In the 20th and 21st centuries, tourism has played an increasingly central role in Spain’s economy and in configuring Spaniards’ perceptions of their country. Today tourism constitutes approximately 10 percent of the Spanish GDP and Spain is the third most visited country in the world after France and the United States. By analyzing a series of cultural products intimately related to tourism produced since the turn of the 20^th century, this panel offers an account of the importance of visual cultures in the understanding of tourism in Spain. The presenters will do so by looking at three types of materials produced in two key historical periods that have defined the evolution of tourism in Spain: the first presentation will look at cinema pioneers based in Barcelona and how they built a visual landscape of touristic desire starting at the dawn of the twentieth century, culminating in the film Barcelona, perla del mediterráneo (1912). The second and third presentations will analyze, respectively, postcards and advertising posters produced from the 1960s until today. That second period has been considered foundational for the growing tourist economy first during Franco’s dictatorship and with the restoration of democracy.

The panel will start with Leigh Mercer’s (Associate Professor, University of Washington) presentation “Pioneering Cinema and the Touristic Gaze: City View Films and the Nascent Barcelona Brand at the Turn of the 20^th Century.” The turn of the century marked a watershed moment in the development of tourism in Barcelona. Building on the momentum created through the organization of the International Exposition in Barcelona in 1888, mayor Doménech J. Sanllehy founded the Sociedad de Atracción de Forasteros (SAF) of Barcelona in 1908. According to Nadia Fava and Saida Palou Rubio, although the SAF “attempted to entice tourists to Barcelona as a way of earning foreign currency, tourism was not only viewed from a purely economic perspective because the arrival of foreigners was also perceived as an attractive way to foster cultural exchanges that would modernize the customs and the economy of the country.” The SAF primarily hoped to achieve this impact through the production of a first touristic film, Barcelona, perla del mediterráneo, in 1912. However, as early as a decade prior, cinema pioneers based in Barcelona were already building a visual landscape of touristic desire and promoting the modernization of the city for national and international audiences. This talk will examine the marketing of Barcelona in the earliest era of cinema, through a reading of the nascent branding that emerges in multiple city view and point of view rail films, and culminating in the SAF’s Barcelona, perla del mediterráneo.

The second presentation, by William Nichols (Associate Professor, Georgia State University), explores “The Paradox of the Non-Place: Postcards and the Gaze of the Tourist in Spain.” Postcards, perhaps the most ubiquitous element of tourism, evoke the “traveler’s paradox” described by Claudio Minca and Tim Oakes in which “places are both mobile and rooted, real and fake, inhabited by those who are simultaneously insiders and outsiders, and both subjectively experienced and objectively viewed.” Images of idyllic beaches, high-rise luxury hotels, and bikini-clad women posit a sense of permanence that promises escape from the mundane stresses of modern life by enticing the consumptive gaze of the tourist with the promise of leisure, rejuvenation, and self-discovery. The purposeful physical construction of cities like Torremolinos and Benidorm in the 1960s as fetishized urban spaces designed to attract tourism capital is reinforced through the ideological construction of postcard images that engage the gaze of the tourist to assert the beaches and hotels as culturally constructed ludic “non-places.” Yet, the individual inscription and the movement across borders of the postcard itself contradict the idea of a common experience of these places through the personal impressions the tourist offers by literally and figuratively inscribing him or herself into the figurative landscape of the coasts. While the postcards represent the material culture of mementos purchased within the context of mass tourism, they can also evoke Pierre Nora’s notion of a “lieux de mémoire” in which the handwritten message may assert and capture the individual experience of the tourist. The purpose of this paper is to examine the paradoxes of tourism by studying the images of postcards from the 1960s to today that “sell” the Spanish coast as a constructed space of consumption where the tourist, through capital, may both escape and rediscover themselves.

In the last presentation, “A Country of Regions: Word and Image in the Spanish Ministry of Tourism’s Publicity (1960-2019)” Anna Casas Aguilar (Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia) will examine a series of posters produced by the Spanish government from the 1960s to today where images of the Mediterranean coast appear in order to attract foreigners. This presentation focuses on how the Mediterranean and its main tourist destinations such as the Costa del Sol, the Costa Brava, and the city of Barcelona are consistently portrayed. The presentation analyzes in particular why certain landscapes are repeatedly evoked in the advertisements: these cultural products underscore complex power dynamics. On the one hand, the state’s voice in the slogans is evident: from the “Visit Spain” and “Spain is Different” from the 1960s, to the later “Spain. Everything under the Sun” (1984-1990), or “Bravo Spain” (1998-2001) these slogans portray the desire to publicize one country. Yet, on the other hand, the use of language contrasts with the power of the image and the fact that it is impossible to represent Spain without portraying its periphery. In this context, the visual imagery highlights how the coast (and not the interior) is an unavoidable landscape for Spain to conceive of itself. Thus, through an exploration of the underlying tensions in how the Mediterranean has been presented in the tourism campaigns of the Spanish government, this presentation casts light on how advertising propels the consciousness of a particular Spanish landscape.

Professor Robert Davidson, specialist in Modern Peninsular Literature and Culture with an emphasis on urban studies and cultural theories of food and hospitality, will preside this special session.