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CULTURAL MAGEMENT PROGRAM University of Barcelona
CULTURAL TOURISM production and promotion of cultural destinations
Tourist and cultural motivation is very important.
It's one of the most valued things among people who travel
So it's part of one of our strategical cruxes of tourist promotion in Barcelona.
We also create our own products. For example, the visits I mentioned
to the Castle of Manzanares el Real.
They were launched in 2007, and since then
it's been an ongoing success. We've actually increased access,
we've extended night visits...
A group of actors and a juggler tell the story
of the castle and its contents and furniture
as a theatrical performance with a comic element.
For nighttime tours, the guide dresses up in period clothing.
It's slightly staged. But in daytime tours they're dressed
as regular tour guides with the logotype of Cemeteries of Barcelona
which we also want to promote.
We can't forget that this cultural tour
brings added value to the business.
Historic re-enactments are recently in vogue and
people are curious to see what it was like
in the streets of towns and in Madrid.
Having into account that Generalitat deals with tourism issues,
it should have a stronger structure. Generalitat should boost offers
for the creation of new proposals. Offers based on Cataluña's own potencialities.
You can have a look at the boost on national routes
and the boost on networks of tourist welcome centers.
Both of them are first level actions carried out with a strategical plan.
Our own products work this way.
Lately, we have been working the territory
in order to bring, not only our visitors, but also their offer,
so we have daily coaches departuring to Girona, Figueres, Monstserrat...
and, as you said, Sitges also.
Within tourism there are also energizing programs within towns
and these programs have been in effect for some time.
They affect traffic signs, accessibility, the improvement of services in general.
Normally, it's a public and private iniciative.
We associate with some operator and get in contact with
the public part of the place where we want to go.
We're betting on these towns, many of which are unknown,
that have a very rich heritage.
There are agreements with local corporations,
agreements with the Government...
And on a different note, you have subsidies, of course.
subsidies are also important for the improvement of
hostals, rural houses, hotels...
There wasn't much of a strategy, we're in the funeral business
not a tourism company, so we began by improvising.
People came to the cemetery thinking about their buried loved ones.
As soon as we got some people to come and we explained
the history of Barcelona through the cemetery, they were
so surprised, that all it took was word of mouth
to help us develop this tour.
This new way of incorporating provision within information.
This achives that tourists develop a kind of road awareness
and they can find themselves a place, like an arterial road,
where they can find from a shop to buy local products or cratfs,
to a restaurant area where they can enjoy local products or have a coffee.
And, maybe next door, a tourist point where they can get oriented
about things they can find around that area or what's its singularity.
We launched the idea of stamping a tourist passport,
which means the tourist travels through the different towns
that the rally tour follows, and they get their passports stamped.
Once the passport is full they mail it to the management office
and it enters a raffle, with a first, second and third prize.
It's a way to cultivate the loyalty of tourists.
We need to improve our information service.
From going in the past to an office where they gave you a leaflet
or a minimal promotional information, we have now a more pro active office,
with multipurposed centers spreaded around the city,
where tourists can find from conventional information
to information about local products purchase or regional testing places.
We are quite vested in publications.
It's a great way to reach your audience
and to spread information about our patrimony
and opportunities for tourism in the Comunidad de Madrid.
We have an agenda that collects all the cultural offer
outlined by times, days, weeks... highlighting those things
we consider more interesting. On the other hand,
we have our web page, where tourists can previously look up
in order to find activities they can participate in.
These tour guides are organized by theme.
We have from palaces and monasteries to baroque and contemporary art,
parks and gardens... We have a collection of twelve guides.
These guides are free of charge.
They're distributed mainly through tourism offices.
Also, we encorage journalists who come and visit -lot's of them, actually-
to speak about our offer, so that our public can have this information
when reading, for example, an article in the newspaper about Barcelona
where we have previously managed to inclose some architetural or cultural information.
How did we do it? Through word of mouth.
Word of mouth and the media that visited us.
Word of mouth, nothing else, because we can't focus
on promoting to tourists, but I think it's the best thing
about these tours, they basically created themselves
through word of mouth, because of the value they add.
That's what I call creating value for itself.