourism to the Serengeti and Maasai Mara. Serengeti means in Maasai language endless plain, so that’s the Serengeti meaning. A lot of craters there, this is a big crater, there is also wildebeest migration. That is the Lake Nakuru in Kenya. There are thousands of flamingos and pelicans, flamingos are pink, pelicans are black, white and yellow. Serengeti and Maasai Mara are heritage sites by the UNESCO many years ago, a long time ago. Canaima in the sense of natural and beautiful landscape and Serengeti and Maasai Mara are connected in that sense that they are beautiful places.
Here you can see real places on the left side and now on the right side, spiritual places, places with non-real non-tangible, they are legends. This one for example, the way of St. James, it’s called in Spanish the El Camino de Santiago. It’s a pilgrim way coming from Europe going to the city of Santiago de Compostela in the west. The city where I live is here, Leon, and many modern tourists, they do that and there are only two heritage pilgrim ways which are human heritage by UNESCO and the world. This is El Camino de Santiago and the second one is Kumano Kodō in Japan. Both countries are using these assets to promote the countries. Spain, with the new campaign and Japan with Yokoso Japan. I have some brochures there in my room but I forgot to bring it, sorry. Later if you are interested I would like to show you because I was bringing these Wakayama and Kumano Kodō brochures and they are there. So, the same for other legends like El Dorado from Columbia and the Dracul, the legend from Romania. The same structure for Shangri-La in southwest China and the Santa Claus. Legends becoming true tourism destinations. So you can find this connection between places throughout the world.
Last point. Let me try to explore with you some ideas the connection between Europe and Asia. On the one side we have in Asia a number of monuments representing cities and countries. Of course the Taj Mahal for India, the Great Wall for China and when I went to China in October, this is my visa and here you can see the Great Wall, representing the whole Chinese ancient civilization. Of course this is a great piece of architecture, so crazy to build and even the new years eve I took this picture from there two weeks ago. The same for Petra, now you can see Petra in many movies like this sequence in Indiana Jones. The same for the royal palace in Bangkok also a beautiful place. In Europe they have the Colosseum representing Rome. In Gladiator we have the scene of the Colosseum in a famous sequence. Here there are Asian tourists in the Colosseum. And Greece of course, representing ancient European culture. Europe, we also have some connection, European cities connected to Asia because this is south of Spain Alhambra and if you remember that video then this fountain has been recently restored and it is such a beautiful place. This is the most visited monument in Spain. It has been recently restored and has 12 lions. Every lion is a source of a fountain with water going out from the mouth. Alhambra means rumour of water. So this is connected with Syria because this was very much founded by the Umayyad dynasty which is now Syria. Of course now Syria is now in a civil war but there you can see so many Japanese tourists in this place. If you go further south in Spain then you will have a beautiful mosque, here in Córdoba. So we have also some Muslim heritage that is Córdoba city. It seems to be Saudi Arabia right? But it is not, it is Spain because we have a long history. Also, a city in Europe connected with Asia is Venice because Venice had a trade commerce with the Asian cities in the past. Here you can see the beautiful landscape in Asia. In Venice connected to modern arts like cinema festival and the arts. There is a unique city in Istanbul because it’s a bridge between Europe and Asia and part of the city is located in Europe on the west and the east side is Asia so in that sense Istanbul is unique because it’s a bridge city for two continents. If you go to Asia of course Istanbul used that asset to try to promote these two continents, one city if you see the stadiums for the players for the Olympic Games they were showing another continent from the stadium. The stadiums were open to see the other continent which is a very good idea. And then of course we have the Silk Road. There are so many cities in central Asia like Bukhara, Kashgar, Samarkand, connected with Europe at that time and Xian. If you go to the south because it was a maritime here in Goa, in Malacca, in Georgetown, Surabaya, in Makassar, colonial cities founded by the Europeans. Mainly Portuguese but also Dutch and British. So there are common links between Europe and Asia at that time. Very quickly, heritage sites like destroyed cities in Pompeii, UNESCO has been warning Italy because sometimes they are not very well preserved and UNESCO has said that they should take care of these places. They are so crowded. Maybe when they make paintings there, things are scratched, they take some stones, litter, so they are destroying Pompeii. UNESCO has been saying to Italy very carefully, you should take care of these places, otherwise we will remove the UNESCO brand. So we have a responsibility to preserve these places. Angkor, for example, now it’s a brand for Cambodia. You can see here in the notes, in the flag and even there is a beer brand called Angkor beer, so quite amazing.
Legends, coming from the past like the Santa Claus for Rovaniemi in Finland. Here you can see Rovaniemi doing good marketing of being a village of the Santa Claus. Or the Loch Ness Monster for Scotland. Is it true? Is it not true? Is it a legend? But how many people go there to see, to check if they just watch it, the head from the lake. Even Britain is using this asset as a claim to visit their country. Even here in Asia you have Shangri-La, which is very much based on Lost Horizon, a book by James Hilton. And now Shangri-La is a very famous brand destination for China, Yunnan, Tibet province. I was there some months ago, unfortunately there has been a fire in Tibet and one ancient city has been destroyed by the fire. But the Shangri-La is almost a brand. The hotel Shangri-La because they’re representing a kind of paradise. Tigers, also representing a lot of places in Asia. India is using this beautiful tourism claim. We don’t have so much time here but we have been talking to students about tigers the last two days.
Finally, religious cities. Rome, Lhasa, Jerusalem, Mecca, even Indonesia, here is me in Borobudur visiting Borobudur temples. Places with religious significance.
Let me finish with some conclusions very quickly. I think in the last years I think, tourism has to evolve because sometimes tourism management is too basic, too simple sometimes. We need to evolve to a new marketing approach, this is called nowadays the service logic. We need to go farther, we need to go to new creative approaches, trying to link places with new creativity because as we have been talking with the students there’s a new value co-creation between different institutions targeting to different target groups. Different institutions, they are sometimes public institutions, sometimes they are private businesses. Exchanging to different kinds of people, people willing to have rest but also people willing to meet cultural assets. So targeting the market across to different target markets. And now also the customer as guide to tourists is also a value co-creator. One of the students this morning, she was studying the craftsmanship, sometimes the student is co-creating the craftsmanship because they’re demanding a tradition that otherwise would be lost. So the tourist is co-creating. This new approach is called the new service logic. At the same time my professor he said this is many-to-many marketing because this is not just one single part dealing with one part, it’s many exchanging to many.
We need to understand, finally, we need to understand something more about the place. We need to understand place has history, so we need to go to a creative dialogue between heritage and modern arts. That’s my view. Thank you very much. Terima kasih. Xiè xie. ¡Gracias!
Prof. Dr. Norberto Muniz Martinez
Doctor of Economics and Business Administration, Professor of Marketing at the University of Leon, Spain, Europe. Diploma in European Union and Foreign Trade by the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain); Master Science of Transport & Distribution Management, University of Central England (Birmingham, England). Publishes in academic journals and books; lecturing in a number of postgraduate courses and masters at universities and institutions from Europe, the Americas and Asia. His areas of research are: city marketing and place branding, strategic marketing, international retailing, and new trends in tourism.
Conducting international researches, such as a European Union project with the cities of Leipzig (Germany), Bologna (Italy), Ljubljana (Slovenia) and León (Spain); has also cooperated with Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), where he is visiting professor at the Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya; also guest lecturer at Stockholm Business School (Sweden), and Medellin (Colombia), where he is visiting professor. Besides Spain, he has taught courses on new trends in tourism in Mexico, and PhH courses in Brazil and Venezuela, as well as lecturers on place marketing/branding in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Sweden, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines. Founding member of the Latin American association ‘International Network of Marketing and Urban Development (‘Red Internacional de Marketing y Desarrollo Urbano’), which promotes exchanges of knowledge and urban experiences.
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Last Update: 19/11/2021
