When a Gondola Crosses the Ocean... Heritage and Tourism in the New Global World (original) (raw)

2016, Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Cultural Heritage

The canals of Venice, lost under mass-tourism, have re-appeared at the interior of a hotel and shopping centre in Las Vegas. But a huge American-style shopping mall, with new medieval towers and Renaissance facades, has appeared near Florence and attracts a lot of its overseas visitors. Italian Renaissance festivals with knights and tournaments are a big hit in the meadows of the central U.S. states, but are a growing phenomenon even in small Italian towns, where the pride for history and local authenticity has produced an increasing number of history-themed festivals. Roman gladiators have crossed the Ocean, have arrived at Hollywood and have even helped to fight McCarthyism. But now they have rediscovered Rome and populate the Colosseum area and two movie and history themed parks near the town. Much time has passed since the glorious age of the eclectic Hearst castle in San Simeon, California, or the Renaissance mansions in Newport, Rhode Island. Heritage is no longer only a tool to invent or enhance the past of the “new world”; it is an instrument to culturalize shopping experiences also in the “old Europe” and almost everywhere is an effective means used to give authenticity to many consumption experiences. Models and copies, going to and fro across the Atlantic Ocean, have blended in new practices intertwining tourism, leisure, shopping and education. Globalization and the spreading of new markets (and new tourists) have much complicated what once was a simple bilateral relation: recently Venice canals and Michelangelo’s David’s statues have appeared even in China. But what does heritage really mean for the new global trans-Atlantic market? And on which idea of the past are based the new fluid relationships? Post-modernity, globalization and consumerism have not only changed consumers’ and tourists’ behaviour; they have also created new relations with history and education, where de-intellectualization, leisure and edutainment play an important role, worthy of being explored and studied.