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Creating a tourism sensation

I can't find it but I seem to remember a post years ago about the woman in Spain who tried to restore a local painting in her church and botched the job. The linked article is a recent story about how it has resulted in the painting becoming a tourism must-see.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240926-what-makes-a-tourist-attraction

It's a feel-good story because it's brought tourism and income to the region. A quote from the article;

In his book The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class,
sociologist Dean MacCannell writes: "anything is potentially a
[tourist] attraction. It simply awaits one person to take the trouble
to point out to another something noteworthy or worth seeing …
Sometimes we have official guides and travelogues to assist us in this
pointing." But more and more often, social media feeds now serve as
our travel guides, pointing tourists towards things like unassuming
rural villages, quirky roadside attractions and far-flung art
installations.

I created a post last week asking how to look at art, and one of my comments is that I'm more interested in the story of the art than I am in the art. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/how-to-look-at-art
This is a perfect example of something that may be more worthwhile to me.

Do we blame social media for creating a sensation or praise it for creating the sensation, resulting in revenue for an out-of-the-way destination?

Posted by
1834 posts

It's funny how we were just talking about the conservation of The Nightwatch in the other thread. The story linked is the complete opposite. I found it rather funny. It was ruined so badly in such a hilarious way.

Whether social media is to blame or to be praised is a good question. It just is these days. It's the way a lot of people see the world and their life experiences in general.

I kinda like the ephemeral. I like that the Banksy mural near me on Essex Road, Islington, got slowly destroyed and eroded over the years. Grainy social media posts are pretty much all that is left of what was there originally.

I sort of rail against the revenue question a bit. In a lot of instances, the value of "tourist dollars" in Europe are overestimated here. Having your little town absolutely overrun by randoms suddenly, even if you can make a little cash from them, can be a PITA unless you're really skint.

Posted by
5187 posts

I sort of rail against the revenue question a bit.

But the church in this case admits that the revenue is a good thing.

Since the church began charging visitors a €3 entrance fee and selling
souvenirs in 2016, the proceeds have funded new jobs at the church
(such as the docent's) and a large portion is donated to the
retirement home where Giménez now lives.

Posted by
3954 posts

Reminder: "General Europe - Questions and answers regarding travel across multiple countries".

Posted by
1834 posts

Reminder: "General Europe...

You'd have to explain your reminder further to me. I don't know what you mean.

But the church in this case admits that the revenue is a good thing.

Good. I was thinking more along the lines of "tourists have blocked the bloody driveway again and I can't get the car out" (in Spanish). That sort of thing. It might not always be about how much money the church makes.

Posted by
696 posts

I work part of the year in the Baztan valley, in Navarra. It is quite beautiful, and worth the visit, but it didn't get a lot of tourist... until 2013 when there was a bestselling novel (The Invisible Guardian, by Dolores Redondo) set in the valley. Soon there were tour buses, mostly Spanish retirees, visiting the valley.

Since COVID, the tour buses are down, but the awareness of the valley has gone up.