Home EARNING FROM TOURISM Tourist Locations and Postcard Effect

Tourist Locations and Postcard Effect

12 August 2022

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Better to photograph … then, I will understand

As I write this article, a very strange event, not to border on the bizarre, has led me to much deeper considerations affecting more and more Italian tourist destinations.

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I can come to certain conjectures being a privileged witness, living in a well-known tourist place, of a trend in the behavior of exploiting the tourist product that is increasingly commodified and celebratory of an image, rather than connected to being respectful travelers to magnificent places because they have stories and histories behind them.

First of all, let us mention the news event that inspired this general reflection of mine, which obviously has no scientific connections or connections with field studies, and is the result of personal experiences and observations.

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A 33-year-old tourist from Australia was stopped by Carabinieri and reported to judicial authorities for entering Pompeii Archaeological Park with a scooter.
The young man had probably thought he could more quickly enjoy the sights of the vast Roman city buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD.
He had taken a rented motorcycle and entered a gap created in the fence for some maintenance work. The tourist, comfortably and without exposing himself to the grip of the heat, had thus begun the visit, traveling a total of one and a half kilometers and parking the scooter near the areas and blocks he intended to visit.

Of course , the man was taken to the barracks where he said he did not know that moped access was prohibited at the archaeological area. He was reported for unauthorized access to archaeological park.

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POSTCARD EFFECT

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What does this event “teach” us, apart from the fact that in Italy even Foreigners conform to the interpretation of the law and not to follow it . We had an example, yet another, of how an archaeological site and in general a tourist location is interpreted.

Our friendly Australian friend mistook a place steeped in history and even sacredness for a commercial product; with more complex reasoning he mistook Form for Content.

In how many tourist locations do we see guests who are busier taking photos than following a guide’s information or inquiring firsthand about the cultural value of the place.

This kind of phenomenon can be called the “postcard” effect. , the image of a phenomenon and its immortalization completely supersedes the deep meaning and reality of the place of which you are a guest.

Put like that it might sound like the speech of a conservative who dislikes the social changes taking place but, the reality is more base. The discourse is to be linked to mismanagement in promoting the place itself, which has been left in the hands of the usual commercial operators and has never had the cultural characterization it deserved.

Thus, you offer a product of just staying in the place and leave in the hands of the guest the whole task of learning about the stories of the area and discovering the cause and effect of so many phenomena typical of that tourist destination .

Tourism promotion linked so much to Food and Beverage and with references to Museums or cultural places only to those who have to cross a very steep knowledge curve, and load up on readings or information here and there on the Net.

Moreover, the “postcard” effect not only inhibits the potential of so many tourist locations but also blocks the full cultural economic potential . Thus, per individual guest, in addition to his personal satisfaction, we derive much less money than possible from his propensity to consume.

The Public Administration and Entities should, in my opinion, be more synergistic with the private tourism companies to create that synergy, and products, that will reduce this wanting only to make photo collection without getting the real magic of the place visited, and no for mere intellectual snootiness but to increase the dignity and economic development of those tourist areas .