The Role of Culture in Tourism City Marketing. The Case of Buenos Aires City, Argentina

GÓMEZ SCHETTINI, MARIANA; TRONCOSO, CLAUDIA

Bogotá

Congreso; 2nd Place Branding Conference; 2011

in:polis | urbanism, Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies, Humboldt University

During decades some areas of Buenos Aires’ urban space were relegated by both public and private investments. As a result they have been under a process of degradation. However, during the last twenty years the city has gone through renewal processes and urban destructuralization that have been slowly redefining different cultural and touristic enclaves.Since the early 1990s urban renewal plans have been applied at the historical center and waterfront of Buenos Aires. As part of this process, and in the context of a “tourist boom” as consequence of Argentine currency’s devaluation in 2002, public and private investments in urban renewal started flourishing in relation to new public policies that had among their objectives the promotion of cultural tourism. Public and private policies and investments were led by the idea of transforming Buenos Aires into a “cultural capital and creative force of Latin America” (Plan de Marketing Turístico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, 2006). At the same time several cultural manifestations, strongly linked to the renewed spaces and considered authentic values of local identity threatened by the standardizing forces of globalization, have been protected using heritage legislation.The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of culture in tourism promotion of Buenos Aires. In particular, the paper examines the processes of invention of local identity and the value of the city’s cultural heritage as part of urban policies developed in the last decade. In order to do that several documents concerning public plans and programs are analyzed in detail: the “Plan Estratégico de Marketing Turístico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires (the policy’s main instrument) and “Plan Bares Notables” and “Estudios Abiertos” programs, among others.The analysis of this policy has showed that commercial uses of culture have been the main objective of the local strategy in order to insert Buenos Aires into the global tourist market. The paper states that even when the public policy intention was to protect local heritage from disappearing under globalization, specific economic interests have also orientated its implementation. Thus, since place’s authenticity operates as an attraction in the international market of tourism, globalization, far from being a threat, seems to be a condition to revalorize local culture.The results and interpretations furnished in this paper are intended to provide some clues to understand the processes of place’s identity construction through marketing policies, especially the ones focusing on culture and heritage.