Branding and Promotion
The Promotion of a Multicultural Heritage City: The Case of Thessaloniki
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Derek Bryce
The Classical and Hellenistic civilisations of Greece are vital to the heritage self-image of that country and what may be loosely called “the West”. The northern Greek city of Thessaloniki possesses a legacy that is quite distinct from the dominant heritage perception of Greece. While there is a classical legacy there, Thessaloniki’s main periods of political, cultural and economic significance took place in periods subsequent to these as an important city of both the Byzantine and particularly the Ottoman Empire. Because of the shifting populations and the syncretic religious and cultural forms associated with both of these empires, Thessaloniki is home to a rich diversity of built and intangible heritage that takes in sites of Orthodox Christian, Islamic and Jewish significance. This legacy, we argue, that has largely been occluded from the favoured narratives of “Greekness” in both the domestic and international imaginations and is necessary to present a fully developed heritage image of Greece. This paper, draws upon and extends Bryce’s (2013, 2009) and Bryce and Čaušević’s (2016) work on the integration of the Byzantine and Ottoman worlds into mainstream narratives of European heritage. It argues for the potential of Thessaloniki to differentiate itself as a heritage destination that may present the diversity of Greek history beyond the favoured ancient past. It builds its theoretical case on a series of interviews undertaken with heritage professionals and other interested stakeholders working in Thessaloniki.
Deconstruction and Construction of Morocco’s Destination Image: North-American College Students between 18 and 23 Years Old
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Candice Cornet
A tourist takes on a vacation his mind already filled with images. Once he actually reaches the destination he has chosen, these images can be maintained, revoked, transformed or replaced. As noted by Moissec (1977: 55) “tourist space is first and foremost an image (…) a complex, dreamed image, reflected in travel guides and pamphlets, books, paintings and movies (my translation from French).” Morocco, with its rich cultural and natural heritage, offers multiple images to potential visitors. Images of its landscape, its fine dining, its ethnicity and religion all compete in beauty and make tourist imagine an unforgettable exotic trip. From a comparative analysis of sample images submitted by college students (aged 18 to 23) prior and after a fieldwork course in Morroco, this paper aims to answer the following questions: what images do north-American college students have of Morocco? How does a fieldwork course in Marrakech and in the Atlas mountains transform these images? How does the encounter with the “other,” as being part of the course’s requirements, contribute to deconstruct negative stereotypes regarding Morocco and its Muslim inhabitants? How does fieldwork experience change a destination image and construct new ones? Finally, what percentage of these images actually depict identified cultural and natural heritage (by UNESCO or else) before and after fieldwork?
