Art and Nature in Lanzarote.

The influence of César Manrique on identity construction and Island tourism.

Dissertation

to obtain the Doctor Title in Philosophy at the

Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

presented by Maria Giulia Pezzi

at the

Institute of European Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology

First Reviewer: Ao-Univ.-Professor Dr. Helmut Eberhart Second Reviewer: P. D. Dr. Adelheid Schrutka-Rechtenstamm

2013

ÖNORM A 2662 – Äußere Gestaltung von Hochschulschriften INDEX

INTRODUCTION 8

PART ONE: LANZAROTE

1. Lanzarote 22

1.1 Historical facts 23

1.2 Topography and Climate 25

1.2 Census 28

1.3 Economy 34

2. Tourist development and tourist profile 37

2.1 Development of tourism in the Canary Islands 37

2.1.1 Development of tourism in Lanzarote 41

2.1.1.1 PIOT – Plan Insular de Ordenación del Territorio 47

2.1.1.2 Lanzarote as UNESCO Biosphere Reserve 55

2.2 Tourism profile of Lanzarote 59

2.2.1 Sustainable tourism 59

2.2.2 Other relevant forms of tourism on the Island 63

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Ecotourism 63

Leisure Tourism 64

Cultural tourism 65

2.3 General considerations about tourists in Lanzarote 66

3. César Manrique 72

3.1 Biography 72

3.1.1 Early Phase: “shepherd of wind and volcanoes” 72

3.1.2 1960’s-1980’s: Lanzarote as “obra turistica total” (total tourist 73 art-work)

3.1.3 1980’s: “Momento de parar”. Sustainability and activism 75

3.2 Works 76

3.2.1 The centers for Art, Culture and Tourism 76

1964 Cueva de los verdes 78

1966 Jameos del Agua 79

1968 Casa/Museo el Campesino 80

1970 Restaurant El Diablo (Parque de Timanfaya) 82

1973 Restaurant Mirador del Rio 84

1976 MIAC - „Museo internacional de Arte Contemporaneo“, 86 Castillo de San José, Arrecife

1990 Jardin de Cactus“ (1966) 87

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3.3 Fundación César Manrique 88

PART TWO: ANTHROPOLOGY OF TOURISM

4. History of the discipline 94

4.1 Defining “tourism” 94

4.2 An Anthropological view on “tourism” 96

4.3 Host & Guest theory 98

5. Host Pole: Anthropology of tourism 101

5.1 Analysis of the tourist impact 101

5.1.1 Tourism as a “total social fact” 101

5.1.2 Modernization vs tradition 102

5.1.3 Changes in aesthetic criteria 104

5.1.4 Changes in gender, status and age relationships 105

5.1.5 Changes in ethical values 107

6. Guest Pole: Anthropology of tourists 109

6.1 Defining “tourists” 109

6.2 The tourist and the traveller 110

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6.3 Bad tourists vs good tourists 112

6.4 Host/non host – guest/non guest 114

7. Tourists’ travel motivations 116

7.1 Psychological theory 116

7.2 Anthropological theories 117

7.2.1 Leisure theory 118

7.2.2 Experiential theory 120

7.2.3 Tourism as rite of passage 121

7.2.4 Travel as experience 124

7.2.5 The tourist career: different approaches 125

PART THREE: THE “LANZAROTE BRAND” AND THE “MANRIQUE TRADE-MARK”

8. Tourist imagery and the problem of authenticity 130

8.1 The tourist gaze 130

8.1.1 Postcards and travel pictures 132

8.1.2 Catalogues, travel guides and travel magazines 142

8.2 Souvenirs 146

8.3 Re-thinking authenticity 160

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8.4 Branding places 165

8.4.1 The “Lanzarote brand” and the “Manrique trade-mark” 169

9. Resistance strategies 183

9.1 Back regions vs front regions 183

9.2 Protests and demonstrations 186

9.2.1 “Momento de parar” (“Time to stop”) 1985 187

9.2.2 “Lanzarote se está muriendo” (“Lanzarote is dying”) 1986 191

9.2.3 The “Playa de los Pocillos demonstration” in 1988 195

9.3 “No a las petroleras, sí a las renovables” 197

9.4 Corruption in Lanzarote 205

10. What future for Lanzarote? 209

CONCLUSIONS 218

BIBLIOGRAPHY 230

SOURCES 235

INTERNET SOURCES 238

PICTURES INDEX 244

TABLES INDEX 249

AKNOLEDGEMENTS 251

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«A César Manrique,

pastor de vientos y volcanes»

«To César Manrique,

shepherd of winds and volcanoes»

Rafael Alberti, Tahíche, Lanzarote, 31.05.1979

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INTRODUCTION

I was still a teenager the first time I heard about Lanzarote. In the 1990s the Island wasn’t very popular as a holiday destination in Italy, but a family friend from England had just been there on vacation and once he returned he told us about what a wonderful place it was and that it felt like “having been on the Moon”. I remember having been fascinated by his stories and by the pictures he showed us, to the extent that I made a vow to visit Lanzarote myself as soon as a chance would come up. In 2005, after I got my Bachelor’s Degree in Media Sciences, I decided that the time had come, booked a flight to Lanzarote and finally visited the Island I had dreamt about so much. Months later I started a Master’s Degree in Anthropology and Ethnology and one of the first courses I attended was “Anthropology of tourism”. Silvia Barberani, my professor at the time, carried out a study on tourism in Kastellorizo, a Greek Island, and while reading her book and getting to know the subject better, I kept thinking that Lanzarote would make a marvellous subject of research. I have been lucky enough to be able to turn this intuition into reality and this work is the result of my research and field work, which took place between September 2011 and May 2012, but also of about ten years of readings, collection of information, trips to the Canary Islands and, more in general, a love and fascination for this place.

Lanzarote is one of the seven Islands to form the Canary Islands Archipelago, which is one of Spain’s autonomous regions and is situated in the Atlantic Ocean. Lanzarote is the northernmost Island and its east coast faces Morocco, which is only approximately 150 km away. The origin of the Archipelago is volcanic, a fact that highly influenced not only its topography, but also its climate and its history.

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Lanzarote was inhabited by a Stone-Age population, called Majos, untill 1402, when the French explorer Jean de Bethencourt landed on the Island for the first time, leading a military expedition to the Canaries. The conquest of the Island took two years, at the end of which Bethencourt recognized the King of Castile, Henry III, as King of Lanzarote, to thank him for the support given during the campaign. The Majos population was quickly decimated by war and diseases, and as of today no descendent is known to be alive. The most important historical event that has affected the Island, though, is considered to be the series of volcanic eruptions which took place in the 18th and 19th centuries and completely changed the outlook of the Island, creating the area of the Montaña del Fuego (Fire Mountain) in Timanfaya, for example, which was later turned into a national park, one of the most frequently visited tourist attractions, which was given the title of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993. These eruptions left the soil of Lanzarote covered with lava and ashes, leaving little room or possibilities for farming the land. This situation led the inhabitants to experiment new ways of farming and producing other goods, such as onions, potatoes, wine and barrilla plant. The vineyards of La Geria, for example, are still very popular for their original conformation and characteristic appearance. A series of unfavorable economic conjunctures and climatic changes caused drought and famine at the beginning of the 20th century, with the result that most of the population left the Island, emigrating mainly to South America. It was also clear that a renewal of the economy was necessary, and from the 1950s on Lanzarote started its transformation into a tourist destination, in the wake of what had been happening on other Canary Islands – i.e. Tenerife and Gran Canaria – since the 1930s. Tourism development on the Island, however, followed a path that was unusual for the times, and partly also for current times, since it was never left to develop “naturally” like in many other places, according to the needs of the tourist market. It was strictly regulated from the beginning, thanks to the visionary plan of the Lanzarote-born artist César Manrique (1919-1992), who was the first to understand that the unique

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geological conformation and fragile environment of the Island could become its greater strength. He also decided to turn Lanzarote into his biggest artwork. César Manrique was an artist, painter, sculptor, architect and ecologist. Born in Lanzarote in 1919, he soon left the Island to attend an Art Academy in Madrid, where he also started building a solid reputation as a talented artist. In 1964 he decided to move to New York to gain new inspiration and to advertise his works overseas. He remained in the US for just a couple of years, but this trip had a great influence on his later works and outlook on life. First, coming from a small Island and from Franco’s Spain, he was highly impressed by the modernity and by the architecture of New York, though not always in a positive way, since he experienced for the first time the potential of modernization in changing the original character of a place. Second, he became acquainted with Pop Art and the work of Andy Warhol, with whom he had a chance to work. Pop Art was of great inspiration for him, especially because it gave him the idea of making art fruition democratic, but also because it aimed at the elevation of trivial/everyday life objects to art objects, potentially turning everything into an artwork. Once he moved back to Lanzarote he started working on his installations, elaborating an aesthetic ideal which he called “Art-Nature/Nature-Art” and presupposed the acquisition of environmental awareness through art. Manrique mainly dedicated the last phase of his life to ecological activism, criticizing the progressive landscape deterioration of Lanzarote due to uncontrolled tourism development. In 1974 he also published the book Lanzarote. Arquitectura inedita. which features pictures of the most typical and functional architectural elements present on the Island to create a sort of encyclopedia of the Lanzarote architecture. The book had a great influence on later legislations and development plans, but also on the inhabitants’ perception of the Islands’ attributes, since for the first time they started to consider the peculiarities of their cultural objects as worthy of importance. As previously mentioned, the work of Manrique led to the creation of a series of PIOT – Plan Insular de Ordenación del Territorio, also known as Development Plans,

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which included lists of binding regulations on what could be built in Lanzarote, what it should look like, but also about the number of hotel accommodations to be allowed per year. More generally they dealt with how the Island’s architecture and town and country planning should maintain the Island’s authenticity through the different phases of tourism development. The PIOT underwent many revisions, the last of which was published in 2010, and all of them tried to comply with the aesthetic ideal created by Manrique from the 1960s on. As a consequence of the above elements, the aim of my research has been to investigate three core points:

- the nature of the relationship between the artistic work of Manrique and tourism on the Island, and how his aesthetic ideals have influenced today’s outlook of Lanzarote; - how this outlook is perceived both by tourists and local inhabitants in relation to the identity of the Island; - the problem of defining “authenticity” in relation to tourism, which in the case of Lanzarote is a particularly relevant issue. In particular, I have posed the question whether the peculiar tourist development which occurred in Lanzarote can be considered as more or less authentic than what happened elsewhere.

The research method I have followed started from in-depth bibliographical research, concentrating mainly on articles and papers published as a result of the Jornadas de Estudio sobre Lanzarote y Fuerteventura, a series of conferences organized by the Councils of the two Islands to analyze relevant life aspects in accordance with certain thematic areas, for example the development of tourism, environment, history, cultural heritage, etc. These papers have the advantage of providing an insider’s look into the life of an area that is usually rather neglected due to its geographical marginality. It is actually relatively difficult to find literature of any kind that deals solely with

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Lanzarote, and the majority of which pertains to scientific publications that deal with the geological and environmental processes evolving in the Canary Islands. From an anthropological point of view, Lanzarote and the other Islands in the Archipelago, did not find much space in non-Spanish or non-local research. An exception, however, is represented by the work of Donald V.L. Macleod, who spent many years researching “alternative” tourism on the Island of La Gomera.1 Apart from a few examples, however, this part of Spain does not seem to have attracted many researchers. This is a surprising fact, if we make a comparison with the great number of studies that have been undertaken in other parts of the Spanish coasts. Other forms of literature used are travel guides, travel catalogues and brochures. It is interesting to note how the amount of information provided on the Island is relatively low in travel catalogues, which normally just give a short and picturesque description that usually focuses on the extra-ordinary character of the place. For anthropological literature on tourism, I have mainly used the dated, but always valid, approach of Valene Smith2 and her “Host-Guest theory”, according to which tourism is the result of a series of encounters between the local inhabitants (hosts) and the tourists (guests), through which their identities can be re-defined, not only as opposed to each other, but also in relation to their peer groups. This approach is particularly useful because for the first time tourism was considered as a process and not as a phenomenon per se, therefore its applications are still multiple and valid today. Next to this (now) classical approach, I have also attempted to use contemporary works of other anthropologists who are, for me, representative of the latest developments in anthropological research, and two of them in particular. One is the study of tourism as a very fragmented reality, thanks (or due to) the introduction of new technologies and media, which virtually allow every person to fulfill their “tourist personality”. Although “mass tourism” is still one of the greatest industries worldwide, it is actually being ousted by other more specific kinds of tourism – i.e. ecotourism, leisure tourism, cultural

1 See for example Macleod Donald V.L., ’Alternative’ Tourists on a Canary Island, in Tourists and Tourism: Identifying with people and places, Abram Simone, Waldren Jaqueline, Macleod Donald V.L (editors), Berg, Oxford and New York 1997, pp 129-148. 2 Smith V. (editor), Hosts and Guests: the Anthropology of Tourism, second edition, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1989. 12

tourism, etc. – each of them with its own subculture and rituals, and also with its own “language”. Speaking of “language”, the second trend is that of considering tourism as the result of a branding strategy, which not only deals with merely economic factors, but also with the necessary (re)signification of a tourist destination in order to position it on the tourist market and to attract certain kinds of tourists. Considering the factors induced by Manrique’s works and by his environmental and ecological activism, it is evident how the marketing of Lanzarote as an Island with no equals, and where the tourist can have an authentic and unmediated experience with an out-of-the-ordinary form of nature exalted by a number of artworks, sets within certain borders not only the kind of tourists who will choose the Island as their destination, but also what can be built on the Island, in accordance with the image that needs to be portrayed. Tourism marketing, or place- branding, differentiates Lanzarote from other destinations, not only within the same Canary Islands. Talking about the place-branding theory in anthropology, however, required a more general definition of the concept of “authenticity” and of what John Urry3 defined as the “tourist gaze”. Together with the homonymous work by Urry, I have also used other sources, such as the Internet, to show how the concept of an authentic – or exclusive – tourist gaze has been changing lately due to the expansion of social networks. As well as literary research, I have also undertaken participant observation during my trips to Lanzarote, which took place in September 2011 (two weeks) and in May 2012 (one week). In particular, I took part to all those typical tourist activities, such as bus tours, visiting markets, organized trips, stops at souvenir stands etc. with the purpose of studying tourists’ behaviours and reactions. I have visited all of Manrique’s art centers, spent hours looking at how the tourists approached the places and observed the different fruition behaviours which arose. I also stood by the above mentioned artworks and questioned tourists on their way out about their impressions.

3 Urry John, The tourist gaze. Leisure and travel in contemporary societies, SAGE Pubblications, London, Thousand Oaks and New Dehli 1990. 13

The amount of time spent on the Island (a total of three weeks), though useful, has certainly not been enough to do in-depht research on tourists’ travel motivations or to gain enough knowledge through interviews and contacts with local informers, as an appropriate anthropological field work would require. Therefore I have chosen to focus on the processes that led to the current status of things on the Island, rather than on the actors’ beliefs. Particularly useful, nevertheless, have been the two interviews with Idoya Cabrera Delgado, who is responsible for the Enviromental Department of the Fundación César Manrique. During these interviews I had the chance to collect much useful information and material. I have also interviewed friends and acquaintances that have visited Lanzarote in the past. This work is divided into three sections; (i) Lanzarote, (ii) Anthropology of Tourism, (iii) The “Lanzarote Brand” and the “Manrique trade-mark”. Their contents will be analyzed in detail in the next pages.

Lanzarote

The first section deals with general information about Lanzarote, its peculiarities, the tourism developmental process on the Island – also compared with other Islands of the Archipelago – and the current tourist profile. Moreover a first analysis of the figure of the artist César Manrique is given, also taking into account a description of his artworks on the Island and of the characteristics and aims of the Fundación dedicated to him. Chapter one gives an account of the main historical facts, together with information about Lanzarote’s topography and climate, most of which have already been mentioned at the beginning of this introduction. Moreover it deals with the evolution of the population of the Island from the 15th century untill today, focusing in particular on the most recent years and stressing the peculiarities of the current situation, which on one side sees a progressive relative decrease of Spanish inhabitants and on the other hand an

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increase of foreign residents and immigrants, typically from Northern Europe (the UK and Germany), but also from other countries with geographical or cultural proximity, such as Morocco and Colombia. The current economic status has also been shortly analyzed, starting from the assumption that about 95% of the economy of Lanzarote depends on tourism, a summary of measures proposed by the Island’s Council to foster economic differentiation has been listed. Chapter two deals with the tourist development and tourist profile of Lanzarote. At first I focus on how tourism developed in the Canary Islands and under what conditions. Of particular interest is the fact that the tourist image of Gran Canaria, for example, has followed a path similar to that of Lanzarote, though with a totally different result. In the late 1920s, in fact, the artist Néstor had been asked by the Tourism Patronage to create a series of advertising boards to be used to promote Gran Canaria as a tourist destination. The result was the beginning of a phenomenon called tipísmo, which could be considered as an example of pioneer place-branding. It is also worth pointing out how the enrollment of artists in the advertising of tourism in the Archipelago seems to have been a common trend. Secondly, I analyze the events that led to the development of a tourism industry in Lanzarote, with a focus on how the Island had been perceived by travellers and journalists before the advent of Manrique and the realization of his aesthetic ideal. The consequences of Manrique’s work and the drawing up of the PIOT – Plan Insular de Ordenacción del Territorio are examined in detail through a short historical excursus, which is followed by a critical description of the implications of having been declared UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993. I have also described Lanzarote’s tourist profile through the analysis of “sustainable tourism”, one of the core elements of the Island’s image, as well as other forms of tourism which proved to be relevant, i.e. “ecotourism”, “leisure tourism” and “cultural tourism”. At the end of the second chapter, I give general information about the tourists visiting the Island, providing data taken from official statistics published by the Lanzarote Council.

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The third chapter deals with the figure of César Manrique. First of all I give biographical information, focusing on the events of his life which pertained to or had an influence on the future of the Island, trying to give a deeper understanding of the path that his artistic career followed, but also on the influence that his experiences abroad had on later works. The second paragraph deals more strictly with his artworks present in Lanzarote which have been made a part of the Centers for Art, Culture and Tourism, an organization that has been created to effectively manage these works as well as to improve the use of these locations as tool for the sustainable development of tourism on the Island. There are many other artworks by Manrique in Lanzarote, mainly murals and windmills, which are not considered in this work, partly because they are not managed by the organization controlled by the Island Council, but also because they are very rarely included in the tourist discourse about Manrique and are hardly ever included in the organized tours around the Island. Therefore, the works analyzed are: Cueva de los Verdes, Jameos del Agua, Casa/Museo El Campesino, Restaurante El Diablo (Parque de Timanfaya), Restaurante Mirador del Río, MIAC/Castillo de San José, Jardín de Cactus. There is another work by Manrique that is worth mentioning, although it is not administered by the Centers for Art, Culture and Tourism organ, which is the Fundación César Manrique and is located in the artist’s home in Taro de Tahíche, which has been modified to become a museum and host the Fundation’s activities.

Anthropology of tourism

The second section offers an insight into the anthropology of tourism. Chapter 4 focuses on providing a definition of “tourism” as a phenomenon within the anthropological paradigm, keeping as a guiding line the already mentioned division operated by Valene Smith between “host pole” and “guest pole”. The following two

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chapters deal with a deeper analysis of the actual anthropology of tourism, and therefore with the “host pole”, and of the anthropology of tourists, that is with the “guest pole”. Chapter 5 in particular gives an account of the different forms of impact that tourism can have on a host society, regarding different aspects, such as the contrasts between modernization and tradition, but also changes in aesthetic criteria, in gender, age and status relationships or in ethical values. Chapter 6 concerns with tourists, and focuses on giving a definition of the category as opposed to that of “travellers”, but it also accounts for the internal divisions between who can be considered as “good tourists” or as “bad tourists”. Moreover, it is assumed that a clear-cut distinction between hosts and guests is not possible, since - particularly in small realities like that of Lanzarote - it is possible that these two roles overlap creating two further categories: that of “host/non host”, that indicates for example the working force composed of immigrants from other geographical areas, and that of “guest/non guest”, which is formed by those emigrants of various generations who usually return to Lanzarote to spend their holidays. The seventh chapter analyzes tourists’ travel motivations, a very important theme, that cannot be omitted when trying to give a satisfactory description of the tourist phenomenon. I focus on different approaches derived from various disciplines besides anthropology, for example psychology. In addition to that, I also consider the approach which maintains the existence of a “tourist career”, in the theorization given by Pearce and by J.D. Urbain. This approach is particularly useful because it tries not only to explain why people travel, and therefore become tourists, but also how they perceive their own travelling activity and how they position themselves among fellow tourists.

The “Lanzarote brand” and the “Manrique trade-mark”

The third section of this work deals with the tourist image of Lanzarote, the creation of its “brand” and the recognition of the existence of a “Manrique trade-mark”.

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Chapter 8 deals with to the tourist imagery and the problem of authenticity. Starting from the already mentioned theorization of the “tourist gaze” by J. Urry, I have applied this concept to various aspects of the tourist experience. According to Urry, the tourist gaze is socially constructed and it includes an anticipation of an experience which is going to take part in a certain place, usually away from home. This experience, and the corresponding gaze, is “objectified” by the tourist through various means, such as for example pictures or videos, which testimony its out-of-the-ordinary character. The aspects which I analyze are: the use of postcards and travel pictures, both in their analogical and digital version, and their sharing through social networks, the Internet and mobile technology, trying to demonstrate that using different supports does not change the way in which such images are perceived; the descriptions and photographs used in catalogues, travel magazines and travel guides when referring to Lanzarote, and how the use of particular words or constructs gives a definition of the place which is not only verbal, but also pictorial; the purchase of souvenirs, but also the way in which they are produced and the significance that they acquire following the purchase action. Analyzing some of the ways in which the tourist gaze is produced and elaborated poses the question of what is authentic in Lanzarote, and more in general of how we are supposed to define authenticity when dealing with tourism. There are, however, many studies in anthropology on this topic, especially related to tradition and to folklore, so I decided to start my analysis from the assumption that “authenticity is in the eye of the beholder”. In order to demonstrate that, I refer to a provocative article by Reisinger and Steiner4, published in the Annals of Tourism Research in 2005. According to this article, it is impossible to think of “object” authenticity because there is no common understanding about the meaning of this term and therefore it can cannot be used as an anthropological universal. Consequently, every tourists’ experience is authentic, because everyone reads reality in their own terms and personal experiences are not comparable with each other.

4 Reisinger Yvette, Steiner Carol J., Reconceptualizing object Authenticity. In Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 33, Issue 1, January 2006, pp. 65-86.

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Having provided a re-definition of authenticity, I introduce a concept that does not strictly pertain to anthropological research, but is rather borrowed from marketing and advertising, which is “place-branding”. According to this view, when a tourist destination enters the tourism market, it must necessarily create an image that represents the sum of beliefs that potential tourists associate with that place, with the aim of finding a specific positioning on the market and creating a brand image that makes this place unique and immediately recognizable. I also maintain that it is difficult to achieve a coincidence between this made-up image and reality, and often this overlap is not even necessary, since tourists are more interested in buying dreams and anticipations of an experience than the experience itself. At the end of this chapter, I sum up the information gathered and the different approaches, and propose an analysis of the tourist image of Lanzarote based on two points: what Manrique wanted to achieve, in terms of creating a durable and sustainable aesthetic model for the Island; and the effective consequences of having pursued this goal, in terms of a progressive musealisation and disneyfication of many tourist areas and attractions. Chapter 9, on the other hand, deals with the consequences of Manrique’s work on the self-awareness of the Lanzarote inhabitants, and more precisely with the appearance of resistance strategies. An account of protests and demonstrations that have been taking place in Lanzarote in the last 25 years is given, with particular emphasis on the “Playa de lo Pocillos” demonstration in 1988, against the building of a resort on the public beach, and of the protest against oil prospection in the waters of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, which took place all through the year 2012. I also analyze two writings by Manrique, published in 1985 and 1986, where the artist pointed out the already problematic situation on the Island and asked for a change and for a direct involvement of the population at all levels, from the citizens to the public authorities. I conclude this chapter considering the problem of corruption in Lanzarote and how it has affected real estate market speculation in recent years, as well as the building of some “eco-monsters”, despite the existing strict regulations. I also give account of the

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measures that have been taken to try to contrast this phenomenon and how different organs are involved in the creation of a new sense of “urbanity legality”. The last chapter of this work offers a view of a possible future scenario, seen from three perspectives: that of the tourism specialists and of the Lanzarote Council, that of how tourists are currently responding to what the Island has to offer, and that of how the Lanzarote inhabitants are perceiving their quality of life and the measures that they believe to be necessary for the near future.

Excerpts from non-English literature, as well as texts in other languages than English, have been translated by the author, if not otherwise stated.

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PART ONE: LANZAROTE

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1. Lanzarote

Picture 1 Map of the Canary Islands. Source: Internet

The Archipelago of the Canary Islands is one of the 17 autonomous regions in Spain. It is divided into two provinces; Las Palmas (to which belong the Islands of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (which includes Tenerife, La Palma, El Hierro and La Gomera). The Island of Lanzarote, with its 845,93 square kilometers5, is the fourth largest of the whole archipelago and is also the most western, being located approximately 140 km away from the coast of Morocco and 1,000 km away from mainland Spain. Lanzarote forms itself a small archipelago – called Chinijo – together with the Islands of

5 Source: Síntesis de indicadores de Lanzarote (2010), Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=72&idItem=5083, accessed on 12.09.2011 22

La Graciosa, Montaña Clara, Alegranza, Roque del Este and Roque del Oeste, only the first of these being inhabited. The other four were declared a natural park in 1986 - Parque Natural del Archipiélago Chinijo – a natural reserve for bird watching and marine life. Lanzarote, as an autonomous region, has its own government – the Cabildo de Lanzarote – to which respond the seven municipalities – Ayuntamentos – of the Island: Yaiza, Tinajo, Tias, Teguise, San Bartolomé, Haría and Arrecife.

Table 1 Population of Lanzarote according to municipalities in 20106.

LANZAROTE Arrecife Haría San Teguise Tías Tinajo Yaiza Bartolomé TOTAL 141.437 58.156 5.249 18.161 20.105 19.869 5.655 14.242

1.1 Historical facts

It is reported that the Phoenicians had visited Lanzarote in 1,100 b.C. and some mentions of the Islands are to be found in Greek and Roman literature7. However, the whole archipelago of the Canary Islands seems to have been almost forgotten at least till the 14th century, when Lanzarote was “discovered” by a Genoan sailor, Lancelotto Malocello in 1362, who gave the Island its present name. At that time Lanzarote was still known as Titerogakaet of Titeroigatra8 and was inhabited by a population called the Majos, whose origin is to date still uncertain. It is thought that they were descendants of Berber tribes who had escaped from the African mainland due to the progressive desertification of the Sahara and, being isolated for many thousands of years, still didn’t know the use of metal and therefore lived in a

6 Source: Población de derecho de Lanzarote según municipio y continente de origen (2010), Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=6&idItem=4965, accessed 12.09. 2011(1) 7 Accounts of Lanzarote’s existence are given by Plutharch, Lucan and the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy. According to some recent archeological studies, Roman amphorae have been found in waters off Lanzarote in a location called El Berbero. See also http://www.archaeology.org/9705/newsbriefs/canaries.html, accessed 12.09. 2011(2) 8 http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanche_%28Tenerife%29, accessed 12.09.2011 (3) 23

Stone Age society, though culturally advanced and well structured, till the arrival of the first Europeans. In 1402 the French explorer Jean de Bethencourt landed for the first time on Lanzarote leading a military expedition to the Canaries. The conquest of the Island took two years, at the end of which Bethencourt recognized the King of Castile Henry III as King of Lanzarote, to thank him for the support given during the campaign. The original inhabitants were quickly decimated by the contact with Europeans, since their immune system had been weakened by the long period of isolation, meeting the same destiny that American Indians would have to face in the following centuries. As of today, no descendents of the Majos are known to be alive and at the same time their language has been totally forgotten, both in oral and written forms. Some cultural tracts are, however, believed to have survived, being incorporated into the current daily life of the inhabitants of Lanzarote.9 Following the Spanish conquest, the Island became a crucial point in the slave trade from Africa to the Americas, as well as for the trade of locally produced goods, like carmine dye produced from cochineal insects, and lime, all of them having an on-off fortune. One of the most important events to have taken place on the Island in modern times is the volcanic eruption between 1730 and 1736, documented in its early phases by the minister of Yaiza Don Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo, who wrote “On September 1st 1730, between 9 and 10pm, at 11 Kms. from Yaiza, the ground close to Timanfaya suddenly opened up. In the first night a huge mountain grew out of the ground and, from its peak, enormous flames that kept burning for 19 days could be seen”10. The eruption lasted more than two thousands days and completely changed the topography of the Island, creating the area of Montaña del Fuego (Fire Mountain) in Timanfaya, later turned into a national park, which is one of the most frequently visited tourist attractions and which was given the title of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993. This eruption, and a following one in 1824, left the soil of Lanzarote covered with lava and ashes, leaving little room or possibility for farming the land. This situation

9 http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanche_%28Tenerife%29, accessed 12.09.2011 (3) 10 See http://www.webdelanzarote.com/1mfuego.htm, accessed on 12.09.2011(4) 24

led the inhabitants into experimenting new ways of producing food, such as onions, potatoes, wine and barrilla plant. In this period the main means of subsistence was provided by fishing. In 1847 the capital was moved from Teguise to Arrecife in an attempt to give new impulse to the Island’s economy through the creation of an important commercial port later in 188811. This effort would prove to be successful in leading to a progressive population increase (from 16.000 up to 17.500 inhabitants in the early years of the twentieth century12) and to the creation of the biggest fishing fleet of the whole Canary Islands Archipelago13. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lanzarote was still to be considered as poor and relatively backward because of the lack of resources on the Island, an agriculture based on subsistence, almost non-existent industry and few commercial opportunities due to its marginal position in the Archipelago, which left the Island cut off from the most important cargo routes. This situation remained more or less unchanged till the late Sixties, when (mass) tourisms finally started developing on the Island, in an attempt to take the population out of poverty and isolation.

1.2 Topography and climate

The Canary Islands originated through a series of volcanic eruptions which took place on the Northwest African Platform and are commonly considered to pertain to the category of “hot spots”, areas of unusually high volcanic activity which have no connection with the movements through the mid-oceanic ridge and therefore tend to

11 Gonzales Morales Alejandro, Hernandez Luis Josè Angel, “El desarrollo del turismo en la isla de Lanzarote”, X Jornadas de Estudios sobre Lanzarote y Fuerteventura, Tomo I, Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote y Fuerteventura, Arrecife 2004, p. 321. 12 Ibidem. 13 Ibidem. 25

form a sequence of submarine peaks which in some cases become higher than sea level, forming archipelagoes. The topography of Lanzarote clearly mirrors its volcanic origin, consisting mainly of volcanic cones, small valleys, black rocky beaches in the north and golden sandy beaches in the south, the result being a quite unique “lunar” landscape, normally known as malpaís, that is “badlands”.

Picture 2 Parque Nacional de Timanfaya. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Lanzarote has a semi-desert climate. The lack of high mountains (the highest peak is Peñas del Chance, 670m above the sea level, situated in the North) prevents the formations of clouds and the little to no precipitations (around 114 ml a year14) are concentrated in the months from September till March. The temperatures are influenced by the Azores Anticyclone and therefore constantly measure between +20°C and +30°C. The Island is also swept by a constant wind from the North, which makes the relatively strong tropical sun easy to bear, giving

14 Rothe Peter, Kanarische Inseln, Gebrüder Borntraeger, Berlin-Stuttgart 2008, p. 14. 26

the illusion of an “eternal spring”, which makes Lanzarote a well-loved holiday destination all year around. The volcanic activity and the climate have been responsible for the original solutions that the inhabitants of the Island had to find in order to cultivate the soil and survive the hard conditions. As Javier Maderuelo points out, farming has been achieved mainly through two techniques:

In one, the Islanders exploit the hygroscopic properties of lava converted into volcanic gravel called “picón” […] used to cover the sandy soil and thus retain the ambient humidity that the strong winds carry inland from the sea. Another local farming technique consists in drilling neatly aligned conic wells with forms reminiscent of craters in which a grapevine or fig tree is planted and surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped dry stone wall called a “soco” to protect the plants from the wind. The resultant humanized landscape establish a dialogue between culture and nature in which these two usually oppositional concepts seem to merge to their mutual benefit.15

Picture 3 The vineyards of La Geria. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

15 Maderuelo Javier, Jameos del Agua, Fundación César Manrique, Taro de Tahiche, Lanzarote 2006, p. 53-54. My emphasis. 27

1.3 Census

As already mentioned in paragraph 1.1, when Lanzarote was conquered by Jean de Bethencourt at the beginning of the 15th Century, it was inhabited by a population with a Stone-Age society ˗ the Majos ˗, which according to some sources included no more than 300 individuals.16 Said population was later decimated by the progressive expansion of the conquerors’ settlements, and to a small extent integrated into the new society which was forming. The conquerors soon started importing labour to the Island. The majority of the immigrants were at a first stage French, but soon also Andalusians, Genoans, Portuguese and North Africans started migrating to Lanzarote, not always by their own free will.17 The first available information on the Island’s population dates back to the year 1572, when 1575 people were said to be living there.18 The following three centuries saw a fluctuation of the number of inhabitants due to many factors, both external and internal: in the first place, the relative isolation of the Island from the European mainland and its marginal position in the Canary Archipelago made it little desirable for immigrants and merchants as a destination, also due to the fact that the waters between the east coast of Lanzarote and Morocco were infested by pirates and made it hard not only to reach the Island, but also to depart from it. Secondly, the dry climate and particular soil conformation didn’t leave too much room for farming variations and experiments, so that droughts and slight climate changes easily caused dramatic consequences on the sustenance capabilities of the population. Third, since Lanzarote was a relatively closed environment, any virus or illness brought from the outside would spread easily among the residents, decimating them. Fourth, apart from subsistence farming and fishing, the economy was based on the trade of raw materials, since no factories or manufacturers were present on the

16 Millares Torres A., Historia General de las Islas Canarias. Inventarios P. Editores, S.A. Sta. Cruz de Tenerife1975, p. 293. 17 Lobo Cabrera M., “Lanzarote en el siglo XVI. Noticias históricas”. II Jornadas de Historia de Lanzarote y Fuerteventura. Tomo I.,. Ser. Pub. del Excmo. Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote, Arrecife 1990, pp. 288. 18 Ibidem, p. 290. 28

Island. This situation often caused great economic crises each time that said materials suffered a price drop or a decrease of traded quantities, forcing many inhabitants to migrate elsewhere. Fifth, a series of natural disasters affected the Island in the 18th and 19th centuries, in particular two main volcanic eruptions which lasted for many years and covered a fairly wide area.19 At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1900, the population of Lanzarote totalled 18,331 inhabitants. The progressive abandon of the lime and cochineal trade, in favour of the more profitable export of onions and potatoes, allowed better living conditions to the point that only about 60 years later 36.519 people were living on the Island.20

LANZAROTE Arrecife 2011 142.517 57.357 2005 123.039 53.920 2000 96.310 43.711 1990 74.007 38.931 1960 36.519 13.104 1930 23.500 5.129 1900 18.331 3.488 1860 15.837 2.699 1768 9.675 .

Table 2 Evolution of the population in Lanzarote from 1768 to 2011. Source: ISTAC

In the 60s, when tourism finally started developing on the Island, a new migration flux started, for the first time directed towards Lanzarote.

In few years the population was increased and increased and now we have 150.000 inhabitants plus 60.000 tourists at the same time. It is special because in Gran Canaria or Tenerife they have more tourists, but there are more people

19 Lobo Cabrera M., 1990, p. 290 and following. 20 Source: ISTAC, Istitudo canario de estadística, available at http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/istac/jaxi-web/tabla.do, accessed 21.09. 2012 29

from the Island. And the economy is totally different because here we can say that 90% of people that live in Lanzarote live from tourists. […] But not only this, it was important the speed of people coming to Lanzarote.21

And moreover, migrants were and (are) coming

from other Islands, from the mainland. It was little by little, first of all people [came] from Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria, then people from Galicia and the mainland, from Andalucía and after this people from the EU and people from South America. And maybe here if you take 5 of them only 1 or 2 are born in Lanzarote. Maybe 1 only. It seems there is a relationship… At UN they said in order to do a balanced society it’s good 10 local people for 1 tourist and here the relationship is 2:1. And there is another perception from people from Lanzarote, you are living here but you are totally surrounded by tourists and for example in Gran Canaria and Tenerife they stay to the beaches and some days they go to the Teide and go down to the beaches, but here in Lanzarote we have Jameos del Agua, Montañas del Fuego, Castillo… a lot of points of interests, and also the Island is very easy to drive over there and the landscape is very interesting… and for this reason tourists are spread over the Island and the perception is different from the society.22

This generalized feeling can be easily explained if we compare two different kinds of data: the number of inhabitants and the number of tourists. According to the table below, which shows the increase of inhabitants between 1996 and 2011, the population doubled in those fifteen years. It is also interesting to note that the districts which feature the two major tourist centres have developed very differently in terms of population, depending on their respective difference in terms of tourist expansion. The municipality of Tías, in which Puerto del Carmen is situated, started its development very early in the 1960’s and in the period 1996-2011 saw a population growth of 49,7%, which is in line with the relative population growth of the

21 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 22 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 30

whole Island. Other less touristically developed municipalities, such as Tinajo, San Bartolomè and Haría are also aligned with this trend. The municipality of Yaiza, on the other hand, where we find Playa Blanca, a fishermen’s village which was turned into the second most important tourist pole from the 1980’s on, saw a population growth of almost 5 times in those 15 years. Teguise, which contains the third tourist pole, Costa Teguise, that started its development in the 1990s, tripled the number of inhabitants in the same period. If we do a comparison for the year 2011, when the 2,076,07023 tourists visited the Island, we see that the average ratio tourists to population is around 14 : 1, that is very much higher than that recommended by the UN, according to Idoya Cabrera.

YEAR LANZAROTE Arrecife Haría San Teguise Tías Tinajo Yaiza Bartolomé

1996 77.379 38.091 3.531 9.852 8.691 10.096 3.755 3.363 1998 84.849 40.770 3.779 10.127 10.874 11.534 3.964 3.801 1999 90.375 42.231 4.022 11.576 11.534 12.684 4.149 4.179 2000 96.310 43.711 4.201 13.129 12.184 13.537 4.373 5.175 2001 103.044 45.549 4.285 14.835 12.905 14.442 4.670 6.358 2002 109.942 48.253 4.551 15.910 13.714 15.230 4.964 7.320 2003 114.715 50.785 4.741 16.481 14.214 15.636 5.066 7.792 2004 116.782 51.633 4.747 16.884 14.477 15.788 5.123 8.130 2005 123.039 53.920 4.894 17.452 15.824 16.850 5.258 8.841 2006 127.457 55.203 5.004 17.610 16.616 17.884 5.476 9.664 2007 132.366 56.834 5.049 18.050 17.688 18.263 5.588 10.894 2008 139.506 59.040 5.188 18.300 18.798 19.487 5.746 12.947 2009 141.938 59.127 5.249 18.517 19.418 19.849 5.837 13.941 2010 141.437 58.156 5.249 18.161 20.105 19.869 5.655 14.242 2011 142.517 57.357 5.203 18.468 20.788 20.102 5.728 14.871

Table 3 Population of Lanzarote (1996-2011). Source: Centro de Datos24

23 Afluencia turística a Lanzarote según mes (2011). Comparación con 2010 available at http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=5092, accessed 21.09.2012(2) 24 Evolución de la población de derecho de Lanzarote según municipio (1996-2011). Available at: http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=6&idItem=2817, accessed on 21.09. 2012(1) 31

The table below shows, for the period between 2000 and 2010, how the population grew according to country of provenience. It is interesting to note that the number of Spanish inhabitants (which includes natives of Lanzarote, immigrants from other Canary Islands and from the mainland), while remaining the relative majority in numbers, grew slower in proportion. The main immigration flux originated from Europe, in particular from northern countries like Germany and the United Kingdom, but also from Italy and Romania. Other countries represented are those with cultural or geographical proximity, such as Colombia, Ecuador and Morocco. The number of Chinese living in Lanzarote is interesting – 1,247 in 2010. Their presence seems to be more perceivable than that of other immigrants due to their being involved in many commercial activities (such as restaurants, gift shops, etc…) typically in the main tourist centres, and therefore due to their constant contact with tourists.

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CONTINENT Nationality 2010 2000

Spain Spain 101.808 88.437 European Union Germany 4.321 1.641 Austria 193 49 Belgium 224 114 Finland 55 27 France 647 298 Italy 2.083 379 Netherland 374 138 Portugal 860 155 United 7.761 1.701 Kingdom Sweden 160 66 Expansion 589 29 2004 Bulgaria 312 7 Romania 1.103 22 Other E.U. 861 274 Rest of Europa Norway 278 125 Switzerland 208 90 Other 204 27 Africa Morocco 4.276 638 Mauritania 605 82 Senegal 309 60 Other 914 154 America Cuba 802 218 Dominican 765 167 Republic Argentina 772 143 Colombia 4.923 293 Chile 241 31 Ecuador 1.296 52 Uruguay 516 44 Venezuela 447 73 Others 1.265 214 Asia China 1.247 117 Philippines 244 136 India 692 248 South Korea 4 4 Other 68 35 Oceania Oceania 9 6 Stateless Stateless 1 16 LANZAROTE 141.437 96.310

Table 4 Evolution of the population of Lanzarote according to 25 nationality between 2000 and 2010

25 Evolución de la población de derecho de Lanzarote según nacionalidad (2000-2010). Source: Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, data available at http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=6&idItem=4080, accessed 04.10.2011 (Translation: MGP) 33

1.4 Economy

The development of a tourist industry on the Island caused many important consequences, both on a social and on an economic level, since, from the 1960s on, the Island changed from being a source of emigrants to other countries – due to a series of economic crises – to being a recipient of tourists, mainly from all around Europe. Gonzáles Morales and Hernández Luis, in their study of the evolution of the Island economy between the 18th Century and the advent of tourism, maintain that the economy of Lanzarote was mainly based on subsistence farming and fishing, with little room left for trade with other Islands of the archipelago and with mainland Spain.26 The great eruptions of the 18th Century left the population with almost no fertile land to farm and the authors recount the testimonies of many people who had visited Lanzarote at the time and stressed how hard living conditions were on the Island, i.e. in 1776 the Comandante General de Canarias stated that he was

amazed by the misery and depopulation of the Island, [these] are the times when everything is scarce in Lanzarote, being the only Port movement those ships arrivals from Mogador with some wheat, or barley, but actually just barely enough for the population, which is forced to eat donkey meat, or cat and other vermin.27

Thanks to the inventiveness of the population, it was progressively possible to farm again that same soil which had been covered in lava just some years before, mainly with vineyards, cactus and cochineal dye and barrilla, three crops which provided an improvement in living conditions from the beginning of the 19th Century on, to the extent that by that time the pro capite income was relatively higher than that of the inhabitants of other Canary Islands.28

26 Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J. A., 2004, p. 320 27 “asombrado de la miseria y despoblación de la isla (...) son los tiempos en que todo escasea en Lanzarote, siendo el único movimiento del Puerto las naves llegadas de Mogador con algún trigo, o cebada, pero que en realidad apenas abastecían a la población, obligada a comer carne de burro, de gato y otras alimañas” (Translation: MGP) Cited in Ibidem, pp 320-321. Mogador is the Portuguese name of the Moroccan city of Essaouira. 28 Ibidem, p. 321. 34

In the middle of the 19th century, though, due to a new series of volcanic eruptions and to the new discoveries in the chemical industry which made the use of cochineal derivates obsolete, a new economic crisis hit the Island, causing the migration of a large part of the population to the Americas.29 As a consequence of the cochineal crisis, the remaining inhabitants could only survive thanks to other activities, such as fishing and the cultivation of potatoes and onions, though their production was still only oriented to subsistence. This economy based on the primary sector and hardly any trade outside of the Island persisted till the middle of the 20th century, when tourism started to be considered as the only option to grant the population of Lanzarote a constant good life style. The economic consequences of the development of tourism in Lanzarote will be widely illustrated in the next chapter, here it is important to mention the current status of the economy on the Island. About 60 years after tourism started developing on the Island, it has become the first industry and the first source of income for most of the population, to the extent that Lanzarote, once and for many decades the originating point of a migratory process mostly towards the Americas, has lately become a pole of attraction for workers from neighbouring countries and other Canary Islands. According to a study published by the Lanzarote Council in 2010, as of March 2009, approximately 95% of the population was employed in activities directly or indirectly linked to tourism.30 This situation mirrors the vulnerability of the economic status of the Island, which once again would suffer if there were a crisis of the tourist market, the only form of steady income present. The authors of this study advise the improvement of other markets and industries, for example the production of energy through renewable resources. It is important, though, that due to the delicate environmental conditions, any activity undertaken needs to be environmentally sustainable.31

29 Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J. A., 2004, p. 321. 30 Memoria de Ordenación 2010, published by the Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote, available at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0hMudj9vW5uNjEzODlmYzMtMTMxYy00YzU1LWE4OTQtOGQ5M mQ3YTYyODIz/edit?pli=1&hl=es#, accessed 05.03.2013, p. 21. 31 Ibidem. 35

The goals in terms of economic differentiation and stability proposed by the Council are:

- expanding agricultural production, now employing 1% of the workers on the Island. Having a strong farming activity would also be a way to protect and preserve those internal areas of Lanzarote, which would otherwise be subject to erosion or would be sooner or later dedicated to the tourist market, thus losing their original connotation. - introducing innovative technologies in the primary sector, for example the introduction of aquaculture. - creating a diversity of industrial activities, which at present are mostly involved in markets that are in some way related to tourism, for example the production of soft drinks or furniture, but also of construction materials. The study also proposes a more immediate link between Universities and the industrial world, which would foster innovation. - re-qualifying the industrial areas by introducing other kinds of activities. - turning the Island into a market which is attractive for investors and innovators, given the fact that the insular character of the Island provides some limitations in the kind of activities which can be undertaken. With the help of ever evolving technologies it is hoped that new possibilities will arise. - giving more importance to industrial activities compatible with the Lanzarote environment and that would give a bigger profit with a lower environmental impact. - improving the human capital through better schooling at all levels and focusing on the real needs of the job market.32

32 Memoria de Ordenación 2010, pp-21-23. 36

2. Tourist development and tourist profile

2.1 Development of tourism in the Canary Islands

With spring-like weather all year around and the comfort and safety of a European destination, the Canary Islands are waiting for you. And on each Islands… ten places that you just have to visit. Let yourself be charmed by the Canary Islands: El Hierro, La Palma, La Gomera, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, by the authenticity of their villages and traditions. Seven very different yet spectacular Islands with a volcanic origin and impressive beaches. The hospitality of their people and their magnificent proposals for leisure and avantgarde accommodation will make your stay an unforgettable experience.33

This short description appears on the homepage of the official website of the Canary Islands’ Ministry of Tourism and summarizes all the clichés which are to be found in the travel literature, in the catalogues and in the travel guides about the Canary Islands. According to José Manuel Marrero Henríquez34 a some sort of “tourist propaganda” has been necessary since the early stages of tourist development in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, due to the fact that the Islands weren’t privileged places such as

33 Source: http://www.turismodecanarias.com/canary-Islands-spain/index.html, accessed 05.04.2013 34 Marrero Henríques J. M., “Del turista textual al lector ecológico”, in Paisajes del placer, paisajes de la crisis, ed. Mariano de Santa Ana, Fundación Cesar Manrique, Lanzarote 2004, p. 19.

37

Greece, Egypt or Italy, which could count on the fascination of archeological ruins to attract tourists. Since the 16th Century the Canary Islands had been a very important strategic point for all the traders, adventurers and explorers travelling to the Americas and the eastern African coast, being the last port before facing the long voyages in the open seas. Though it’s impossible to speak about the presence of actual tourists on the Islands in this phase, it is recorded that since the early years of Spanish and British dominance, various people have visited the Archipelago for simple curiosity or naturalistic and environmental research. It was still a kind of proto-tourism which didn’t have any effect on the local life and economy, due to the small numbers. The nature of visits to the Canaries had therefore been elitist till the 19th century, when in 1856 Thomas Cook “invented” mass Tourism by organizing the first chartered tours in the United Kingdom, thus opening up a whole new market which grew at an incredibly high speed rate. At the time the Canary Islands were a British trading colony and it’s no surprise that the first tourist advertisements were written in English and published in the United Kingdom. The the first travel guides in English appeared simultaneously on the market, though none of them with the support of any official government institution in the Canaries. It wass only in the first years of the 20th century that translations of articles about the Canary Islands from the Daily Mail and the Daily Graphic appeared in the local Canarian press, as well as in magazines such as The Canary Island Review or the Tenerife News, which started being published on the Archipelago by members of the English-speaking colony. 35 These publications concentrated mostly on the good climate and the wild, untouched landscape, since on none of the Islands did there exist a proper tourist industry, neither hotels nor other kinds of accommodation facilities till 1890, when the first two hotels were opened in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The writer Francisco Gonzáles Díaz stated in 1910 “all the tourist propaganda that is convenient to us, and

35 Carreras G., Canarias: Regresaras desde lejos, in Paisajes del placer, paisajes de la crisis, ed. Mariano de Santa Ana, 2004, p. 74-76. 38

that we need to prepare, should be based especially on the information about our extraordinary climatic conditions”.36 The First World War led to a sudden interruption of the slowly increasing flux of tourists to the Canaries, which started up again and with new impulse in the late 1920’s. In 1928, by order of the dictator Primo de Rivera, the Patronato Nacional de Turismo37 was created. It divided Spain into five regional areas, one of them including the Canary Islands, Andalusia and parts of the Moroccan coast. In 1929 the Patronato asked the Gran Canaria-born artist Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre to create a series of advertising boards to promote Tenerife abroad.38 His work was to be included in a phenomenon called tipismo – “a pro-tourism campaign which started at the end of the 20s and which proclaimed the paradisiacal beauty of the landscapes”39 – which influenced all the advertising campaigns of the time. The aim of tipismo was to enhance the importance of the peculiarities of the Canary Islands through the use of stereotypes, for example the climate, the white buildings and the image of the Canary man as the “good savage”, closely boundto his land and far away from the aberrations of modern life. In 1934 the Sindicato de Iniciativas del Turismo de Gran Canaria40 was created under the lead of Néstor and Miguel Martín-Fernández de la Torre to coordinate all the future advertising campaigns abroad. Among the members, mainly artists and intellectuals, there was also the writer Domingo Doreste “Fray Lesco”, who had published a tourist guide about Gran Canaria in 1933, in which he stated that the Island was like a continente en miniatura41, a sentence which would later become Gran Canaria’s official slogan still used nowadays. The Spanish Civil War and the Second World War once again put the development of tourism in the Canary Islands on pause till the end of the 50s, when

36 “Toda la propaganda del turismo que nos conviene, que nos urge emprender, debe basarse especialmente en la divulgación de las condiciones extraordinarias de nuestro clima”. Cited in Carreras G., 2004, p. 76. (Translation: MGP) 37 National Tourism Office. 38 Carreras G., 2004, p. 77-78. 39 “una campaña pro-turismo que comenzó a finales de los años veinte y que proclamaba la belleza edénica de los paisajes canarios”. Ibidem, p.78. (Translation: MGP) 40 Syndicate for tourism initiatives in Gran Canaria (Translation: MGP) 41 “Miniature continent”( Translation: MGP). Cited in Carreras G., 2004, p. 79 39

leisure travels started losing their elitist connotation and turned into a mass phenomenon. In this early phase of mass tourism, the most tourists were British and German citizens who reached the Islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria mainly by boat. In 1957, though, the first charter airplane from the Swedish company Transair landed in Gran Canaria with 54 tourists on board. It was the beginning of a relatively massive flux of tourists from northern Europe. At the same time a second flux of tourists from mainland Spain started to become more and more consistent.42 Thanks to the success of tourism in the Canaries and other parts of southern Spain, Franco’s dictatorship started loosening up its ties in order to come out of its economic and political isolation. The peculiarity of the Islands’ tourism, mainly winter tourism thanks to the mild climate, led the regime to decree, through a ministerial order, that each of them should have its own promotional organs and tourist offices. In this way also the lesser known and developed Islands like Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma started being promoted abroad and slowly, but steadily, gained more and more interest from the tour operators. In 1985 the provincial patronages were again reunited under the Consejería de Turismo del Gobierno Canario43, which set itself in charge of promoting the Archipelago as a whole. The following years were characterized by a globalization of tourist destinations which meant the Canaries many new competitors. The creation of a “trade mark” was a necessary choice. After the creation of the Consejería de Turismo the chosen logo was one designed by Lanzarote artist César Manrique, though through the years it was felt that a more effective product placement would need a more appropriate logo. The advertising company Heush & Lannes S.A was put in charge of creating a new logo and advertising the Archipelago abroad.44 The result was the creation of the “Canarias. Naturaleza Cálida”45 trade mark, represented by a logo in which “[…] the hot and natural character of our Island is represented by a strelitzia with seven petals, a flower that our visitors usually take with them as a souvenir when they

42 Carreras G., 2004, p. 81 43 “Tourism Council of the Canary Islands’ Government” (Translation: MGP). 44 Carreras G., 2004, p. 88 45 “Canaries. Warm nature”. My translation. 40

go back to their homelands”.46 The advertising company was also responsible for placing an advertising board in the Red Square – next to Lenin’s Mausoleum - in Moscow and another one 70 km away from China’s Great Wall on the 1st of May 1996.47

2.1.1 Development of tourism in Lanzarote

Due to its marginal position in the Archipelago and to the scarcity of resources on the Island, Lanzarote was rather neglected during the early phases of tourist development on the Canary Islands. According to Alejandro Gonzáles and José Ángel Hernández48, till the end of the 20th century, tourism in Lanzarote was a sporadic phenomenon due to both internal and external factors. Internal factors included not only the lack of infrastructures such as harbors and airports, roads, highways and public transport, but also of accommodation facilities and restaurants. The main external factor was the fact that the Island had remained basically unknown and isolated due to the lack of regular maritime connections with Europe, the routes being mainly directed to Tenerife and Gran Canaria. The sporadic visitors travelled to the Island for three reasons: commerce, scientific research and the cure of lung diseases. Among the scientists and naturalists that visited Lanzarote in this period there was a shared idea that the Island was an inhospitable place with little potential for improvement. The French Leclerq visited Lanzarote around 1879 as a part of his travels all over the Archipelago. In his book about the trip he dedicated only five pages to the description of the Island out of more than two hundred, stating that Lanzarote “doesn’t

46 “[…] hallamos el carácter cálido y natural de nuestras islas representado por una strelitzia de siete hojas, una flor que nuestros visitantes suelen llevarse de recuerdo cuando parten hacia sus países de origen”. Carreras G., p. 88. (Translation: MGP) 47 Ibidem.., p 89 48 Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J.A., 2004, p.323 41

offer anything more than a great series of dry volcanic cones. It’s a sad landscape […] with a miserable vegetation of cactus and cochineal; it’s the African desert, where all is aridity and sadness”49. Regular connections between the Islands of the Archipelago and Lanzarote made possible the movement of people and goods. New roads were built in the same year, so that it was possible to reach the area of Yaiza in the south and that of Teguise in the north in relatively short times from the harbor city of Arrecife. The rest of the Island remained, however, isolated and out of reach if not by foot or by horse.50 Travel guides and travellers’ reviews on Lanzarote remained sceptical about the Island’s potential. In 1889 Brown published a popular guide on Madeira and the Canaries where he pointed out that “we found the most beautiful landscapes in La Palma, Tenerife, Madeira, La Gomera and Gran Canaria. Fuerteventura and Lanzarote are uninteresting”.51 Brown was definitely not impressed by the Island, dedicating only three pages to its description, reporting that “the villages are not interesting and they’re dirty”52 and that the only accommodation facility had eight mediocre rooms.53 Despite the lack of appreciation showed by early visitors, with the growth of the numbers of visitors, perceptions of the Island, slowly but steadily changed in the following years and became more positive. Gonzales and Hernandez report that Maluquer and Vidalot, who visited Lanzarote in 1906, stopped by the Montañas del Fuego and were positively impressed. One of them wrote:

I received one of the most intense impressions that I have ever felt in my life. […] as if I had been transported for some hours […] into a lunar world. […] I couldn’t stop admiring that landscape, and I still feel today […] the

49 “no ofrece más que una larga serie de conos volcánicos áridos. Es un triste paisaje (...) con una vegetación de míseras tuneral y cochinilla; es el desierto de África, donde todo es aridez y tristeza”. (Translation: MGP) Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J.A., 2004, p. 324 50 Ibidem, p. 325. 51 “el escenario más hermoso nos lo encontramos en La Palma, Tenerife, Madeira, La Gomera and Gran Canaria. Fuerteventura and Lanzarote no son atractivas” (Translation: MGP). Cited in Ibidem, 2004, p.326. 52 “los pueblos no son interesantes y son sucios”. (Translation: MGP). Cited in Ibidem, p. 326. 53 Ibidem, p. 326. 42

impression of grandiosity that I experienced surrounded by that still life nature.54

The following years were characterized by a progressive awareness of the benefits that tourism could bring to the Island’s economy, which was at the time still totally dependent on the alternating success of its raw materials trade. The magazine Canarias Turista was founded in 1919, with the objective of encouraging the acceptance of a possible tourist development by the population. In the editorial of the first number it was stated that “this magazine was founded in order to promote tourism, as its name stresses, and tourism is, according to a shared opinion, the greatest source of wealth that is within our reach”55. The magazine dedicated to Lanzarote three articles in the first year, a great deal of reportage between 1911 and 1912 and in 1913 a whole issue (#152) was entirely dedicated to the Island.56 Tourism remained atypical compared to bigger Islands such as Tenerife and Gran Canaria, failing to gain attention from the early mass tourists, despite the opening of the airport in Arrecife in 1924, which didn’t have any influence on the number of visitors reaching the Island at least till the end of the Second World War.57 In 1945 the Director General de Turismo58 Bolín visited Tenerife, Gran Canaria, La Palma and Lanzarote to explore the possibilities of their further tourist development. This event was greeted by the press and by public opinion as an important step towards a more effective commitment from the Government.59 Two years later also the Subsecretario de la Presidencia60 Carrero Blanco visited Lanzarote and in particular the Montañas del Fuego, which he later described as “astonishing panorama, valley of lava

54 “recibí unas de las impresiones más intensas que he experimentado en mi vida. […] así como si hubiese sido por unas horas transportado […] al mundo lunar. (…) No me cansé de admirar aquel paisaje, y siento aún hoy […] la impresión de grandiosidad que experimenté rodeado de aquella naturaleza sin vida”. (Translation: MGP). Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J.A., 2004, p. 326-327. 55 “Esta revista se ha fundado para fomentar el turismo, como lo indica su nombre, y el turismo es, según un juicio en que todos absolutamente coinciden, la primera de las fuentes de riqueza que tenemos a nuestro alcance”. (Translation: MGP). Cited in Ibidem, p.327. 56 Ibidem, p. 328-329. 57 Ibidem, p. 330. 58 “General Director of tourism”. (Translation: MGP). 59 See Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J.A., 2004, p.331-332 60 Subsecretary of the Presidency (Translation: MGP). 43

and rocky heights, it’s possibly the only one in the world, making this Island a unrivalled tourist site.”61 Lanzarote’s fame from then on seems to have kept on growing and reportages about the Island started being published more and more often, not only in the Spanish/Canary press, but also world wide – i.e in the National Geographic Magazine62 in 1952 – to the extent that in 1953 the magazine Antena published an article in which the author stated “Lanzarote has gone from potential tourism to real tourism.”63 However, according to Alejandro Gonzáles and José Ángel Hernández, tourism didn’t definitively take off in the 50s due to four fundamental factors: the inadequacy of internal and external transport connections, which made it relatively hard to reach the Island and to move around once there; the lack of planned promotion towards those countries which would provide tourists; the lack of a sufficient water supply and the scarcity of private capital to be invested in what was still believed to be a risky market.64 In 1963, however, Lanzarote as part of the Archipelago of the Canary Islands was given the title of Zona de Interés Turístico Nacional65 which granted the allocation of state funds to improve the infrastructures on the Island and give greater freedom in the management of capitals.66 As a consequence, the first Plan de Desarrollo67 was drawn up in 1964, in which the main problems were indicated, followed by a list of directions and actions to undertake in order to solve them. In this first plan the main issues were: the lack of accommodation facilities on the Island; the poor advertising; the lack of specialized workers; the atrocious state of roads and transport; the absence of a proper building

61 “impresionante panorama, valle de lava y alturas calcinadas, es posiblemente el único en el mundo, haciendo de esta isla un lugar turístico sin rival” (Translation: MGP). Cited in Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J.A., 2004, p.331-332. 62 Ibidem, p. 333 63 “Lanzarote ha pasado de un turismo potencial a un turismo real” cited in Ibidem., p. 333. My translation. 64 Ibidem, p. 334. 65 “Area of national tourist interest” (Translation: MGP). 66 Gonzáles Morales A., Hernández Luis J.A., 2004, p.335. 67 “Development Plan” (Translation: MGP) 44

grant plan, the scarcity of drinking water and a relatively short tourist season which didn’t provide the population with regular incomes throughout the whole year.68 The lack of hotel beds and other facilities had started assuming a critical aspect already in 1962, when the first charter flights started landing in Lanzarote. The already- mentioned magazine, Antena, reported in the same year that “in the last months hundreds of hotel room inquiries have been received by hotels. Other tourists, who had reached Arrecife by boat, had to go back to Las Palmas on that same ferry or to lodge in pensions.”69 The artist César Manrique, a fervid supporter of the sustainable development of tourism, and in great part responsible for the later tourist image of the Island, made a very meaningful statement in that same year, in which he declared:

Nevertheless it is now time to prepare Lanzarote adequately so that it will be able to assimilate with efficiency and amplitude the extraordinary tourist future that attends. A doctor cannot beat the bush when he has to save the life of a patient. And this is what I intend to do. Whether I am right or not, only time will tell.70

Following the Plan de Desarrollo in 1965, though, the massive development of the Island as a tourist destination started. In that year the first water desalination plant was opened71 and in 1966 the first Resort – the Hotel Los Fariones – was opened in Playa Blanca in the municipality of Tías, starting the development process which would result in the creation of Puerto del Carmen as the major tourist pole on the Island. At the time it was built the hotel offered 144 high standard rooms, compared to other accommodation facilities previously existing on the Island. It was later renovated and expanded and as of today the main building offers 246 rooms, plus further

68 Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J.A., 2004, p.336 69 “en el transcurso de los últimos meses se han rechazado centenares de demandas de plazas en los hoteles. Otros turistas, llegando a Arrecife por vía marítima, se han visto en la necesidad de regresar a Las Palmas en el mismo barco u hospedarse en pensiones”. (Translation: MGP) Cited in ibídem. 70 “todavía se está a tiempo de preparar adecuadamente a Lanzarote para que pueda similar con amplitud y eficiencia el extraordinario porvenir turístico que le aguarda. Un médico no puede andar con tapujos ni rodeaos cuando se trata de salvar la vida de un enfermo. Y eso es lo que yo intento hacer. Si tengo o no razón, el tiempo lo dirá”. (Translation: MGP) Cited in Ibidem, p. 337. 71 Ibidem, p. 339 45

accommodation in 2 other buildings which complete the complex, one being the Suite Lanzarote Playa (built in 1987) and the other being the Apartamentos Fariones for a total of almost 400 rooms. The opening of the tourist attraction Los Jameos del Agua in the same year, together with the completion of Cueva de los Verdes two years earlier, marked the official entrance of Lanzarote as a travel destination on the tourist market.72 Since then, the number of tourists visiting the Island has grown constantly at the rate of nearly +10% a year, making it a total of 1,268,814 in 2010.73

Picture 4 Hotel Los Fariones today. Source: Internet.

In 2011 and 2012 a first downward trend can be noticed, though partly based on estimated data:

MONTH 2011 2012 (*) PREVIOUS YEARLY MONTH January 147.527 162.452 1,17 10,12 February 170.142 156.928 -3,40 -7,77 March 182.983 175.493 11,83 -4,09

72 Gonzales Morales A., Hernandez Luis J.A., 2004, p. 340. 73 Ref. Indicatores turistícos de Lanzarote 2010, published by Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=4718, accessed 05.04.2013 46

April 179.275 158.597 -9,63 -11,53 May 140.678 144.557 -8,85 2,76 June 157.363 155.958 7,89 -0,89 July 194.055 200.556 28,60 3,35 August 201.701 197.130 -1,71 -2,27 September 185.991 172.490 -12,50 -7,26 October 190.828 178.178 3,30 -6,63 November 164.950 151.959 -14,72 -7,88 December 160.577 155.356 2,24 -3,25 TOTAL 2.076.070 2.009.654 -3,20

Table 5 (*) estimated. Tourists visiting Lanzarote in 2012 per month, comparison with year 2011.74

2.1.1.1 PIOT – Plan Insular de Ordenación del Territorio

In 1974, the artist César Manrique published the book Lanzarote. Arquitectura Inedita75, a collection of pictures taken around Lanzarote, depicting all those architectural elements which to his opinion made the Island so unique in its genre. The subjects of these pictures were mostly farmers’ houses, mills, ovens used to cook bread, chimneys and other familiar and constantly present elements in the life of any Lanzarote inhabitant. As Idoya Cabrera Delgado – Department of Territory and Environment, Fundación César Manrique, Lanzarote – stated, this book was in some way revolutionary because people would see pictures of their houses in it and think “Wow, my house is important! It’s in a book!” 76, leading to a positive effect on their self-esteem and on the awareness that preserving what was “real” and authentic would be a way to

74 Afluencia turística a Lanzarote según mes (2012). Comparación con 2011. Available at Centro de datos, Cabildo de Lanzarote: http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=5349, accessed on 04.03.2013. 75 Manrique César, Lanzarote. Arquirectura Inédita, Ed.Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote, Servicio de Publicaciones, Arrecife 1988 76 Personal communication . 47

keep under some kind of control all the issues related to the environment and the impact that tourism was having on their lives. Having been isolated for many years, the sudden development of tourism on the Island was perceived from the beginning as traumatizing and invasive, especially in the early phases, where big discrepancies existed between what the tourists were expecting to find on the Island and what was actually there on offer, especially in terms of facilities, but also of water supplies, food and electricity. As previously reported, attempts to regulate the tourist growth were made in the sixties with the Plan de Desarrollo, but it wasn’t until the approval of the Plan Insular de Ordenación del territorio (PIOT) in 1991 that any concrete steps were taken. It was thanks to the efforts of César Manrique and the ecologist association El Guincho that the necessity of a regulating plan arose in the eighties. César Manrique had been working for at least the previous 10 years trying to build a collective conscience in the inhabitants of Lanzarote through ecologist propaganda and publications on the theme of tourism and environmental conservation, such as the above mentioned Lanzarote. Arquitectura Inedita. In 1986 he published a Manifesto titled “Lanzarote se està muriendo”77 in which he pointed out the worrisome status of the Island, the out-of-control expansion of buildings and highways, the high number of cars circulating and the enormous efforts that the population was making to allow the speculators to keep spoiling the Island. In this paper, he also expressed the desire that the Island could instead develop harmoniously and that building plans would be reduced. Some months later Manrique invited the mayors of all the municipalities in Lanzarote to a meeting to debate the situation and finally the decision to create a commission which would study the possible application of self-regulation in the issue of tourism and development was taken.78 In 1987 a draft of the regulation – Avance del Plan Insular – was published. It contained an analysis of the tourist sector on the Island based on three criteria: the

77 “Lanzarote is dying”. (Translation: MGP). 78 Fernando Llorente Sagaseta de Ilurdoz María Sintes, Conocer el PIOT: misión posible, Fundación César Manrique, Taro de Tahiche, Lanzarote 2001, p. 15 48

accommodation capacity, the assimilable growth rate and the necessary conditions for a balanced development.79 In the same year the Cabildo de Lanzarote approved this draft and the drawing up of the actual plan started. The PIOT was certainly in conflict with many interests on the Island and as a proof, in the first period, it actually brought about the opposite result compared to what was hoped for. In the first months, the building companies feared that all permits would be withdrawn, so requests for the construction of a total of 250,000 more beds were accepted, which represented ten times over the current capacity.80 To avoid confusion till the new legislation would be approved, and trying to avoid favouring illegal activities, the Cabildo de Lanzarote officially approved a second draft of the Plan in 1989, with the only objection that the number of new beds planned for 1996 was to be postponed to year 2000.81 The definitive version of the PIOT was approved on April 9th 1991. The PIOT was supposed to contain a series of directions for the future, starting from two main principles: first, the main wealth source on Lanzarote was its unique environment and therefore, it had to be protected in a sustainable way to maintain it intact and at the same time to allow a responsible growth of tourism, the major source of income on the Island.82 This assumption led to the acceptance of three guidelines:

- The conservation of the available resources - The pursuit of a tourism which would be compatible with the environment - The improvement of the tourist offer, orientating it towards a higher quality.83

Three actions were taken to achieve these goals. First, the territory was divided into different areas with the intention of respecting the diversities of the Island’s environment: an Urban and Tourist Area (south-east, where the tourist activities would be concentrated and where the biggest urbanizations would

79 Fernando Llorente Sagaseta de Ilurdoz M. S., 2001, p. 15. 80 Ibidem. 81 Ibidem. 82 Ibidem, p. 17 83 Ibidem. 49

be built); a Rural Area (in the center and in the north, where traditional agriculture should be preserved so as to conserve the nature); a Protected Area (such as the National Timanfaya Park, where no human activities apart from scientific research should be allowed). Through this division all the land on Lanzarote was assigned a different degree of possible urbanization indirectly proportional to its environmental value.84 Secondly, a series of strategic implementations were set up in different fields, e.g. the historical and cultural heritage, high standard services for all the inhabitants of Lanzarote (schools, hospitals, etc.), the chance for everyone to profit by the advantages of the unique natural environment in sustainable ways, the improvement of communications and infrastructures. According to the PIOT, any new structure (either public or private) had to be approved by the mayors of all seven municipalities and had to comply with the given guidelines. Therefore some conditions were set:

- Constructions in rural areas would have to be built in line with the style of a traditional house - Colours (white), materials, textures and finishes need to be used both for private buildings and for hotels - The number of floors for each building was limited: four for hotels, three for institutional buildings, two for private houses - Private houses should be built for single families, exception made for the city of Arrecife - Some basic models of construction were defined for different municipalities.85

Further guidelines were given on the matter of integrating constructions with the landscape and protecting the environment:

- Telephone and electricity cables need to be as less visible as possible

84 Fernando Llorente Sagaseta de Ilurdoz M. S., 2001, p. 18-21 85 Ibidem, p. 22 50

- No advertising boards were allowed in urban areas - No advertisement of any kind was allowed in the whole Rural Area - It was strictly forbidden to release waste and garbage in the volcanic calderas - The construction of roads should have the least environmental impact possible and roundabouts should be decorated with local vegetation - Only local plants and flowers should be used when gardening - Only volcanic stones should be used when building fencing walls - It was forbidden to practice motocross and other similar sports out of the dedicated areas - Camping was not allowed in any part of the Island.86

In this way an image of aesthetic harmony was given, contributing to create the so called “Lanzarote Trademark”, which has become so popular over the years and can be found in any travel catalogue:

Lanzarote – die mystische Feuerinsel. Ein bizarres Landschaftsbild im Naturpark Timanfaya, grüne Palmenoasen und geheimnisvolle Grotten neben aufwendig angelegten Lavafeldern für Wein- und Gemüseanbau. Die hübschen, kleinen Orte mit ihren weiß getünchten Häusern und grünen Fensterladen spiegeln Cesar Manriques Einfluss wider. Die Strände – hell, dunkel, kilometerlang, lebhaft oder verschwiegen.

Lanzarote, wo Natur und Kultur verschmelzen.87

The last measure to be taken was setting a limit for the tourist and population growth. This aspect is the one that created most controversy because those two parameters are difficult to measure and highly interdependent: the more accommodation facilities are built, the more workers will be needed to maintain the functionality of the tourist infrastructures, resulting in a growth of the number of residents on the Island,

86 Fernando Llorente Sagaseta de Ilurdoz M. S., 2001, p. 23 87 TUI Schöne Ferien Katalog, Kanarischen Inseln, Kapverdische Inseln, Mai-Nov 2010, S. 21

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both natives and immigrants. The approval of the PIOT granted the possibility to build a total number of 90,000 beds till 2002, though statistics in 1997 already showed how the number of newly built accommodation facilities had been lower than expected (and then allowed) though the number of residents had been rising surprisingly fast. The conclusion was that the PIOT of 1991 had been too optimistic and the numbers proposed in the plan were unrealistic and unsustainable and therefore required revision.88 The declaration of Lanzarote as UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993 (widely covered by the local press) had already contributed to make the population more and more aware of the environmental problems that the massive tourist development was bringing and of the necessity to find real solutions.89 In 1998 the Cabildo undertook two different actions. It was decided to make a new revision of the PIOT in order to study the effects of the current growth and to set up further regulations to keep it under control and a new strategy was presented: the “Estrategia de Desarrollo Sostenibile. Lanzarote en la Biosfera”90, the result of a study based on the work of many specialists in the fields of environmental studies.91 The new PIOT was approved on May 20th 1998, its main goal being to lay down limits to the uncontrollable estate building expansion of the last decade, and due to its restrictive character is commonly known as the “Moratorium”. Among other things, the anticipated amount of tourist accommodations that could be built was reduced to little more than 8,000 beds for the following ten years, cutting down the number by some 40,000 units. In addition to that, all the recently approved building grants were revoked and submitted to new commissions in all municipalities. On March 25th 2010 a new Avance92 of the PIOT was presented by the Cabildo. Being only a revision of the last PIOT, this new document dealt mainly with an analysis of the current status of the Island and a list of actions the Government feels that need to be undertaken to maintain or improve the situation, in particular93:

88 Fernando Llorente Sagaseta de Ilurdoz M. S., 2001, p. 24 89 Ibidem, p. 26 90 “Strategy for a sustainable development. Lanzarote in the biosphere”. (Translation: MGP) 91 Fernando Llorente Sagaseta de Ilurdoz M. S., 2001, p. 26 92 “revision” (Translation: MGP). 93 see Fundación César Manrique, Memoria 2010, Taro de Tahíche, Lanzarote, 2010, available from http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/publicacion/4e1701b2memoria%202010.pdf, accessed 05.03.2013 52

- economic diversification; the economy of Lanzarote is almost solely dependent on tourism and therefore very vulnerable to economic crises, market changes and the development of new trends in tourism. The Avance stresses the necessity for new territorial policies, as well as for innovation in the primary sector which would enable the Island to become self-sufficient foodwise, and for the re-qualification of abandoned productive areas and for the diversification of means of production.94 - creative management of natural resources; including a new zoning which distinguished different areas of the Island according to their destination, i.e. farming, housing, tourism, etc. and the consequent possible modification of use and requalification.95 - energy self-sufficiency; for example through the improvement of the use and production of renewable energies present on the Island (sun and wind mainly), since Lanzarote is currently importing 97% of its energy requirements.96 - territorial infrastructures; that is the improvement of transport on the Island with the creation of new highways around the capital Arrecife, to replace those now thought to be inadequate, but also through the improvement of the bus and coach routes, which are felt to have been neglected due to the proliferation of car transport, most of which being dependent on tourism and car rentals. It has been calculated that between 1991 and 2007 the number of cars circulating on the streets of Lanzarote grew by +140%, resulting in an average of one car per inhabitant.97 - minimization of the ecological impact, through improved waste management and new recycling policies.98

94 Fundación César Manrique, Memoria 2010, 2010, p. 21 95 Ibidem, p. 51. 96 Ibidem, p. 31. 97 Ibidem, p. 29. 98 Ibidem, p.84-85. 53

- re-formulation of the tourist model; through the creation of a new territorial balance, but also through the creation of new attractions which would grant a market differentiation from the now obsolete model of sun, sea, sand tourism.99

Though the whole paper mainly stresses the importance of the creation of new alternative markets and economic models for the Island, as well as the necessity for a sustainable development model in terms of energy needs and subsistence means, the main point of interest is the last one, namely the tourism model. The Avance proposes a new balancing of the territorial model, based on the fact that at the moment in Lanzarote there is a clear-cut division between tourist areas and residential areas, the latter being somewhat underdeveloped and neglected by the municipalities, which tend rather to invest in the former, in other words, those which more probably contribute to portraying the tourist image of the Island. Another aspect is the character of the real estate market, which offers great numbers of housing facilities for tourists – usually high standard ones and with consequent higher prices – while housing for Lanzarote inhabitants are inadequate, hard to find and low budget.100 Moreover, a reform of the tourist model is desirable, in terms of improvement of quality vs quantity, and among other things: tourist growth should be sustainable; the original cultural, social and architectural background should be maintained and enhanced so as to create loyalty in tourists; hotel residences should have priority over tourist housing, in order to provide more jobs; new public spaces should be created for the fruition of both tourists and residents, etc.101 The Avance underwent some criticism after its publication, in particular by the Fundación César Manrique. In the Memoria 2010, a document published each year by the Fundation, it is stated that the Avance is unsatisfactory and had missed its purpose, which is planning a form of development that would enhance life quality and sustainable development on the Island:

99 See Fundación César Manrique, Memoria 2010, 2010, p. 43 and following. 100 Ibidem, pp. 35-36. 101 Ibidem, pp 43-44. 54

Ultimately, the Avance chose to abandon the policy of containment that was one of the main achievements of planning in Lanzarote and that has been going on for more than thirty years, along with the realization that, to preserve local values, it was essential to limit the range of accommodation and the town planning development process of the Island by planning instruments that have been pioneer in Spain.102

Moreover

The strategic decision currently adopted by the Council is "an unprecedented turnaround and an involution with unforeseeable consequences for Lanzarote", besides clearly putting at risk the Island we know today, in a context of crisis and facing a future in which tourism can only compete by offering an original destination, unsaturated, qualified and gifted with landscape quality, but also with services and life quality for the residents.103

2.1.1.2 Lanzarote as UNESCO Biosphere Reserve

Lanzarote was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve on October 7th 1993. According to the official Lanzarote Tourism website, Biosphere Reserves are “representative areas of terrestrial and coastal environments, whose importance, both for

102 “El Avance opta, en definitiva, por el abandono de la política de contención que constituía uno de los principales logros relativos del planeamiento de Lanzarote y que se ha venido fraguando durante más de treinta años, junto con la conciencia de que, para preservar los valores del territorio, era imprescindible limitar la oferta alojativa y el proceso urbanizador de la Isla mediante instrumentos supramunicipales de planeamiento que han sido pioneros en España.” (Translation: MGP) Fundación César Manrique, Memoria 2010, Taro de Tahíche, Lanzarote, 2010, p. 58 103 “La decisión estratégica adoptada por el Cabildo actual supone “un cambio de rumbo sin precedentes y una involución de consecuencias imprevisibles para Lanzarote”, además de poner en evidente riesgo la isla que conocemos hoy, en un contexto de crisis y ante un futuro del turismo en el que sólo se podrá competir con un destino singular, no saturado, cualificado y dotado de calidad paisajística, pero también de servicios y calidad de vida para los residentes.” (Translation: MGP) Ibidem.

55

conservation and for the provision of skills and human values that can contribute to sustainable development on a human scale, has been recognized internationally through the program Man and Biosphere”.104 This concept was created by UNESCO in the late 70s to protect those territories which demonstrated to have some peculiarity which could be endangered by development and soil exploitation. The declaration of Lanzarote as a Biosphere Reserve was the follow up of a series of measures undertaken by the Cabildo of Lanzarote – i.e. the drawing up of the PIOT – and the work and dedication to the cause of conservation cause of the artist César Manrique. The Island Government initiated the procedures to have the Island recognized as Biosphere Reserve in November 1992, shortly after the death of Manrique, who was a member of the Spanish MAB (Man And Biosphere) committee and his artwork had “been taken into account as one of the elements that has sustained the declaration, since it is an example of the harmonic intervention of man in this environment”.105 In addition to that, further elements that allowed Lanzarote to become a part of the programme were the existence of unique environmental areas – such as the National Park of Timanfaya – and the development through the years of a unique agricultural technique, that is the one still practiced in the area of La Geria. The volcanic origin of the Island, its particular climate and the constant attempts to develop a sustainable tourist industry led to the creation of several protected areas in order to protect a fauna and flora of incredible scientific value due to its uniqueness. At the moment there are twelve such areas in Lanzarote, covering up to 40% of the entire territory:

- The National park of Timanfaya - The Integral Natural Reserve Los Islotes - Archipelago Chinijo - Natural Park of the Volcanoes

104 http://www.turismolanzarote.com/en/biosphere-reserve, accessed 18.09.2012 105 Ibidem. 56

- Natural Monument la Corona - Natural Monument Los Ajaches - Natural Monument Cueva de los Naturistas - Natural Monument of Islotes de los Halcones - Natural Monument Mountain of Fire - Protected Landascape Teneguime - Protected Landascape La Geria - Site of Scientific Interest Los Jameos - Site of Scientific Interest Janubio.106

Despite such premises and the above mentioned measures adopted by the Government, the current situation on the Island seems to be precarious. In February 2011, the Spanish Newspaper El País published a report about corruption in Lanzarote which contained some worrisome details about the current real status of the territory. 107 The article, entitled “La política tiene precio en Lanzarote” (“Politics has a price in Lanzarote”108), presents a clear analysis of the problem and the causes which led to the present situation:

Citizen movements, supported in some cases by the artist César Manrique, had succeeded in the eighties in making the Island a pioneer in land use regulations. These were years in which Lanzarote irradiated an image of sustainable tourism, to the point of being declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO. However, these environmental gains started losing power under the pressure of urban development: the 50,000 hotel beds in 2001 became 72,000 in 2006. As in other places, the economy turned to tourism and construction, so that between 1996 and 2006, the rate of population growth was 10 times higher than the Spanish average. In 20 years, Lanzarote doubled its inhabitants. 109

106 http://www.turismolanzarote.com/en/protected-areas, accessed 18.09.2012(1) 107 http://elpais.com/diario/2011/02/13/domingo/1297572756_850215.html, accessed 18.09.2012(2) 108 Translation: MGP. 109 “Los movimientos ciudadanos, apoyados en algún caso por el artista César Manrique, habían conseguido en los años ochenta que la isla fuera pionera en la normativa de ordenación del territorio. Fueron años en los que Lanzarote irradiaba una imagen de turismo sostenible, hasta el punto de ser 57

And moreover

Under this pressure, corruption has done the rest. The paradise Island is storming the courts, with more than 30 disputes that have declared as illegal half of the hotel beds, which were financed by European funds that must be returned. And to finish, a UNESCO official has told the Financial Times that Lanzarote risks losing its title of Biosphere Reserve.110

Furthermore, another current event is endangering the status of Lanzarote as Biosophere Reserve. In 2012 the Spanish Government, together with oil company REPSOL, started an oil prospecting project just 25 km off the coast of Lanzarote and neighbouring Island Fuerteventura. The Fundacíon César Manrique (see par. 9.3) has been printing flyers in multiple languages trying to make the population and the tourists aware of the risks consequent to such an operation. In one of these flyers, for example, it is stated that

[…] the Canary Islands are associated not only with globally significant fish resources, but also with extraordinarily valuable fauna and flora and a unique landscape. The Islands’ geography and natural heritage render them particularly vulnerable to oil spill-related hazards and the resulting pollution. Oil drilling generates major concerns in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and jeopardizes their economic model, along with their marine and coastal ecosystems, their fisheries and even seawater potabilisation. A slick would spell ruin for both Islands. Reasonable precaution, then, would oblige the

declarada reserva de la biosfera por la Unesco. Sin embargo, esas conquistas medioambientales fueron perdiendo fuerza bajo la presión del urbanismo: las 50.000 plazas hoteleras en 2001 se convirtieron en 72.000 en 2006. Como sucedió en otros lugares, la economía se volcó hacia el turismo y la construcción, de forma que, entre 1996 y 2006, la tasa de crecimiento de la población ha sido 10 veces superior a la media española. En 20 años, Lanzarote ha duplicado sus habitantes.” (Translation: MGP). http://elpais.com/diario/2011/02/13/domingo/1297572756_850215.html, accessed 18.09.2012(2) 110 “Bajo esa presión, la corrupción ha hecho el resto. La isla paradisíaca es un hervidero en los juzgados, con más de 30 contenciosos que han dado lugar a sentencias que declaran ilegales la mitad de las camas hoteleras, realizadas con fondos europeos que han de devolverse. Y para remate, una responsable de la Unesco afirma en Financial Times que Lanzarote corre el riesgo de perder su título de reserva de la biosfera.” (Translation: MGP) Ibidem. 58

Canaries to bar oil prospecting initiatives from the outset, while pursuing energy self-sufficiency based on renewables.111

These two last points will be widely analyzed in Chapter 9 of this work.

2.2 Tourism profile of Lanzarote

2.2.1 Sustainable tourism

The debate about the concept of sustainability arose already in the early 70’s. In 1972 the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, and later on in 1980 the World Conservation Strategy of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature stressed the urgent need of the creation of an organization which purpose would have been to foster sustainable development, and therefore also sustainable tourism. In 1983 the prime minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, was requested by the UN president Javier Pérez de Cuéllar to create a commission to study the possibilities of a common path towards a more sustainable development. In those years many developing countries were facing the problems brought by economic and industrial modernization for the first time. In their quest for fast growth they increasingly engaged in cheap methods which though were also maximizing the environmental impact. Some sort of regulation, or at least a draft of guidelines to follow in order to avoid ecological disasters appeared to be necessary. The organization created in 1983 is known as the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) and its first publication – “Our common future” – had a great impact on the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (1992) and the third UN Conference on Environment and Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002,

111 Fundación César Manrique, 2012. Available at http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/noticia/4f687c53ban%20oil%20prospecting.pdf, 25.09.2012 59

due to the fact, among other merits, that it provided a first draft definition of “sustainability”:112

Sustainable development is the kind of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The two key concepts of sustainable development are: the concept of "needs" in particular the essential needs of the world's poorest people, to which they should be given overriding priority; and the idea of limitations which is imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet both present and future needs.113

In the same way, from the 1960s on, tourism started being considered an important factor that could bring economic benefits to many countries which were lacking other means of production. Therefore “there was then a good deal of enthusiasm for the use of tourism as a developmental tool”114, though it bore theoretically a destructive potential.115 An interesting definition of sustainable tourism is given by Weaver:

Sustainable tourism may be regarded most basically as the application of the sustainable development idea to the tourism sector – that is, tourism development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, or […] tourism that wisely uses and conserves resources in order to maintain their long-term viability. Essentially, sustainable tourism involves the minimization of negative impacts and the maximization of positive impacts.116

112 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundtland_Commission, accessed 25.09. 2012 113 http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Editorials/Kates-apr05-full.html, accessed 25.09. 2012(1) 114 Nash Dennison, Anthropology of Tourism, Elsevier Science Ltd, Oxford,1996, p.127 115 Ibidem. 116Cited in Macleod Donald V.L. and Gillespie Steven A., Sustainable tourism in Rural Europe, Routledge, Oxon 2011, p. 2 60

By the 1980s sustainability had gained a central place in the debate about tourism. Under this notion a new form of tourism is to be understood, which consists of three main criteria:

- Ecological sustainability: minimizing as much as possible the impact of tourism on the environment - Social and cultural sustainability: the possibility of enjoying the uncontaminated Nature in its original form and to get in contact with the original and unaltered culture of the area visited - Economic sustainability: connection and cooperation of all the agents involved in the tourist industry.117

The turning point in the recognition of sustainable tourism as a desirable goal for the future was the "Charter for Sustainable Tourism", which was compiled in Lanzarote in 1995 and which applied to the tourist field the principles of sustainable development (proposed during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992). As seen in the previous paragraph, sustainability has been a core theme in the development of tourism in Lanzarote, from very early stages thanks to the work of César Manrique, who was convinced that the protection and conservation of the unique landscape of the Island would be its passport for a sustainable future. Today, the Island’s Government is the main actor involved in the planning of projects dedicated to environmental conservation AND simultaneous tourist development. For example, a Life118 project called “Lanzarote in the Biosphere 2” was carried out from 2000 to 2004 with the aim of exploring new possible lines of actions. According to what is stated in the Regional Government’s official website “Life combines the possibility and the obligation to integrate in a general overview the different key lines of work that it is wished to carry out on the Island in the mid and long

117 Nash D., 1996, p.129 118 “LIFE is the EU’s financial instrument supporting environmental and nature conservation projects throughout the EU, as well as in some candidate, acceding and neighboring countries.” See http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/, accessed 01.10.2012 61

term”119 and moreover “the Life project acquires special importance in view of the fact that the Regional Government recently embarked upon a process to set limits on the growth of tourism and to reorient the general model of development towards sustainable patterns in all of the Canary Isles archipelago.”120 The consequences of the recent tourism development seem to have been widely acknowledged:

Despite all the measures that have been adopted, the current situation on the Island is highly concerning. A provisional analysis of the period 1996-2000 confirms both the difficulty of reorienting the model and the unsustainability of the existing development rates: densities, population ratios, biodiversity, consumption, emissions, etc. As a result of the growth in tourism, the Island has outgrown its workforce and consequently there has been a high level of immigration of outside manpower in a short time period (45% of residents were not born on the Island), which is inevitably adding difficulty to the desirable processes of integration and social cohesion. Therefore, the crucial issue for Lanzarote today continues to be focused on the excessive human pressure originated by the growth of tourism, authorised before the PIOT of 1991, on a very fragile Island system from a socio- cultural and environmental viewpoint. The growth in tourism has been so fast and powerful that it has multiplied human pressure on the Island (from 90 to 183 inhabitants/km2 from 1987 to 2000), surpassing tolerable limits and giving rise to a series of generalised disequilibriums in the basic ecosystems.121

In 2004, therefore it was already the Government’s aim to stabilize the situation to date, rather than to implement further development.

119 Source: http://www.cabildodelanzarote.com/areas/presidencia/biosfera/lifelanzarote/presing.htm, accessed 01.10.2012(1) 120 Ibidem. 121 Ibidem 62

Despite the many difficulties, a lot of other important measures have also been taken, especially concerning the environment, like obtaining the ISO 14.001 certification in 2008.122 Other aspects will be considered in Chapter 9.

2.2.2 Other relevant forms of tourism on the Island

Ecotourism

According to the anthropologist Dennison Nash, ecotourism is a “more sustainable form of development which aims at giving tourists an experience with nature […] that has a low impact on the environment”.123 Usually the government is heavily involved by being the (co)-owner of most facilities, i.e. parks and natural reserves, and it has a great influence on the allocation of funds and decision making. Points of interest may also include human heritage sites – as in the case of Lanzarote. César Manrique had already clear from the beginning that almost anything has a “tourism potential” and this is particularly true in Lanzarote, where thanks to his work many ecologically relevant locations have been turned into accessible attractions for eco- tourists. Already in 1996, Nash stressed that “to maintain the viability of such resources, however, it is important that they stay within the carrying capacity of their various sites

122 “ISO 14001 sets out the criteria for an environmental management system. It does not state requirements for environmental performance, but maps out a framework that a company or organization can follow to set up an effective environmental management system. It can be used by any organization that wants to improve resource efficiency, reduce waste and drive down costs. Using ISO 14001 can provide assurance to company management and employees as well as external stakeholders that environmental impact is being measured and improved.[4] ISO 14001 can also be integrated with other management functions and assists companies in meeting their environmental and economic goals.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_14000#ISO_14001_standard, accessed 01.10.2012(2) 123 Nash Dennison, 1996, p. 131 63

and not succumb to the ever-present inclination to increase the size of their tourist ‘golden eggs’ in ways that will ruin their attractiveness”.124 Examples of ecotourism dedicated locations on the Island are the Timanfaya National Park, the vineyards of La Geria and the salt works of Janubio. These are places where through different strategies it has been attempted to conserve the pre-tourist ecological environment by maintaining original ways of soil employment.

Leisure tourism

Leisure tourism is often influenced by seasonality and might require imported labor during particular periods. It is usually also defined as “sun, sand, sea” tourism – though some authors also use the form “sun, sea, sex”125 – and identifies a kind of tourism towards away-from-home destinations, where a some sort of “social freedom” could let the tourist indulge in new morality.126 This kind of tourism is mostly visible in Puerto del Carmen (the most densely- frequented tourist area on the Island), and to a minor extent in Costa Teguise and Playa Blanca. One must say, though, that Lanzarote is almost lacking those facilities that have made other Spanish Islands, i.e. Ibiza, famous as party-Islands and even the most populated tourist centres offer a relatively quiet and problem-free night life. On the other hand many other recreational activities are offered, for example diving, hiking, trekking, surfing, windsurfing, kite surfing, sailing, mountain biking, golf, etc. Many theme parks are also present on the Island – water parks, marine parks, bio parks, etc… - and also malls, restaurants, shopping centers, game centers and so on.

124 Nash D., 1996, p. 132 125 Smith Valene, Introduction, in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p. 5 126 Ibidem. 64

Cultural tourism

This kind of tourism is usually driven by the quest for the “typical”, “picturesque” or for the “old style”. Cultural tourists are interested in costumed festivals, folklore performances, restaurants where typical food is served, and in local markets. These activities are believed to have a strong impact on the local people because rural areas “are often readily accessible from tourist resorts, and large numbers of visitors come for the very purpose of observing and photographing the lives of [locals] who become objects of study per se”.127 In Lanzarote there are various occasions where the culture and tradition of the Island can be observed. The two biggest feasts are the Carnival and the feast of “La Romería128 de la Virgen de los Dolores”. Residents dressed in typical costumes make a pilgrimage on foot from all over the Island, to the church dedicated to Virgin Mary – as patroness known as “Nuestra Señora de los Volcanes” ˗ in the village of Mancha Blanca, where the devotees leave their offers, normally food and flower crowns. Along the path it is possible to find food stands and musicians playing typical music. The Pilgrimage takes place on the first Saturday after 15th September every year, while another feast dedicated to her ˗ “Fiesta del Fuego129” - takes place on 31st July, in remembrance of the volcanic eruption that happened that day in 1824.130 Other important occasions are the Sunday market of Teguise, which has recently expanded also into a weekly appointment in other cities, like Marina Rubicón (Playa Blanca), to enable tourists residing in relatively distant locations to enjoy the market without long drives and/or commuting times.

127 Smith Valene, Introduction, in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p. 5 128 “Pilgrimage” (Translation: MGP) 129 “Fire feast” (Translation: MGP) 130 http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgen_de_los_Dolores_(Lanzarote), accessed 03.10.2012 65

Picture 5 La Romeria de la Virgen de los Dolores. Source: Internet

2.3 General considerations about tourists in Lanzarote

As tourism started its development in the sixties, the majority of tourists coming to the Island originated from other Canary Islands or the Spanish mainland (up to 52%). There was also a fairly high component of French tourists, normally expats living in Morocco, consisting of another 47%.131 In the following years, and particularly from the seventies on, the demand from other countries rose, thanks also to the entrance of foreign tour operators into the market, while it led the Spanish quota to descend to a fifth of the total by the beginning of the 21st century.132 As the following table shows, two countries seem to provide the highest number of tourists to the Island – Germany and the United Kingdom – though for different

131 Acosta Rodríguez D. J. Ezequiel, Los impactos territoriales del Turismo en la isla de Lanzarote, Tesi doctoral, Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, 2007, p. 563. 132 Ibidem, p. 564. 66

reasons. German tourists seem to have more interest in nature and landscape, while British tourists look for uncontaminated beaches, good weather and a lively night life.

COUNTRY JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY T O T A L

Germany 33.803 26.521 28.588 21.859 21.272 19.416 27.072 178.531 Austria 892 3.043 1.130 723 629 911 1.229 8.557 Belgium 2.659 3.400 3.285 3.283 2.630 2.595 2.924 20.776 France 1847 1.260 2.206 2.455 1.257 688 3.324 13.037 Holland 9.085 5.622 5.841 5.290 4.627 3.223 8.198 41.886 Ireland 12.191 11.142 13.472 12.803 12.354 17.709 19.279 98.950 Italy 3.911 2.743 2.262 3.098 2.734 3.211 4.347 22.306 United 59.514 66.016 80.500 77.699 72.844 75.004 82.323 513.900 Kingdom Denmark 2.601 2.576 3.230 1.792 1.015 1.368 1.144 13.726 Finland 1.917 1.589 2.077 168 . . 128 5.879 Norway 4.518 4.447 5.295 1.100 16 406 33 15.815 Poland 2.600 1.164 1.248 1.297 1.956 2.410 2.284 12.959 Sweden 3.815 3.941 4.819 1.011 42 . 41 13.669 Switzerland 1.280 1.765 1.821 1.454 1.521 1.509 2.212 11.562 Other 944 2.648 1.176 2.274 1.346 2.064 5.144 15.596 countries Spain 20.875 19.051 18.722 22.291 20.317 25.442 40.874 167.572 TOTAL 162.452 156.928 175.672 158.597 144.560 155.956 200.556 1.154.721

Table 6 Tourists' attendance in Lanzarote in 2012 (as of July 2012)133

This particular tourist composition is most visible in the main cities, where the number of British bars, pubs and restaurants serving British food is predominant – especially in Puerto del Carmen and Costa Teguise – sometimes creating an interesting contrast between different architectures, which leads to a sort of “disneyfication” of the surroundings. It is not unusual in Lanzarote to see typical English bars and pubs, with their customary architecture and colours, set in between Lanzarote buildings, creating an alienating effect.

133 Afluencia turística a Lanzarote según país de residencia y mes (julio 2012). Source: ISTAC. http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=5176, accessed 26.09.2012 67

The presence of more than 50,000 British tourists on the Island in the first seven months of 2012 (making it almost half of the total) could be both the cause and the result of such a widespread tendency.

Picture 6 A “typical English pub” in Costa Teguise. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

The number of tourists visiting Lanzarote has been growing constantly in recent decades, despite the economic crises that have been affecting the world’s economics in this period. The problem of a constant growth in numbers on a small Island like Lanzarote is caused by the consequent enormous social costs deriving from congestion and overcrowding, in the sense that “the cost of the marginal tourist takes no account of the additional congestion costs imposed by the extra tourist”.134 J. Urry, taking up on other authors, introduced the concept of “scarcity” to describe the problems deriving from a constant growth of tourist numbers. As a first step, Urry maintains that it is necessary to distinguish between the “physical carrying capacity” of a place and its “perceptual capacity”, the latter to be intended as “the

134 Urry John, 1990, p. 42. 68

subjective quality of the tourist experience”135, which depends on a great number of variables, like the conception of nature and the circumstances in which people expect to be able to set their leisure activities. Every year the Centro de Datos de Lanzarote publishes a document analyzing the status of the tourist market and tourists’ perceptions of the Island. At the time of writing, the document dealing with 2012 has not yet been published, so I must refer to the data of 2011.136 The inquiry investigated four aspects of the travel experience in an attempt to give a definition of the tourists visiting Lanzarote. These aspects were: a socio- demographic profile of the tourists; the ways in which they “discovered” Lanzarote and why they chose it as holiday destination; their expectations and the characteristics of their flight and accommodation; and finally the degree of satisfaction and their evaluation of different aspects of the Island. The survey questioned 6,095 tourists just before their departure from the Lanzarote Airport at the end of their stay.137 The following facts were found: the average age of the tourists visiting Lanzarote in 2011 was slightly lower than in the previous years, 52.9% of them being aged between 25 and 44 years old; there was also a majority of male tourists (60.7%); tourists tended to visit the Island in pairs (65.7%); and 14.4% of the visitors travelled accompanied by one or more children under the age of 13 years.138 The occupational level of those interviewed was mainly mid-high: 37.1% were employees, while 24% were business people.139 It is interesting to note that a third (33.6%) of the total of visitors consisted of recurring tourists, that is they had already visited Lanzarote at least once in the past, while 18.9% had been advised by family members and friends, and 15.7% of the tourists had discovered Lanzarote while surfing the net. The survey stresses a constant decrease in the number of potential tourists who chose to stay on the Island after having been

135 Urry J., 1990, p. 44-45. 136 “Encuesta turística de Lanzarote 2011 (estimación anual)”, Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=5193, accessed 13.03.2013(1) 137 Ibidem, p. 18. 138 Ibidem, p. 4 139 Ibidem, p. 5. 69

advised by tour operators (for example, 9.7% in year 2006 vs 5.4% in 2011) and/or travel agencies.140 As for the aspects which influenced this choice, there are no big surprises: the sun and climate (91.3%), tranquility and relaxation (45.3%), beaches (28.1%), landscape (23.5%), price (19.8%), getting to know new places (17.3%), ease of transport (13.1%). The survey also compares the motivations of tourists who had visited other Canary Islands and it is evident how “beaches” occupies a much higher position when it comes to other Islands, while the “low price” component is much more relevant in the case of Lanzarote.141 Another element is that the place of residence of the tourists. Although according to the survey there are no striking differences, it is possible to notice that German tourists seem to favour the out of the ordinary landscape, the Spanish the “getting to know new places” and the British tourists are attracted by the low prices.142 Regarding means of travel and accommodation, 33.8% of those interviewed had picked a flight-plus-hotel package option; 29.8% had bought an all inclusive package; while 16.7% a flight-plus-hotel in half board option. Some small differences related to the tourists’ origins are worth mentioning in this case as well. Approximately 50% of the Germans chose an all inclusive option and almost the same number of Britons (44.2%) only bought a flight-plus-hotel accommodation version.143 Flights and hotels had been mainly booked through travel agencies (up to 44.2%) and flights were mainly charter flights, probably due to the fact that the majority of regular airline flights are only available from mainland Spain.144 Moreover, the average length of stay on the Island was of 8.62 nights, which is slightly lower than the average of other Islands of the Archipelago (9.52 for all Canaries).145 The last point to be analyzed was the degree of satisfaction at departure. A good or very good impression of the Island was had by 84.5% of the tourists, a figure which

140 “Encuesta turística de Lanzarote 2011 (estimación anual)”, Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=5193, accessed 13.03.2013(1), p.6. 141 Ibidem, pp. 7-8. 142 Ibidem, p.8. 143 Ibidem, p.9. 144 Ibidem, p. 13. 145 Ibidem, p. 14. 70

has been more or less constant since 2006, though it is slowly decreasing after having peaked at 92.6% in year 2008.146 In addition to that, tourists were asked to evaluate from 0 (very bad) to 10 (very good) various aspects of their stay in Lanzarote. The total average was fairly high (7.97), though excellence was only awarded to the environment (8.3), followed by the general services and infrastructures (8.00) and the quality of the restaurants (7.75). Surprisingly enough, the worst evaluation, though still high in numbers, was that of free time activities, which received an average of 7.3, an interesting result when referred to an Island which has based all its economy on tourism and, consequently, on leisure activities.

146 “Encuesta turística de Lanzarote 2011 (estimación anual)”, Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=5193, accessed 13.03.2013(1), p. 16. 71

3. César Manrique

3.1 Biography

A study on Lanzarote and its tourist development would not be complete without some reference to César Manrique, the artist who most influenced today’s look of the Island with his work and with his visionary ideals.

3.1.1 Early Phase: “shepherd of wind and volcanoes”

Born in Lanzarote in 1919 in what was to be considered a well situated family for the Island’s standards, he spent his early years wandering about the surrounding of the family’s house in Famara and cultivating his fascination for the uniqueness of the nature, flora and fauna. After taking part as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil war on Franco’s side he came back to Lanzarote in 1939. The war had been a traumatic experience for him and he refused to talk about it ever after: “He returned still wearing his military uniform. After greeting his mother and siblings, he went up on the flat roof, took off his clothes, angrily stepped over them, sprayed them with petroleum and burned them.”147 On the same year he went to the Universidad de La Laguna in Tenerife to study Architecture, but left two years later without completing his studies.148 His first exhibition is dated two years later, in 1942, where he presented thirty- four art works, mostly paintings and watercolours, with various themes such as portraits and copies of other artworks. His painting in this early phase seemed to have been

147 http://www.cesarmanrique.com/biografia_i.htm, 23.02.2012 148 Ibidem. 72

greatly influenced by the work of the already mentioned Canary painter Néstor (1887- 1938).149 In 1945, having won a scholarship, he moved to Madrid to attend the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where he graduated as art professor and painter in 1950. During the years spent in the capital he often came back to Lanzarote accompanied by friends and other artists, to whom he showed the peculiarities of the Islands and with whom he made different photo-reportages to record the most interesting places.150

3.1.2 1960s-1980s: Lanzarote as “obra turistica total” (total tourist art-work)

In December 1964 he moved to New York, following a series of coincidences, including the fact that his cousin already lived there with his wife and having met Nelson Rockefeller in Madrid few months earlier. Already in February he was granted a scholarship by the Institute of International Education, which allowed him to devote all his time to art without having to worry about his finances. During the first months of his stay in New York he had the chance to meet many famous artists of the time, including Andy Warhol, and he became fascinated by Pop Art, which had a big influence in his later work. Travelling back and forth between Lanzarote and New York in the following years, in 1966 he started the first phase of works at Jameos de Agua, in Lanzarote. In February that same year his first individual exhibition was opened in New York at the Catherine Viviano gallery.151 In this period he became more and more involved in the planning of Lanzaronte’s transformation into an important tourist destination, together with the Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote, by proposing and organizing projects that would help to conserve the natural and cultural heritage of the Island.152 1968 was a year of fervid artistic work. As he stated

149 http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/menu/cronologiamanrique.pdf, p. 2, accessed 23.02.2012 150 Ibidem. 151 Ibidem, p. 16. 152 Ibidem. 73

When I returned from New York I was determined to help turn my native Island into one of the most beautiful places in the world and enlisted the help of Pepin Ramirez, President of the Island Council, who enthusiastically supported me right from the start.153

Many of his most important works were indeed started this year, including the Casa-Museo El Campesino, his house Taro de Tahiche and the restaurant El Diablo in Timanfaya. The last decade had seen a slow but constant progressive development of the tourist industry in Lanzarote, pushed and promoted by the Cabildo and its President, and Manrique “perceived that, for its natural value and for its beauty, the landscape of the Island could possibly become its main source of wealth, but he also knew that, due to its extreme fragility, unfortunate actions might just as well compromise it irreversibly”.154 In this early developmental phase, Manrique elaborated his aesthetic ideal, that he called “Art-Nature/Nature-Art”, which to some extent includes the concept of acquiring environmental consciousness through the fruition of artworks. In fact, “Manrique assumes for Art an educational function near to religion, through which it will be possible to restore harmony to the human beings”.155 The already mentioned book Lanzarote. Arquitectura inédita was published in 1974, and marked a turning point in his career. The book featured a collection of pictures taken with the collaboration of the photographer Francisco Rojas Fariña156, featuring the most typical and functional architectural elements to create a sort of encyclopedia of the Lanzarote architecture. It’s greatest merit was that the Lanzarote inhabitants got to think of their own houses as something culturally and artistically relevant for the first time.

153 Jiménez Martinez Carlos, Cesar Manrique’s contribution to sustainable design for tourism in Lanzarote Island. Reflections in product design, I International Symposium on Sustainable Design, Curitiba, Sept. 4th-6th 2007, p. 2 154 “intuyó que, por su valor natural y por su belleza, el paisaje de la isla era susceptible de convertirse en su principal fuente de riqueza, pero también sabía que, por su extrema fragilidad, acciones desafortunadas en el mismo podrían comprometerlo de manera irreversible” (Translation: MGP) available from http://www.fcmanrique.org/menu.php?iM=38, accessed 08.05.2012 155 Jiménez Marinez C., 2007, p. 3 156 http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/menu/cronologiamanrique.pdf, accessed 08.05.2012, p. 17,. 74

In the same year started the renovation of the Castillo de San José, which would be completed the following year. The castle became the venue for the Museo International de Arte Contemporaneo. The late 70s were for Manrique years of recognition and awards. Only to mention some of them, in 1976 King Juan Carlos I of Spain awarded him a gold medal for his contributions to the development of tourism, while the German journalists association assigned him the World Prize for Ecology and Tourism in Berlin in 1978. In the same year the King of Spain awarded him another prize, the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Mérito Civil, for his engagement to ecological issues.157

3.1.3 1980s: “Momento de parar”. Sustainability and activism.

In the 80s, with most of his architectural works in Lanzarote having been completed or soon to be inaugurated, Manrique turned to ecological activism, criticizing the current status of landscape deterioration and uncontrolled tourist development on the Island through public speeches and the publication of pamphlets, like the famous Momento de parar in 1985 and Lanzarote se está muriendo in 1986158. In 1987 he was named Honorary President of the Asociación Cultural y Ecologista El Guincho159, which still operates today,160 and which played a very important role in the protests against soil exploitation that arose in Lanzarote in following years. In 1989 he was the first artist to receive the Fritz Schumacher Prize for Architecture161 from Hannover University for his artwork on the Island. That same year he started working as a member of the committee for the UNESCO MaB programme

157 http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/menu/cronologiamanrique.pdf, accessed 08.05.2012, p. 18. 158 “Time to stop” and “Lanzarote is dying”. (Translation: MGP) 159 http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/menu/cronologiamanrique.pdf, p. 20, accessed 08.05.2012 160 http://www.benmagec.org/elguincho/, accessed 09.05.2012 161 “Premio Fritz Schumacher de Arquitectura” (Translation: MGP) 75

(Man and Biosphere), which later led, among other things, to the declaration of Lanzarote as Biosphere Reserve in 1993.162 In 1990 Manrique’s house in Tahíche started being renovated to be able to host the Fundation named after him (Fundación César Manrique), which opened to the public in March 1992, just few months before Manrique’s death in a car accident which occurred at the roundabout that leads to the entrance of the Fundation, on September 25th.

3.2 Works

3.2.1 The Centres for Art, Culture and Tourism

The Centres for Art, Culture and Tourism were created by the Insular Government in order to manage the artwork of Manrique effectively and to use those locations as tools for the sustainable development of tourism on the Island. As noted in the official website

the seven Centres represent a synthesis of the Island's natural and cultural values - thus making a visit necessary to learn about the true essence of Lanzarote. The Lanzaroteño artist, César Manrique, was its principal creator who knew how to combine art with the Island's nature, and do so wisely. In that way, the Centres have been transformed into a modern version of the traditional interactions of the Lanzaroteños with their surroundings, responding to the population's deep-rooted practices. The Centres currently offer a tourist product that responds with great agility to market demands, without letting go of the spirit and philosophy with which they were first conceived by Manrique.163

162 http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/menu/cronologiamanrique.pdf, p. 20, accessed 08.05.2012 76

There are seven locations administrated by the organization; Cueva de los Verdes, Jameos del Agua, Casa/Museo el Campesino, Restaurante el Diablo, Restaurante Mirador del Río, MIAC – Castillo de San José, Jardin de Cactus. As can be seen in the figure below, the Centres have had an average of a little over two million visitors in the last two years, with a growth of +9.3% from year 2010 to 2011.

MONTH TOTAL Jameos del Mirador Cueva de Montañas del Jardín de Castillo de Agua del Río Los Verdes Fuego Cactus San José

January 168.307 41.787 26.660 22.519 53.269 19.973 4.099

February 194.709 48.139 30.588 24.068 65.819 22.521 3.574

March 227.001 58.889 34.268 27.193 78.079 25.392 3.180

April 221.334 56.044 30.618 30.157 77.544 23.729 3.242

May 162.061 42.747 20.616 22.907 54.049 18.486 3.256

June 186.728 50.753 20.508 28.427 63.447 19.903 3.690

July 288.855 77.095 31.077 48.590 93.273 31.239 7.581

August 357.938 94.334 38.150 61.664 118.571 36.317 8.902

September 240.120 66.511 28.480 37.027 76.749 25.709 5.644

October 213.856 54.583 29.943 28.027 73.714 23.093 4.496

November 197.061 48.934 31.644 25.514 65.038 22.235 3.696

December 177.942 44.083 28.240 23.134 58.707 19.682 4.096

TOTAL 2011 2.635.912 683.899 350.792 379.227 878.259 288.279 55.456

TOTAL 2010 2.410.644 615.839 340.795 349.300 802.534 263.971 38.205

% VAR 2010-11 9,3 11,1 2,9 8,6 9,4 9,2 45,2

Table 7 Tourists visiting the Tourist Centers of Lanzarote in 2011, compared to 2010164

163 http://www.centrosturisticos.com/centros/CENTROS/published_en/DEFAULT/information.html, 09.05.2012(1) 164 Afluencia a los Centros de Arte, Cultura y Turismo de Lanzarote según centro y mes (2011). Source: Centros de Arte, Cultura y Turismo. Cabildo de Lanzarote. http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=4968, accessed 15.09.2012 77

The major attractions are, as was to be expected, the Montañas del Fuego and Jameos del Agua, which are certainly the most peculiar ones. Third is Cueva de los Verdes, maybe less spectacular, but which probably enjoys the proximity to Jameos del Agua (the two tourist centers are within walking distance of each other). Fourth is Mirador del Rio, which is rather surprising because the restaurant offers one of the most amazing panorama views on the Island. This could be explained by two factors: first, being situated in the northernmost part of the Island it is relatively far from other tourist areas and it is normally left out of bus tour routes. Second, Manrique’s attempt to camouflage the building with the surroundings was so successful that from the outside it doesn’t look very tempting, since it seems like “just another pile of rocks”165 that can be seen in the cactus fields around. Indeed, during my last visit to the centre in May 2012, I noticed small groups of tourists of various nationalities standing in front of the entrance and asking the people coming out if it was really worth paying the fee to go inside. Jardin de Cactus and Castillo de San José are also normally left out of bus tours and therefore can benefit from receiving fewer visitors than the other centres. There are no data concerning the Monumento al Campesino, which is probably due to the fact that entrance is free and so the visitors are not counted. In the following pages I provide a description of the the above mentioned artworks by Manrique.

1964 Cueva de los Verdes

Located in the north of the Island and a part of the area called “Malpaís de la Corona”, these caves are only a small part of a volcanic tunnel which originated from the eruption of the volcano La Corona. The one kilometer stretch, layered on more levels – normally two, but in parts even three – allows the visitor to enjoy the different lava

165 As it was defined by a German tourist I interviewed. 78

colours and types which formed during the solidification of the lava flows. The Cueva also hosts an auditorium where concerts are held.

Figure 3 Cueva de los Verdes. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi Picture 7 Cueva de los Verdes. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

1966 Jameos del Agua

Located just meters away from Cueva de los Verdes, and occupying a part of the same tunnel, Jameos del Agua is surely one of Manrique’s most popular artworks, together with the Restaurant El Diablo. “Jameos” in the local dialect are typically holes created by the collapsing of portions of the tunnel’s roof. Filtrating sea water, due to the tides, created an internal lake where an autochthonous specie of albino crabs lives. The Jameos were already popular among the Lanzarote inhabitants long before Manrique’s decision to turn them into a tourist attraction and had been visited by adventurers, scientists and local tourists already for decades, leaving remains of their excursions, waste and other materials, turning the place into a sort of rubbish dump. Manrique’s intervention turned the Jameos into a recreational place, offering the visitors a bar, a dance floor, an auditorium, a pool and a volcanology museum. This was 79

added later and is situated at the topmost part of the architectural complex, which was originally intended to be an hotel. In the furnishing and decoration of Jameos del Agua nothing was left to chance: Manrique created a total artwork designing each piece of furniture and choosing the colour palette used in the whole structure, a combination of black, orange and white. The artist’s aim was to create a place where the visitor could enjoy the volcanic phenomena in a recreational place.

Picture 8 Entrance to Jameos del Agua. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

1968 Casa/Museo el Campesino

Located in the centre of the Island, this old farmers’ house was restored by Manrique as a tribute to the hard work of farmers to survive in the Island’s hard conditions. It features some of the most typical architectural elements to be found in

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Lanzarote, i.e. white façades with green elements, wells, patios and balconies. The entrance to this monument is free. Inside the house tourist can find a restaurant which offers typical local food, a reception hall and a museum of arts and crafts, such as Canarian rowing and clay pot making, and a souvenir shop. The Monument to Fecundity is to be found in the roundabout facing the farmhouse, a monument about 15 m high made out of old water tanks which resemble a farmer sitting on his camel.

Picture 9 Casa/Museo El Campesino. Entrance to the Restaurant. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

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1970 Restaurant El Diablo (Parque de Timanfaya)

The Restaurant El Diablo (The Devil) is the core point of a wider structure designed and built by César Manrique in the Parque National de Timanfaya, an area of Lanzarote which was hit by volcanic eruptions in the 18th and 19th century. The area includes a small parking place for both cars and coaches, whose access is strictly regulated by guards, a souvenir shop, restrooms, the restaurant itself which also includes a cafè, a grill used to cook the food served in the restaurant and an area used to show visitors the effects of the volcanic activities.

Picture 10 Restaurante El Diablo and detail of the "Islote de Hilario". Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

The Restaurant was built on a hill called “Islote de Hilario” after a legend recounting that a hermit called Hilario lived in that place over 50 years with the sole company of a camel. The man planted a fig tree which never bore fruits due to the high temperatures of the soil. To “honour” this legend Manrique dedicated the central area of the restaurant to an installation featuring the suggestive reproduction of a camel skeleton and the remains of a fig tree.

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The restaurant itself was decorated by Manrique recycling kitchen tools in an unusual way, for example he turned pans and bottles into lamps and light bulbs. The circular dining room offers a wonderful view of the National Park and its lunar landscape. Coaches drive from the restaurant’s parking place to the national park approximately every 30 minutes and the visit is included in the entrance fee (8€). Only drivers with a special permit and a special driving license are allowed to drive tourists along the route, which is otherwise closed to normal traffic. The route itself was designed by Manrique to offer a view of the most special areas of the park and at the same time minimize its visual impact on the area.

Picture 11 The "volcanic grill". Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

The grill was built over a hole in the ground fed by heat coming directly from the volcano underneath. This is possible because the “Islote” is an area of the Park where the surface temperatures are still relatively high. For the same reason, to demonstrate the strength of the volcanic phenomenon more than a hundred years after the last eruptions, workers of the centre pour water into holes in the ground which turn into steam geysers

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or busput bushes of a local plant called barrilla into a hole just a couple of meter deep, where they catch light and burn..

1973 Restaurant Mirador del Rio

Situated at the extreme North of the Island on top of the Famara cliff, at an altitude of approximately 450 meters above the sea, this restaurant offers the visitors a breathtaking panoramic view over the Island of La Graciosa. The tract of sea between the two Islands seem to create a river, and from this the restaurant took its name. The construction is hardly noticeable from the outside, the front being covered with volcanic rocks which camouflage the building in the surroundings. After paying an entrance fee of 8€, the visitor finds himself in an S-shaped corridor covered in white lime, featuring niches where clay pots are displayed. At the end of the corridor one is surprised by a large room, where the facing wall is nothing else than a huge window covering its whole length and offering an astonishing view of the panorama. This room is actually a cafeteria; tourists can enjoy a drink while sitting at the tables looking out of the window. A side door leads to the terrace below, where some binoculars are placed to be able to see the Island of La Graciosa. From the cafeteria it is possible to reach the upper level by a staircase. Here we find a small souvenir shop and a resting area. Another staircase takes visitors to a terrace, where some benches offer the enjoyment of a barrier-free view. The whole construction looks quite futuristic thanks to the particular shape of the glass windows, and yet traditional due to use of “poor” materials, like lime and wood. I have heard enthusiastic tourists mentioning that it could have been the perfect set for an old James Bond movie. According to Jiménez Martinez the Mirador del Rio is “one of the best examples to appreciate the artist’s ability to integrate innovative and complex interventions into the landscape, showing the feasibility to establish a new

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communicative link between human being and natural environment through ‘Art- Nature’”.166 Other visitors, for example, often stand reluctantly outside the building asking the people who come out if it’s really worth paying the 8€ to enter, seeing that the façade is quite anonymous and unappealing. Manrique’s camouflage attempt seems to have succeeded, and the contrast between the anonymity of the outside and the amazing view offered from the inside makes Mirador del Rio one of the most beloved attractions in Lanzarote.

Picture 12 Entrance to the "camouflaged" Mirador del Rio (left) and view from inside the restaurant (right). Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

166 Jiménez Martinez C., 2007, p. 5. 85

1976 MIAC – “Museo internacional de Arte Contemporaneo“, Castillo de San José, Arrecife

The museum is situated in the San José Fortress in the northern part of capital Arrecife. The Fortress was restored according to a project by Manrique to host a permanent exhibition of Modern Art, currently the most important of the Canary Islands. The Fortress, originally built in the 18th century to sight the arrival of pirates and then abandoned for over a century, maintained its original structure during renovations, though an annex part was added to contain a small restaurant with sea view. The museum displays works by many artists, both from the Canaries and not, whose works falls into the “abstract” artistic stream. Visitors need to pay a 2,50€ entrance fee.

Picture 13 Castillo de San José. Source: Internet.

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1990 Jardin de Cactus“ (1966)

Situated in the municipality of Guatiza, the Catus Garden was built into what originally was a gravel cave where a quarry had been later transformed into a dump. Manrique had convinced the Cabildo to buy the property, have it fenced and start restoration works already in the 1960s, though renovations continued up till 1990. The Garden offers a botanical selection of over 7000 cactuses of over one thousand species, coming from all over the world. The centre consists of a multi-level garden situated in the quarry where the cactuses are to be seen, and two constructions, one being a small souvenir shop and the other being a cafè with a terrace facing the garden.

Picture 14 View of Jardin de Cactus. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

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3.3 Fundación César Manrique

The Fundación César Manrique was inaugurated on 27th March 1992 and opened to the public three days later, on 1st April. It is located in the artist’s house in Taro de Tahiche, which has been slightly modified to host the Fundation’s activities. The whole complex had been built by the artist on a lava field where the volcanic eruptions had created five burbujas, or “bubbles” – round cavities in the ground with a more or less large opening at the top – and it is built over two levels. Aside from functional areas, such as offices and meeting rooms, the building also features a museum where the artist’s private art collection is displayed, as well as samples of preparatory sketches for his plastic artworks and some pottery created by Manrique himself. To create these exhibition areas, some of the rooms – especially on the top floor – have lost their habitable connotation, which has remained intact, though, on the lower level, where the burbujas maintained their original furniture and unique look:

the upper floor is modeled after traditional Lanzarote architecture but manages to incorporate modern and practical elements […] without compromising the harmony of the structure. On this floor we find the main parlour, the kitchen (where graphic works are now displayed), a sitting room (“Espacios” [spaces] hall), a guest room, the artist’s bedroom (currently called the “Bocetos” [sketches] hall) and a spacious bathroom which is now filled with abundant plant life.167

The complex also hosts a corner with vending machines (which replaced a small Cafè in 2012) and a shop ˗ located in the former garage ˗ where it is possible to buy most of the publications of the Fundation, as well as souvenirs and prints of Manrique’s artwork. The museum was declared by the British newspaper The Telegraph one of Spain’s best “lower profile” museums. The author of the article warns: “It’s a good idea

167 Leaflet given to visitors at the entrance of the Fundation. 88

to come here at the beginning of your holiday to get an idea of what Manrique is all about, as you’ll see his work everywhere as you explore the Island”.168 To visit the Fundation, the entrance fee is 8€ per person, which is slightly higher than the fees paid to visit most of Manrique’s other artworks (normally around 5€). A series of boards installed in multiple languages in front of the entrance, however, informs us that “the proceeds from the sale of museum tickets and bookstore-souvenir shop sales are used to fund its artistic, cultural and conservation activities. You are cooperating with a self-supporting, private cultural institution”.

Picture 16 Multilingual boards at the entrance of the Fundation. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Being a “self supporting institution” seems to be a major topic for this Fundation, as its statute states

168http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/spain/8715329/Spains-best-small- museums.html#, accessed 03.07.2012 89

[…] the FCM [Fundación César Manrique] is a private cultural institution, non-profit, of an indefinite duration and of Spanish nationality, which has as object of its intervention the conservation, study and diffusion of the work and artistic heritage, the figure and teachings of its creator César Manrique; and, at the same time, the promotion, encouragement and support of artistic and cultural activity in its widest terms, with special attention to plastic art and its connections to nature and public areas, […] and to territorial equilibrium and respect for the environment. Therefore it looks for and manages the means, relations and appropriate initiatives, with the collaboration of those public and private entities which are active in these fields.169

Picture 15 Entrance to the main building of the Fundación Cesar Manrique. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

169 “[…] la FCM es una institución cultural privada, sin fin lucrativo, de duración indefinida y de nacionalidad española, que tiene por objeto la conservación, estudio y difusión de la obra, el patrimonio artístico, la figura y el magisterio creador de César Manrique; y, paralelamente, la promoción, estímulo y apoyo de la actividad artística y cultural en sus más amplios términos, con especial atención a las artes plásticas y su vinculación a la naturaleza y a el espacio público, […] a los equilibrios territoriales y al respecto del medio ambiente. Para ello, busca y gestiona los instrumentos, relaciones e iniciativas oportunas, con la colaboración de cuantas entidades públicas y privadas desarrollan su actividad en estos campos.” (Translation: MGP) Memoria 2006, Fundación César Manrique, Taro de Tahíche, Lanzarote 2006, p. 21. 90

The Fundation is organized as follows: Patronage of Honour (whose president is Queen Sofía of Spain), Patronage, Executive Team, Advisory Council plus various employees working for different departments: “we are about 40 employees here and over 15 are here in the office dealing with administrative work and cultural program. Other 10 or 12 are in the museum like guides, because we are open every day except the 1st January, and for this reason we are lots of employees because of change. And 15 are to clean and maintain.”170 A crucial point is that both the President and Vice-president had personally known Manrique and had collaborated with him on many occasions: “César Manrique died in Sept. 1992 but Fundación César Manrique was inaugurated in April that year. It was inaugurated with the president that we have now, with the director we have now and the patronage we have now. That is really good because César Manrique wanted these people to direct his Fundation”.171 Each year the Fundation publishes a “Memoria”, or Memorial, which sums up the activities organized during the previous year, the publications and also detailed information about the number of visitors and consequent monetary income. These publications are available for everyone to download from their official website and are very detailed. At the time of writing, the “Memoria 2011” has not been published yet, so most of the data refersto the period up to the end of 2010. The activities are divided into three main areas (Plastic Art, Environment and Cultural Reflection) and their management is divided into three departments: Administration and Human Resources, Technical Services, Maintenance and Art and Culture and Environment. The latter is in turn divided into:

- Conservation and Plastic Art, in charge of organizing the museum’s activities and the temporary exhibitions - Cultural Programmess, organizes book presentations, conferences, round tables about themes which are relevant to the Fundation’s interests

170 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 171 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 91

- Education, whose main aim is to enable pupils attending school in Lanzarote and other Canary Islands to get familiar with the work and thought of César Manrique and the concept of sustainable tourism - Environment, promotes educational activities on topics linked to the conservation of Lanzarote’s specific environment and suggests possible ways of future development according to the guidelines given by the PIOT. - Library and Archives, deals with the catalog and conservation of all the material produced through the meetings and other occasions, as well as ordering Manrique’s writings - Publications, manages the publication of essays, books and other texts written for or by the Fundation172

Apart from these institutionary tasks, the FCM also actively supports the Lanzarote population when it comes to disputes with the local government or third parties, as Idoya Cabrera stressed

people from Lanzarote like FCM and I think […] people know FCM is established here and defends the territory. Sometimes we have to attend neighbor from different villages because in these villages they want to build something there and there is a protected flora or fauna in this area and we write some informs and we present it to the local government and they take it into account and maybe the plans of this little area is changed. Also people who have different environmental problems in one area come here and express them. i.e. there is an antenna for mobile phone or a special radar for the airport, things like these… they come here and we listen to them and sometimes we emit some informs, not only informs produced by FCM, sometimes we ask people from another university or people from an alternative group of advisers and they redact what is they doing in this special place and we can take this very brilliant idea for example.173

172 See Memoria 2010, 2010, p. 9-12 173 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 92

PART TWO: ANTHROPOLOGY OF TOURISM

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4. History of the discipline

4.1 Defining “tourism”

The study of tourism in anthropology has its origin in the anthropological interest for culture contact and cultural change, which has been particularly relevant in recent years. Tourism had emerged in Europe at the end of the 19th Century, when the Baptist Minister Thomas Cook had an intuition that later led to the establishment of large-scale tourism in the world: organizing private rail “excursions for pleasure, taking a percentage on railway tickets”.174 With the foundation of “Thomas Cook and Son” in 1841 the first travel agency was born.

Peter M. Burns175 attempted to give a summary of the most interesting definitions of tourism given by fellow researchers. He himself suggested that an effective way of seeing tourism is to consider it as a system or as a set of sub-systems, because “the advantage of a system approach is that tourism is not automatically seen in isolation from its political, natural, economic or social environment”.176 Therefore, it is reasonable to speak of tourism as a process that includes relationship between various systems.177 According to Jafar Jafari (1977) tourism is “a study of man away from his usual habitat, of the industry which responds to his needs, and the impact that both he and the industry have on the host […] environment”.178 Moreover Jafari in 1990, in a attempt to

174 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cook, accessed 12.11.2012 175 Burns Peter M., An introduction to tourism and anthropology, Routledge, London, 1999, pp. 30-31 176 Ibidem, p. 29. 177 Ibidem. 178 Ibidem, pp. 30-31. 94

answer the question whether tourism is good or bad for the actors involved, pointed out that two positions have been taken by experts so far involved in the matter: the advocacy platform, which considers tourism as beneficial for the hosts; and the cautionary platform, which “ranges from outright rejection to an abiding mistrust of advocates’ claims”.179 John Urry (1990), instead, focused more on the travel motivations of tourists and on the importance of consumption in the tourist phenomenon. According to him a study of tourism would deal with

how and why for short periods people leave their normal place of work and residence. It is about consuming goods and services which are in some sense unnecessary. They are consumed because they supposedly generate pleasurable experiences which are different from everyday life”.180

Another interesting point of view is that of Bryan Turner (1994), who stressed the indissoluble relationship between tourism and culture:

tourist fantasy permits the self to assume diverse social roles in exotic settings; tourism invents and demands empathy to play out short-term fantasy roles. Tourism tends to make cultures into museums, as cultural phenomena which can be viewed as quaint, peculiar and local. Tourism paradoxically is a quest for authentic local cultures, but tourist industry, by creating the illusion of authenticity, in fact reinforces the experience of social and cultural simulation. The very existence of tourism rules out the possibility of authentic cultural experience.181

Tourism is definitely a complex phenomenon that incorporates social, cultural and economic elements at the same time. This means that to have an understanding of it, it is necessary to consider tourism as a system that has potential impact on all aspects of the society at a particular location.

179 Nash. D., 1996, p. 21. 180 Burns Peter M., 1999, p. 31. 181 Ibidem, p. 33. 95

Moreover, in all the definitions listed above, it is clear how tourism seems to include a leisure element, as opposed to other more structured periods, where work or other social obligations are the core activities. Finally, Burns summarizes four key elements that are necessary to have a better understanding of tourism as a whole:

- while tourism can be seen as an industry it is also a complex set of social phenomena; - tourism must be approached as a system or a set of sub-systems; - using the systems approach means thinking of tourism as being connected with society and cultural processes, and not merely as an economic process; - if tourism is the “conversion of dreams”, then it is important to take into account what cultural influences these dreams might have. 182

4.2 An Anthropological view on “tourism”

There has been speculation on the relative late interest of anthropology in tourism, compared to other social sciences, and many authors have suggested that it could have been due to the fact that tourism has been considered a frivolous activity not worth being analyzed.183 The “birth” of Anthropology of Tourism as a discipline can be dated back to 1963, when T. Nuñez published the article “Tourism, Tradition and Acculturation. Weekendismo in a Mexican Village”184. In the 1960s tourism had just started playing an important role both in economic and cultural terms, in the sense that it was about to

182 Burns Peter M., 1999, p. 35-36. 183 i.e. see Nash Dennison, Smith Valene, Anthropology and tourism, Annals of tourism research, Vol. 18, 1991, pp. 12-25. 184 Nuñez T., Tourism, Tradition and Acculturation. Weekendismo in a Mexican Village, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 1963, 34, p. 328-336. 96

become one of the biggest industries in the world and was due to be one of the main factors of social and cultural change in the less developed countries. The recognition of the importance of the discipline in the academic world, however, was finalized thanks to the publication of a pioneer work edited by Valene Smith in 1978, and re-edited in 1989 ˗ “Hosts and Guests: the Anthropology of tourism” ˗ in which the authors proposed an analysis of tourisms centred on two main actors: the receiving community (hosts) and the travellers (guests).185 In 1981 Dannison Nash gave a first definition of tourists (a tourist is a leisured traveler) and of tourism (the consequence of a level of productivity sufficient to sustain leisure)186. This definition stresses two core elements of the tourist phenomenon, one being the concept of “leisure” as opposed to social obligations (ie: organized work) ˗ a concept taken from social studies ˗ and secondly the concept of tourism as a structured experience, which can be observed at all levels of social complexity187, qualifying it as a cultural universal.188 As for the factors that can be associated with the appearance and development of tourism, Nash indicates “an increased productivity that creates leisure, psychological mobility associated with broadened horizons, and improved transport and communication facilities”.189 In the early phases of the anthropological research focus was put on the investigation of economic consequences for host peoples in an attempt to judge whether tourism would be bad or good, as Jafari pointed out. Contemporary studies on tourism, instead, tend to make less severe distinctions and value judgments, granted that there are many forms of tourism, which can have different impacts on host communities.190 According to Nash, three forces can be identified when looking at changes in the hosts’ ways of life:

185 Smith V. (editor), Hosts and Guests: the Anthropology of Tourism, Blackwell, Oxford. 1978 186 Smith V. (editor), 1989, p. 39 187 Barberani S., Antropologia e turismo, Edizioni Angelo Guerini e Associati SpA, Milano 2006, p. 41 188 Nash D, 1996, p.11. 189 Smith V. (editor), 1989, p. 41 190 Nash D., 1996, p. 23 97

- the multiplier effect: activities in the tourism sector generate other activities addressed to the local workers; - the demonstration effect: a process by which tourists, and the things associated with them, become a model for the hosts; - commoditization: when social relationships are shaped by the dictates of market exchange.191

According to these premises, we can say that the aims of an anthropological study of tourism should be the consideration of the impact of tourism on host communities, to be understood as active actors, taking into account the influence of the interaction with travellers (guests). This interaction, which takes place in what is called intermediate space, should leave room for both actors to reciprocally redefine and re- present their identities. This theory, also known as host-guest theory, was first introduced by Valene Smith in her already cited work, which first proposed an analytical tool that allowed researchers to understand tourism as a negotiating process.

4.3 Hosts & Guests theory

Hosts and Guests: the anthropology of tourism was first published in 1978, receiving good critics and being widely cited in the following years, though the contributions portrayed a common and major problem: “the difficulty of differentiating between the roles of modernization and tourism in the process of culture change”.192 Therefore a second edition was published in 1989, where the authors documented the current status quo for each case study and, despite minor differences, it has been possible to come to the overall conclusion that “tourism is not the major element of culture change in most societies” and that

191 Nash D., 1996, p. 24 192 Smith Valene, Preface, in Smith V. (editor), 1989, p. X 98

given the pervasive indigenous demands for modernization, for the materialism and gadgetry that make human lives physically more comfortable and easier, the labor-intensive tourist industry has progressively served as an economically viable and socially permissible vehicle to provide wage employment.193

The main force that leads to a development of tourism in a certain area is then the quest for economic benefits, that usually ends up fostering culture changes, especially where wide economic disparities exist between hosts and guests. This anthropological approach studies tourism in terms of:

- Analysis of the transformations consequent to the tourist activity on the receiving communities (HOST POLE, or “analysis of the tourist impact”)

- In the space of their interaction (INTERMEDIATE SPACE, or “host-guest relationship”)

- And on the cognitive structures of the visitors (GUEST POLE, or “analysis of tourists’ motivations”)194

Considering tourism as the result of an interaction between two actors, instead of a mere economic transaction, allows us to use a paradigm that is founded on two dynamic identities that (re)define themselves through, and as a consequence of, the interaction itself. The pioneer studies have mostly focused on the host pole and consequently the impact of tourism on local communities. This approach led to a critical vision of the tourist phenomenon ˗ that is, of tourism as another form of imperialism ˗ which was leaving little to no benefit to the locals, due to the interference of tour operators and

193 Smith Valene, Preface, in Smith V. (editor), 1989, p. X 194 Barberani S., 2006, p. 42. 99

investors normally based in the tourists’ originating countries. This was particularly true when dealing with tourism developing in third world countries, although considering the hosts as totally powerless and unable to deal with the (forced) changes is a simplification that reduces the whole interaction to a one-way process. Indeed, as Nash noted, local cooperation is to some extent necessary in order to achieve the development of a tourist area and a society may use its powers to select the most advantageous forms of tourism.195

195 Nash D., Tourism as a form of Imperialism, in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, pp. 43-44. 100

5. Host pole: Anthropology of tourism

5.1 Analysis of the tourist impact

5.1.1 Tourism as a “total social fact”

The anthropological category of “total social fact” was elaborated by Marcel Mauss starting from the definition of “social fact” given by the sociologist E. Durkheim: a whole of actions, beliefs, social obligations and cultural norms that are capable of exercising a constraint on the individual and therefore determine a certain series of behaviours in a society.196 Total social facts, therefore, are social phenomena where “all kinds of institutions find simultaneous expression: religious, legal, moral, and economic.”197 S. Barberani stresses that, according to this definition, tourism can be considered as a total social fact in the sense that it existed before the individual and it is somehow imposed. Furthermore it requires the participation in a collective ritual which demands behaviours that to some extent are uniformed and stereotyped by the tourist transaction itself.198 Therefore, we can talk about “a tourist culture, with its own rituals, standardized behaviours, myths, places of worship to pay homage to, and universal symbols”.199

196 See Barberani S., 2006, p. 55. 197 See Mauss Marcel, The Gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies, Cohen &West Ldt, London, 1970, p. 1 198 Barberani S., 2006, p. 57 199 “una […] “cultura turistica” con I propri ritualy, comportamenti standardizzati, miti, luoghi di culto a cui rendere tributo, e simbologie universali”. (Translation: MGP) Barberani S., 2006, p. 57. 101

A total social fact like tourism has a series of consequences depending on the culture it affects, which means that the contact between two different cultural groups, in our case between the hosts and the guests, is influenced by the relationship that these cultures respectively have with the tourist phenomenon, with themselves and with other cultures. It is not unusual that the reiterated contact between an autochthonous group with others (often coming from afar), and the consequent comparison between “us” and “them” should lead to an increased amount of self acknowledgement in both cultures and in some cases to the acquisition of cultural identity, as in the popular case of Dogon in Mali studied by the French ethnologist M. Griaule in the first half of the 20th century.200

5.1.2 Modernization vs Tradition

New problems arose with the expansion of mass tourism from the 1950s and the consequent development of a new kind of tourism based on leisure and the contact with other cultures and realities. As already mentioned by B. Turner “tourism paradoxically is a quest for authentic local cultures, but the tourist industry, by creating the illusion of authenticity, in fact reinforces the experience of social and cultural simulation.”201 But how does this happen? The main cause for this modernization vs tradition dilemma is the fact that the contact with tourists poses the inhabitants of tourist destination before a necessary choice: whether to remain authentic (and therefore somewhat marginal), or to embrace a modernization that is finally within reach thanks to the income coming from tourism itself, with the risk of losing their identity. This dilemma is often inevitable and the repercussions can be destructive for the host culture, which needs to find a sustainable way to engage in modernization without

200 See Barberani S., 2006, pp. 219-255. 201 Burns P., 1999, p. 31 102

endangering or deleting those chief peculiarities that made it a tourist destination in the first place. According to Nash, changes in host societies are anyway inevitable: “with the introduction of tourism or any other new cultural element into a host society, certain forces are set in motion which lead to changes in the host people’s way of life”.202 The most common effects on host people are those of acculturation and development.203 The concept of development is to be understood in economic terms, as “narrowing of the income gap between the rich and the poor”204 through increased productivity: “one way […] is to obtain capital from the outside. […] One problem has been the disturbing tendency for the inputting agencies, which usually act through local elite, to control the developmental process in their favor”.205 The danger is that development, instead of granting a better life quality level to the local inhabitants, actually ends up fostering social inequality and economic dependence. The concept of acculturation, instead “refers to a sociocultural change, desirable or not, that results from culture contacts”.206 According to Nuñez, these contacts are most likely to be asymmetrical due to many factors, such as numerical differences in the population and different levels of integration in the originating culture, and therefore the typical result is usually asymmetrical borrowing.207 This definition takes for granted the fact that it is usually the host culture that “borrows” from the guest’s, based on a supposed “cultural superiority”, and Nuñez himself stresses how a similar point of view, that does not consider the interaction between hosts and guests as a two-way process, can lead once more to the idea of tourism as another form of imperialism.208

202 Nash D., 1996, p. 24 203 Ibidem, p. 26 204 Ibidem 205 Ibidem 206 Ibidem. 207 Nuñez Theron, Tourist Studies in Anthropological Perspective, in Smith V. (editor), 1989, p. 266. 208 Ibidem, p. 266-267 103

5.1.3 Changes in aesthetic criteria

In her book, the anthropologist Silvia Barberani pointed out that an outcome of the process of acculturation and, consequently of urbanization, is the change in aesthetic criteria, especially concerning architecture and housing. In her case study, about the Greek Island of Kastellorizo, it is evident how two different forces are involved in these changes, namely the inhabitants’ desire for modernity and the tourists’ quest for a traditional way of life. As an example, the locals have been getting rid of much of the traditional furniture, which was considered old fashioned and not comfortable enough. These pieces of furniture have been literally picked up from rubbish dumps by new foreign residents and tourists, to furnish the traditional houses – or laikà – they had bought on the Island. A similar fate fell to some architectural elements, such as chimneys and byzantine-style balconies, which the locals had been renovating to make them look modern or more functional, and which have been restored to their original shapes by tourists.209 Consequently

the fact that the majority of the inhabitants of Kastellorizo appreciates the aesthetics of the houses that have maintained their traditional appearance, but at the same time continue to desire to live in “modern”, more comfortable houses, […] seems to suggest that there is a mediation operated by the tourist factor on the aesthetic categories of local inhabitants, or at least on the process of authenticity representation. […] The attentions paid by the tourists has, in the eyes of the locals, transformed the simple and not very comfortable houses, symbols for backwardness and peasantry, into valuable objects, thanks to the fact that they now represent a synonym for tradition and authenticity.210

209 Barberani S., 2006, p. 65-67 210 “Il fatto che la maggior parte dei kastelloriziani apprezzi esteticamente le case che hanno mantenuto l’aspetto tradizionale, ma che al tempo stesso continui a desiderare di vivere in case “moderne” e confortevoli, […] sembra suggerire la mediazione operata dal fattore turistico sulle categorie estetiche dei locali o almeno sul processo di rappresentazione dell’autenticità. […] L’attenzione dei turisti ha 104

As we will see in the third part of this work, how this aspect of the tourist process had a great influence on the development of tourism on the Island of Lanzarote.

5.1.4 Changes in gender, status, age relationships

If we accept the definition of tourism as a “total social fact”, it is easy to realize how this phenomenon influences every aspect of the social structure of the host community. According to the already cited Nuñez211, there are two classes of individuals who are more likely to play an important role in the acceptance or re-elaboration of the changes brought by tourism: the elite, or the class that traditionally holds prestige, and the so called “marginal men”. Although somehow the importance of the elite can be taken for granted, since “traditional leadership at the community level is usually conservative and respected” and “an innovation advocated by a prestigious traditionalist may be emulated with little risk”212, the role of marginal individuals is much less fixed and intuitive. These people, also known as “culture brokers”, being less conservative or linked to an establishment, but perhaps also being more imaginative, are not bound to maintain their status during periods of quick culture change. They might therefore be able to take decisions more rapidly than the elite would, and engage in activities that represent a faster and more viable answer to the problems caused by the development of tourism.213

trasformato le semplici abitazioni, poco confortevoli agli occhi dei locali e simboli dell’arretratezza e della vita paesana, in oggetti dotati di valore, perché considerati sinonimi di tradizione ed autenticità.” (Translation: MGP) in Barberani S., 2006, p. 67. 211 Nuñez T., in Smith V. (editor), 1989, p. 268-270. 212 Both citation from Ibidem, p. 268 213 Ibidem. 105

A “culture broker” is able to “turn to advantage his or her marginality, demonstrating that entrepreneurship, for example, might be more adaptive than traditional economic subsistence pursuits”.214 To be recognized as a “culture broker” an individual needs to have certain features, for example “they learn the necessary second or third language; they change occupations from subsistence or salaried to entrepreneurial; they migrate to potential or developing resort areas”.215 A well known example of “culture brokers” is that of unlicensed guides, who offer to show tourists around for a fee. Marginal groups can differ, depending on the kind of society. There are many examples in the anthropological literature of changes in status, gender or age relationships, for example:

- In the case study presented by V. Smith216, younger Eskimos – who had better schooling and job skills – could serve as “culture brokers” by operating as guides and by dancing at traditional feasts, since they had understood that their culture could be a profitable asset to be sold to tourists. The older generation, on the other hand, despite working somehow indirectly in tourism by carving and hunting, didn’t have the means to emerge from an ancestral life-style which was the only one they knew. This led to changes in how age and status were perceived by the local inhabitants, since the younger Eskimos started having a monetary power the elderly could not reach. The latter’s status of having a predominant function in decision making was therefore ruled out by the economic power given by those who had found more profitable ways to exploit tourism development. - Important changes in gender roles have been studied by Margaret Byrne Swain217 in Kuna Yala (Panama) among the Kunas. Prior to tourism development, the men were responsible for providing the means of

214 Ibidem, p. 269. 215 Ibidem. 216 Smith V., Eskimo Tourism: Micro-Models and Marginal Men, in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, pp. 55-82. 217 Byrne Swain M., Gender Roles in Indigenous Tourism: Kuna Mola, Kuna Yala, and Cultural Survival, in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, pp. 83-104. 106

subsistence for the family group and were also the main actors in the public sphere. Women, instead, were supposed to take care of the households. When the trade of Molas (fabric panels sewed together representing sacred motifs, whose production was typically a women’s activity) became relevant as a consequence of tourism, Kuna women engaged in production and by doing so created a marketable image of ethnicity, while the men engaged in political actions to defend Kunas’ interests from the outside. The author concludes that there are good opportunities that “indigenous tourism development provides balanced opportunities for women and men”218.

5.1.5 Changes in ethical values

V. Smith defines a tourist as “a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change”.219 If we accept this definition it becomes clear how easily tourists could be prompted to abandon their usual customs and embrace a more free way of living, if not some sort of “new identity”. Sometimes it only involves adopting a less rigid dress code, but in some cases it might even lead to excessive behaviours which would be unacceptable at home.220 Referring to E. Goffmann, some authors speak of “inversion rites”, that is due to the ludic component of tourism, tourists might tend to play a role as if they were actually always like that in their daily life.221 Such behaviours eventually have an influence on host societies to the extent that the relationship with tourists can lead to contrasts on ethical values and consequent resistance strategies. Barberani reports the example of the Greek Island Skyros, where the initial shock over the presence of female tourists sunbathing in topless bikinis on the local beaches led the hosts to discouraging such practices by diverting tourists to isolated

218 Byrne Swain M., in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p. 84. 219 Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p. 1 220 Barberani S., 2006, pp. 74-75 221 Ibidem, p. 75. 107

beaches far away from populated places. The result, however, was that these beaches became famous as popular nudist retreats with a consequent expansion of the phenomenon, although in a “socially acceptable” place.222 Dress codes are one of the first aspects of everyday life that gets involved in the negotiation between hosts and guests concerning the respective identities. However, other examples can be named, i.e. the prejudice against single mothers in El Hierro – Canary Islands223, or the role of tourism in women’s emancipation on the Island of Kastellorizo – Greece.224

222 Barberani S., 2006, pp-75-76. 223 Macleod Donald V. L., 'Alternative' Tourists on a Canary Island, in Abram Simone, Waldren Jaqueline and Macleod Donald V. L. (editors), 1997, pp. 129-148. 224 Barberani S., 2006, p. 76-77 108

6. Guest pole: anthropology of tourists

6.1 Defining “tourists”

As already mentioned, it is possible to define a tourist as “a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change”.225 This definition underlines three core elements: the leisure element, as opposed to the working period; the temporarily limited element, since the tourist is always going to return home after a certain lenght of time; and the fact that the tourist travels to have the experience of something different. Other elements pointed out by Smith are the necessity for a discretionary income, that is money not necessary for sustenance, and positive sanctions for travel, which are linked to travel motivations.226 Starting with this definition in mind, Smith defined seven types of tourists and listed them in order of increasing numbers: explorer, elite, off-beat, unusual, incipient mass, mass, charter. The author also suggested that the numbers of a tourist type are proportional to the impact upon a culture, and inversely proportional to the positive consideration perceived by the local inhabitants.227 A different point of view is given by Erik Cohen228, according to whom a tourist can be defined through the understanding of his travel behaviour and motivations and how these are institutionalized, that is which characteristics they have and how they are

225 Smith V., Introduction, in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p. 1. 226 Ibidem, p. 2. 227 For a more detailed description of tourists types please see Smith V. (editor), 1989, pp 12-15. 228 Cited in Burns P., 1999, p. 42-44. 109

structured.229 As a consequence of these premises, he individuated four tourist types: organized mass tourist, individual mass tourist, explorer who travels “off the beaten track”, and drifter, who seeks novelty at all costs.230 This distinction, as opposed to that of Smith which investigates the tourism impact, focuses on the travel motivations and its modes. Other authors, such as Selwyn, understand tourism as a consequence of consumption, and therefore see tourists as looking for commodities and cultures as if they were goods.231 For the same reason MacCannell, considers tourists to be some kind of “symbolic cannibals”, since “they consume not only resources and material goods but the very cultures in which they are located” and thus as cannibals do they “subsume or incorporate certain characteristics of the victim such as strength or endurance”.232 The relations between tourists and their hosts is therefore a “missed chance for encounter”, as the Italian anthropologist Marco Aime233 would say, that is the tourists are supposedly unable to properly relate to their opponents – the local inhabitants – due to the nature itself of the tourist transaction, which only leaves space for ethnocentric prejudices.

6.2 The tourist and the traveller

The distinction between “tourists” and “travellers” originated from a kind of misunderstanding: as “tourists” we are used to define those mass tourists who rely on travel agencies, fly by charter flights and mostly spend their holidays in relatively closed resorts, which minimize the possibilities of having contacts with the local populations. As we have seen in earlier chapters, this kind of tourism (and tourists) appeared in the 1950s and since then has undergone a constant and rapid expansion. It was then, that the

229 Burns P., 1999, p. 43. 230 See table 3.1 in Ibidem, p. 44 231 Ibidem, p. 47. 232 Ibidem. 233 see Aime Marco, L’incontro mancato. Turisti, nativi, immagini. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2005. 110

word “tourist” started to have a negative connotation, partly due to the fact that the notion of tourist as a “leisured traveller” seems to imply a component of superficiality in the way the travelling itself is conceived. Travellers, on the other hand, are usually considered to be those members of the European upper classes, typically from the United Kingdom and Northern Europe, who in the 17th and 18th centuries engaged in the Grand Tour, a journey generally to Italy or Greece, which could last several months or years. Although the Grand Tour was supposed to have educational purposes and was similar to a rite of passage, it is well known that it actually followed institutionalized paths and contacts with the local people were sporadic, making it closer to mass tourism than noticeable at first sight.234 The difference between the two travel modes is probably to be found in the relatively smaller numbers of people undertaking the Grand Tour and the consequent impact on local communities. Barberani pointed out the elements which led to this contraposition:235

- The travel literature, which contributed to create the “myth” of the traveler and his adventures, considered to be more authentic than those of the tourists. In such literature, tourists are considered to be the people maily responsible for the trivialization of the travel experience, with their lack of attention for details and nuances in favour of a standardized experience. - The current strategies in tourism advertising, which are based on a paradox: the tourist is offered the chance to become a traveller through the tourist experience itself, to distinguish himself from the other mass tourists. Core concepts are those of “discovery”, “authenticity” and “adventure”, which would allow the tourist to acquire some sort of superiority over others based on the uniqueness of his experience.

234 Barberani S., 2006, pp 159-160. 235 Ibidem, pp.161-162 111

- Social studies have also contributed to the crystallization of this contraposition, considering the mass tourist as a fosterer of cultural change and negative impacts on local inhabitants. - Mass tourists have also been responsible for this distinction due to the fact that they tend to project the negative attributes of ignorance, superficiality, indifference and gregariousness onto other fellow-tourists in order to differentiate their own behaviour as much as possible. No one wants to be a tourist, though ironically the choice of alternative destinations or fruition of the tourist experience are mostly based on trends and advertising, so the possibility to leave the “beaten track” is nevertheless relatively small.

As a consequence of these points, the real anti-tourist cannot be considered a traveler, but a wanderer, a kind of emarginated and rebellious traveller who rejects the tourist experience as a whole.236

6.3 Bad tourists vs good tourists

According to J. D. Urbain237 tourists tend to try positioning themselves on a sort of continuum that goes from the good tourist to the bad tourist, that is from the tourist able to distinguish between reality and representation, and the tourist who is obedient to the market strategies and unable (or unwilling) to critically re-think the travel experience. Of course, between the two poles there are almost infinite combinations of “badness” or “goodness” which influence tourists’ behaviour once they have reached the travel destination.

236 Barberani S., 2006, p. 166 237 Cited in Barberani S., 2006, p. 163 112

These categories, though, are not only used by the tourists to describe themselves or their fellow travellers, but also by the host communities to indicate the nature of their interactions with the guests. In her study on the impact of tourism on the Greek Island of Kastellorizo, Barberani analyzed how these categories were used by the local inhabitants to describe tourists and she encountered unexpected results. First, the local inhabitants seemed to have an arbitrary method to decided whether a tourist was “good” or “bad” which was independent from the tourist’s nationality; second, good tourists weren’t necessarily perceived as those who spent the most money on the Island, who were actually considered to be parvenus and therefore much closer to the “bad tourists”; third, “good tourists” were considered those who were friendly with the local people, who showed interest in their traditions and culture, and more in general tourists who seemed to be cultivated and respectful; fourth, as a consequence of the previous point, “good tourists” were those who were able to speak at least a few words of Greek, thus having a more authentic interaction with the hosts, therefore domestic tourists were generally considered to be better than foreigners.238 The general preference for domestic tourists is probably due to the fact that cultural proximity makes it easier for the hosts to interact with the tourists and to understand their needs and their behaviors thanks to a supposedly shared culture. Foreign tourists, regardless of their origin, might instead be seen as an undifferentiated group of people with whom it is hard to relate because it is impossible to find a common cultural ground. As mentioned before, it is clear how the more variables are added to the figure of the tourist, the harder it is to actually find a univocal theoretical definition that would take all the peculiarities into account.

238 See Barberani S., 2006, pp. 184-185. 113

6.4 Host/non host – guest/non guest

Another distinction which is important in trying to define the tourists as opposed to the local inhabitants is the so-called relationship between “host/non host” and “guest/non guest”,239 which adds further variables to the already complex relationship between hosts and guests. This theoretical element is particularly useful when analyzing small realities, such as the Island of Lanzarote, because the interactions between local inhabitants and tourists are easier to identify despite their relatively big numbers. The first term – “host-non host” – refers to the mixed composition of the host community. Apart from those who were actually born in that particular area, the tourist phenomenon usually generates a migratory flux from neighbouring regions, which supposedly have cultural and, in many cases, language proximity with the main tourist pole of attraction. This composite group, which is a result of consequent migrations, both seasonal and definitive, is usually perceived to be homogeneous by the guests, who due to the limited contact occasions with the hosts and lack of confidence with the local culture, cannot really tell the difference between members of groups which are different, though at first sight similar. In Lanzarote, this is particularly obvious because the working force in the tourist sector is composed by local inhabitants, immigrants from other Canary Islands, immigrants from other mainland Spanish regions, immigrants from Morocco, Senegal and other African countries relatively close to the Island, immigrants from Europe, America and Asia. Alhough from the outside they might seem to be a relatively compact group due to the common occupation type, the respective internal differences cause major diversifications in the way they interact with each other and with the tourists themselves. In some extreme cases, immigrants might as well be perceived as “guests” by the local inhabitants, since they tend to live isolated from the Island’s natives. The second term – “guest/non guest” – is just as important. Next to the tourists, both foreigners and not, who visit a certain destination, there is also a component of

239 Barberani S., 2006, p. 175-180. 114

emigrants of various generations who return to the original home to spend their holidays. Besides these people it is also possible to observe the existence of a group of returning tourists, who for example have acquired real estates and spend various periods of the year in the same location, often for many years. A third group of “guests/non guests” is that of foreign senior citizens who decide to move to particular tourist places to spend their retirement, a phenomenon which is particularly important in the south of Spain, where some villages and minor cities have become over the years real enclaves of foreign residents coming from Northern Europe.240 These three kinds of tourists are particularly interesting because, though they fully pertain the guest category, they somehow share a liminal space with the host community, to the extent that in some cases it could be difficult to tell the members of one group from those of the other. Therefore, just as it has already been proven that the host category can be hard to define and categorize, we can also say the guest are an heterogeneous group whose borders can be hard to identify. These two groups end up overlapping each other through the tourist transaction, and trying to analyze them as separate entities could lead to the a priori exclusion of those identity processes which should actually be the main focus of an anthropological study of tourism.

240 The last case has been widely studied by Francisco Jurdao Arrones, among others. See the analysis of the phenomenon made by Nash D., 1996, p 28 and following. 115

7. Tourists’ travel motivations

As already mentioned in Par. 6.1, the definition of tourists cannot be disjointed from tourists’ motivations, that is the reasons why people decide to temporarily leave their homes to travel to some other location for leisure purposes. There have been many studies in different fields on the subject and also many anthropological theories, which had been elaborated for other purposes, proved to be effective in the understanding of this part of the tourist phenomenon. In the following paragraphs I intend to examine some of them, aware of the fact that it would be impossible and somewhat a sterile exercise to try to give an exhaustive description of all possible travel motivations.

7.1 Psychological Theory

The main difference between the anthropological and the psychological theory of tourism is that, while the first focuses on the study of travel motivations in the host-guest interaction and on the consequent tourist experience as a whole, the second focuses on the classification of tourists into types based on behaviour. Both Burns241 and Barberani242 take as an example a study by Stephen Plog, who was commissioned to carry out a research by 16 airlines to find out if a better understanding of travel motivations could somehow help them to improve their service and expand their business. Through interviews, Plog found that there seemed to be a

241 Burs P., 1996, pp 44-45 242 Barberani S., 2006, pp 187-189. 116

connection between life-style, attitude towards life, social institutions, choice of destinations and self-image. In order to describe travellers, Plog used the term allocentric to refer to those who seek for the “authentic” and less touristy places, and psychocentric to indicate those tourists who are not risk takers, prefer destinations close to home and are keen to purchase package holidays. These two figures would actually be the end points of a continuum and the majority of tourists would tend to position themselves somewhere in between these two situations. According to Barberani, though, this theory despite its popularity is liable to some criticism, since it takes for granted that it is the destination that in some way “defines” the type of tourist, reducing the tourist himself to a passive actor that has almost no role in the tourist transaction.243

7.2 Anthropological theories

Anthropological theories take into account two main elements of the tourist experience: the already mentioned host-guest interaction and a sociological perspective based on E. Durkheim244, who theorized the separation between a sacred and a profane time, and therefore a distinction between a locus where everyday life activities take place and an “elsewhere” where out of the ordinary activities are undertaken. From this last perspective, according to Barberani, two approaches have originated in an attempt to give an explanation of tourists’ travel motivations: the leisure theory and the experiential theory, which will be illustrated below, together with other relevant hypothesis on tourists’ behavior elaborated by other researchers.

243 Barberani S., 2006, p. 189. 244 See Ibidem. 117

7.2.1 Leisure theory

It has already been mentioned how the tourist can be defined as a leisured traveller. The definition of the term “leisure” though has created some problems in anthropological research, starting from the common prejudice that leisure is an ephemeral activity, and therefore trivial and not worth being considered, which by extension led to a relatively late development of studies of tourism, compared to other aspects of social life. In an attempt to give a definition of “leisure”, D. Nash maintains that

there is a considerable agreement that, at a minimum, [leisure] involves freedom from social obligations that are essential for the maintenance of a society and its reproduction. […] People who are not engaged in work or work-related activities […] may be thought to enter the sphere of leisure time and then to realize their leisure in various socially structured ways such as lazing in the sun. […] Leisure activities are those which are performed in the time available “beyond existence and subsistence time”.245

Leisure studies, and the leisure theory, deal mainly with the consideration of the psychological reasons for the travel experience itself, rather than with the fruition forms and the distinctions between sacred and profane time. As a consequence of such premises, it has been necessary to try to prove an effective coincidence between real travel motivations and the above mentioned psychological theory.246 Barberani makes a list of different approaches, in particular:

- that of MacCannell, who identified in the “search for authenticity” the main motivation which prompts potential tourists to classify their experiences in terms of leisure.247

245 Nash D., 1996, p. 61, original stress 246 Barberani S., 2006, pp. 189-190. 247 For a more extended description of MacCannell’s view on tourism and authenticity see the next chapter. 118

- the “post-hoc satisfaction” approach (elaborated by Ios-Ahola among others), which considers leisure as equal to the satisfaction derived by the recreational activities undertaken “somewhere else”, as the result of an escape from everyday life. According to this view, getaways and the search for inner realization represent the main travel motivations.248

Common points seem to be the escape from routine and the related search for something different from the ordinary, and these two elements are also at the base of the definition of leisure given by V. Smith and D. Nash (partly already seen) which stresses the difference between people’s behavior during working periods and leisure periods. Nash maintains that leisure and travel are the two main components of tourism and that they are socially generated, in other words “the people of a society make use of the leisure time available to them in socially structured ways”.249 Therefore travel motivations are not really bound to the ways and intensity in which a tourist wants to use his free time, but rather to the necessity felt to leave one’s place of residence temporarily, due to and thanks to, the existence of working time. Smith defined a tourist as a “temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change”,250 stressing the alternation of working and leisure periods, and therefore of profane and sacred times. A further definition, in accordance with the point of view of Smith, is given by N. Gradburn, who stated in his overview of the relationship between travel and leisure that:

Even if one regards tourism as voluntary, self-interest travel, the tourist journey must be morally justified by the home community. Because the tourist journey lies in the nonordinary sphere of existence, the goal is symbolically sacred and morally on a higher plane than the regards of the ordinary workaday world. Tourists spend substantial sums to achieve the

248 Barberani S., 2006, pp 190-191. 249 Nash D, 1996, p. 64 250 Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p.1 119

altered state – money that could be invested for material gain or alternately used to buy a new car or redecorate their homes”.251

The characteristics of leisure, then, seem to be those of being cathartic, hedonistic and “playful”, making travel motivations equivalent to the function of travelling itself: resting, having fun, getting to see things out of the ordinary, getting to know new people and providing an antidote to the de-personalization and de-socialization present in big cities.252

7.2.2 Experiential theory

The experiential theory assumes as a main travel motivation the search for a more authentic way of life and sets of experiences in a ritualized break with life’s routines, being also based on the contraposition of sacred-profane time theorized by Durkheim. Gradburn, for example, maintains that

fundamental is the contrast between the ordinary/compulsory work state spent “at home” and the nonordinary/voluntary “stay away from home” sacred state. The stream of alternating contrasts provides the meaningful events that measure the passage of time.253

Tourists would better recall time markers linked to tourist experiences, i.e. they’d rather say “That was the year we went to Rome!” rather than “that was 1957”, because the travelling experience is identified with a remarkable extra-ordinary event.254

251 Gradburn Nelson H. H., Tourism: The Sacred Journey, in Smith V. (ed.), p. 28. 252 Barberani S., 2006, p.193. 253 Gradburn Nelson H. H , in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p. 25 254 Ibidem, p. 26. 120

As a consequence of this approach, many authors – Nash, Gradburn and MacCannell among others – have been making comparisons between the tourist experience and the pilgrimage, due to the many similarities. The first element is the structure of the pilgrimage experience, composed of sacred-profane-sacred time, which is similar of that of many leisure activities that include travelling. Second, the sequence of events is also similar: the preliminary preparation; the travel time itself; spending some time in the travel destination; the return home; the re-acquaintance with the daily routine. Third, in the same way that pilgrims pay homage to their gods, travelers may consider some destinations or tourist attractions as bearing some kind of power in changing their status, whether spiritual, social or cultural, and therefore worth being “worshipped”.255 There is another approach that considers tourism as similar to pilgrimages and sacred experiences, which is that of “tourism as a rite of passage” and is discussed in the next paragraph.

7.2.3 Tourism as rite of passage

Arnold Van Gennep was the first to speak about rites of passage in transition rituals when dealing with ceremonies which would publicly state a status change from one social condition to another. His studies were later taken up by Turner, who extended the application of such an approach to the study of pilgrimage.256 In his view tourists/pilgrims go through three stages:

- social and spatial separation from ordinary routine or social obligation;

255 Barberani S., 2006, pp 195-196. 256 Ibidem, p. 196. 121

- liminality, “in which the structured necessities of ordinary life dissolve into a destructured, non-ordinary state, which has a sacred aura about it and involves a state of communitas with others”;257 - reintegration, in which the individual is reintegrated into the previous social group, usually at a higher status.

A core element of this theory is that usually pilgrimage, and by extension travel, is usually a voluntary social mechanism which marks the transition from one social state to another, therefore Turner prefers to use the term liminoid instead of liminality to refer to the “less obligatory, more voluntary social and psychological aspects of pilgrimage”.258 This approach has encountered the favour of anthropologists who have seen similarities between pilgrimage and the tourist experience. In both cases social and spatial separation occur, after which a state of liminality follows, where everyday obligations are temporarily suspended or inverted. In other words, tourists are temporarily in the situation of conforming to different social and behavioural patterns from those available “at home” thanks to the fact that everyday obligations are no more effective. According to Gradburn liminality provides an opportunity

to satisfy a need for variation from routine experiences. The experience and reactions of a person while touring, which take on a sacred aura and function to recreate the individual for day-to-day life at home, are dictated by the need for inversion as well as a certain social influences.259

Tourism, according to this view, would then have a gratification function which would be the effective travel motivation.

257 Nash D., 1996, p. 41 258 Ibidem. 259 cited in Ibidem, p. 44. 122

Consequent to the temporary state of liminality is the return to one’s place of residence, to the everyday social obligations, to socially accepted behavioural patterns, while the tourist experience had allowed “non-serious”, playful ones. Another element is the character of relationships existing between fellow tourists sharing the travel experience, who form a so called communitas. The transitional status, which can be effective in a differently socially structured “elsewhere”, would allow different relationship patterns based on the supposed temporary social equality among the tourists, as well as the playing of different social roles. Barberani concludes that

the structural homology between pilgrimage and rites of passage is based on the common movement towards the separation from the profane world, on the homogenization of status, on the simplification of behaviors and of dress codes, on the communitas ideal and on the rebirth of original values of a communitarian religion; elements which are also present in the tourist experience through the mediation of play.260

Moreover Gradburn considers tourism as a form of ritual itself, which strengthens cohesion within societies. According to him today’s tourism practices, which are celebrated in set periods of the year, serve the purpose of reinforcing those social connections which are loosened in complex contemporary societies.261

260 “L’omologia strutturale tra pellegrinaggio e riti di passaggio consiste nel comune movimento di separazione dal mondo profano, dell’omogeneizzazione degli status, nella semplicità dei comportamenti e dell’abbigliamento, nell’ideale di communitas e nella rinascita dei valori originali della religione comunitaria, elementi che, attraverso la mediazione del gioco sono presenti anche nell’esperienza turistica.” (Translation: MGP) Barberani S., 2006, p. 202. 261 Ibidem. 123

7.2.4 Travel as experience

The division of the tourist experience into three different stages – separation, liminality and reintegration – allows a consequent further division of the way this experience is perceived and re-elaborated. First, the travel experience is imagined and the tourist rarely leaves for a destination unaware of what is to be expected. This preliminary preparation is usually achieved through the consulting of travel agents, travel guides, magazines, brochures and so on, which contribute to the creation of the so called tourist gaze.262 A trip is therefore not the answer to the need of getting to know the unknown, but rather a dream came true, as well as a “mean of rebirth”. As Barberani maintains “it is this promise of a new birth that makes travelling a symbolic equivalent of a rite of passage”.263 The second stage is that of the actually experienced travel, which has as a core point that of the creation of a new individual, or at least of a temporary new identity. In tourism, as in other rites of passages, we witness the symbolic death of the old self through the departure, when a person “dies” as citizen and relives as passenger first, and then as tourist.264 The third stage of the travel experience is that of reintegration in one’s social group through the exhibition of photographs, the gift of souvenirs, the telling of stories and anecdotes and so on. Such practices not only encompass full reintegration, but also permit the acknowledgment of an higher status acquired by the tourist during his absence. This last point has been widely analyzed by Philip Pearce and will be further illustrated in the next paragraph.

262 see the next chapter. 263 “Ed è proprio questa promessa di una nuova nascita che fa del viaggio un equivalente simbolico del rito di passaggio” (Translation: MGP) Barberani S., 2006, p. 205 264 Ibidem. 124

7.2.5 The tourist career: different approaches

A variety of approaches have tried to define a concept which is commonly used in anthropological studies about tourists motivations, that is the existence of a tourist career. In this paragraph two main points of view are going to be analyzed: the travel career approach by P. Pearce and the application to this matter of the distinction between “good tourist” and “bad tourists” by J.D. Urbain. The travel career approach was first theorized by P. Pearce and is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, that had already appeared in the 1950s,265 and which maintains that

all human needs can be arranged in a hierarchy of five categories, beginning with physiological needs such as hunger, thirst and sex, and ascending stepwise to the needs of safety, belongingness and love, esteem and self- actualization. An individual normally attempts to satisfy the basic needs first. After the lower-level needs are mostly sated, higher-level needs in the hierarchy emerge as salient and urgent. Human needs usually follow this hierarchical order. However, there are exceptions.266

Pearce in 1982 applied Maslow’s theory to his case study on travel motivations in multiple countries. After analyzing the data provided by more than 400 respondents, he concluded that tourists are attracted to holiday destinations because they expect to be able to fulfil particular needs, that is self-actualization, love, belongingness and physiological needs.267 This first application to tourist research led to the conceptual frameworks of the travel career ladder (TCL). Analyzing the data provided by the case study, Pearce noticed that older respondents had more often related their travel motivation as the positive fulfilment of needs like self-actualization and belongingness, while younger travelers seemed to be

265 Woodside Arch G., Martin Drew (editors), Tourism management: analysis, behaviour and strategy, CABIntl, Wallingford and Cambridge, 2008, p. 15 266 Ibidem. 267 Ibidem, pp 15-16. 125

more interested in physiological needs, as though to say that those who have travelled more seem to have developed a higher status in their travel motivations268. In other words

Essentially the TCL model is based upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the conceptualization of physiological maturation towards a goal of self- actualization. […] According to the TCL travelers’ needs or motivations are organized in a hierarchy or ladder, […] the core idea underlying this conceptual framework is that an individual’s travel motivation changes with his/her travel experience. TCL postulates that people have travel careers that change over their lifespan and with accumulated travel experience.269

Not all travellers ascend the ladder at the same pace, some might as well stop at a certain stage, but what this approach firmly implies is that travel experience has an influence on travel motivations. Two later studies by Pearce in Australia and Korea produced the travel career patterns (TCP) approach, in which 14 motivational factors were drawn from 74 motivational items. In the study undertaken in Korea the factors were: novelty, escape/relax, self-actualization, nature, kinship, self-enhancement, romance, kinship- belonging, autonomy, self-development (host-site involvement), nostalgia, stimulation, isolation and recognition.270 When compared with groups at different travel career stages, results showed that

within the 14 travel motivation factors, respondents at higher travel career levels give more emphasis to externally oriented motivation factors, such as self-development through host-site involvement and seeking nature. Respondents at lower career levels focus more on internally oriented motivation factors, such as self-enhancement, romance, kinship (belonging) and autonomy. Other factors did not show a significant difference in mean value between the high and low travel career groups.271

268 Woodside Arch G., Martin Drew (editors), 2008, p. 16. 269 Ibidem. 270 Ibidem, p. 17. 271 Ibidem. Original stresses. 126

According to Pearce and Lee the above mentioned travel motivation factors can be divided into three layers according to their importance for the individual, and the final travel motivations are influenced by those pertaining the core layer, the one which has more importance, most commonly novelty, relationship and escape/relax. The TCP seems to be more effective than TCL because it considers travel motivations as multi- layered and multi-dimensional, though it’s validity still needs to be properly proven.272 Another interesting approach regarding the possible application of the concept of career to tourism is that of J.D. Urbain273, which is a consequence of his already mentioned distinction between “bad tourists” and “good tourists”.274 As already illustrated, these two categories are believed to depend on the tourists’ perceptions of themselves and other tourists, though Urbain on the other hand believes that the distinction must be operated at a level of “phases” and not of “nature”, that is tourists at different stages of their tourist career would have different perceptions of fellow travellers. Therefore Urbain speaks of a “three-phase travel career”275, making a distinction between tourist, anti-tourist and post-tourist:

- the tourist is a traveller who is aware of his/her condition and satisfied with it. According to Urbain the tourist is ignorant and inexpert, he doesn’t want to give up on comfort, he doesn’t feel the need to have contacts with locals and maintains a superficial gaze; - the anti-tourist is a more experienced traveler who has reached the acknowledgement of his “tourist condition”, which he perceives as being negative and therefore rejects; - the post-tourist is aware of being a traveller, who can ironically accept being a tourist thanks to the accumulated experience and therefore operates choices with the aim of being less superficial and paying more

272 Woodside Arch G., Martin Drew (editors), 2008, p. 18. 273 Barberani S., 2006, p. 164. 274 See paragraph 6.3 275 Translation from the Italian “carriera turistica trifasica”, as seen in Barberani S., 2006, p. 164 127

attention to the social, cultural and natural environment which surrounds him.276

Urbain maintains that the consequence of such self-perception by the tourists is a paradox: the tourist, trying to escape his unwanted condition, is always seeking to go to non-tourist places in a quest for the unknown and the unspoiled, but by doing so he is actually where he shouldn’t be. This created a dilemma between not travelling at all, and therefore rejecting the condition of being a tourist, or travelling to non-tourist places, thus turning them into tourism destinations by the simple fact of being there. The only possible choice, according to the French anthropologist, is to accept one’s condition and the fact that it is impossible to travel without becoming a tourist, with all the positive and negative implications that this state brings.277

276 Barberani S., 2006, p. 164 277 Ibidem, p. 167. 128

PART THREE: THE “LANZAROTE BRAND” AND THE“MANRIQUE TRADE-MARK”

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8. Tourist imagery and the problem of authenticity

8.1 The tourist gaze

“The Tourist Gaze” is the title of a book published by the British sociologist John Urry in 1990.278 Taking his point from the work of Michel Foucault about the medical gaze, Urry maintains that the tourist gaze might be just as socially organized and systematized and therefore its nature depends on the historical period, the social group, the society, etc.279 In addition to that “to consider how social groups construct their tourist gaze is a good way of getting at just what is happening in the normal society”280, since according to the author there are some interesting parallels between the tourist phenomenon and some forms of social deviance.281 In an attempt to give a definition of tourism through its core elements, Urry also gives a first insight of the characteristics of what he calls “the tourist gaze”, and in particular

- places are chosen to be gazed upon because there is an anticipation of pleasure. This anticipation is often constructed through non-tourist practices, such as the fruition of films, TV, literature, magazines, etc.; - the tourist gaze is considered to be interesting because it is directed to landscapes or townscapes which are somewhat out of the ordinary and differ from what is available to be experienced every day. This gaze is often “objectified” or captured through photos, videotapes, postcards and such and can virtually be endlessly reproduced;

278 Urry John, 1990. 279 See ibidem, pp. 1-2 280 Ibidem, p. 2 281 Ibidem. 130

- the tourist gaze is constructed through signs and the “tourist career” is based on the collection of such signs, for example the “traditional English pub” or “romantic Paris”; - tourism professionals engage in producing ever-new signs and objects of the tourist gaze, which should represent the most current trends in tourism.282

Consequently, a key feature of tourism and of the tourist gaze is that there must be certain aspects of the places visited that make them different from what can be seen in everyday life, in other words it must be out of the ordinary. There are many ways in which we can operate this distinction between what is ordinary and what is extraordinary. Extraordinary experiences would be for example:

- seeing a unique object or one which is famous for being famous, though it might have lost its original purpose or status, such as the Tour Eiffel or the Empire State Building. - seeing particular signs – or “landscape signifiers” – such as the already mentioned “traditional English pub”. - seeing unfamiliar aspects of what was previously thought to be familiar, such as representations of everyday lives in different societies which are to be seen in museums. - carrying out familiar tasks in an unfamiliar environment, such as swimming, eating, drinking, shopping, etc., activities which would be considered to be ordinary if undertaken at “home”. - seeing signs that indicate that a certain object is indeed extraordinary, for example recognizing the signature of famous artists on paintings in a museum, which otherwise would all be very much alike.

The act itself of recognizing a view, an object, a monument as extraordinary requires some preliminary preparation, that means that tourism always involves a certain

282 Urry John, 1990, p. 3 131

amount of daydreaming and anticipation, processes which are also common in consumerism. Since the real experience can hardly provide a perfect replica of what is expected, each holiday trip ˗ or purchase ˗ leads to disillusion and to a consequent need for something new.283 Moreover “such daydreams are not autonomous; they involve working over advertising and other media generated sets of signs, many of which relate very clearly to complex processes of social emulation”.284 Furthermore Urry makes a distinction between two different types of gazes, the “romantic” and the “collective”. The former sets an emphasis on the contemplation of untouched natural beauty, the latter depends on the presence of other tourists, as in major cities, whose cosmopolitan character constitutes a matter of attraction itself. The presence of other tourists also assures the presence of services dedicated to them, such as accommodation, restaurants and entertainment facilities.285 A consequence of such a distinction is that different countries have come to specialize either in one particular gaze or another, to find their own spot in the very fragmented tourist market. This has been possible by selecting certain features as worthy to be gazed upon at the expense of others. As an example Britain has come to specialize in tourism based on heritage and history and this affected what visitors expect to gaze upon and also the kind of tourists who would pick Britain as a travel destination.286

8.1.1 Postcards and travel pictures

The simplest and most popular way of selecting and spreading gazes has always been the use of postcards. As mentioned by Carmelo Vega “postcards constitute the

283 Urry John, 1990, p. 13. 284 Ibidem. 285 Ibidem, pp 45-46. 286 Ibidem, p. 48. 132

carrier par excellence of the tourist’s messages: they are greetings tools that help to summarize and compare special assessments on the places we visit”287 and moreover

[…] postcards also serve as substitutes for the photographic experience: they show us what is to be seen and also where it has to be seen, that is, they teach us how to take pictures and how to deal with the places according to certain points of view. Consequently, they work as viewpoints in which the standardized tourist panoramas are projected: they are summaries of the place or, in other words, iconic artefacts which condensate […] those interesting, significant, identifying elements which help to distinguish one place from another.288

In the case of the Canary Islands in general, and of Lanzarote in particular, it seems that the majority of postcards available show two kinds of scenarios: the natural lunar-like landscape almost free from human beings, and a humanized landscape, where tourists and local people enjoy the communion with nature and the weather. This kind of “trademark” is surely relevant for Lanzarote (see Chapter 2 and in particular paragraph 2.1), an Island which has built its fortune on the emphasis on the unusual landscape, the wild nature and a laid back kind of tourism. A third kind of postcards shows works of César Manrique, alone or combined with the other two elements, as a demonstration of the strong link between his artworks and the tourist image of the Island. Collages of different pictures are also very popular, a kind of “encyclopedia” of the multiple gazes available. Below are shown examples of postcards for sale in Lanzarote289

287 “Las tarjetas postales constituyen el vehículo por exalencia de los mensajes del turista: son instrumentos de saludo que ayudan a resumir y a contrastar las apreciaciones particulares sobre los lugares que visitamos”. (Translation: MGP) Vega Carmelo, Paisajes de tránsito: Invenciones de la mirada turística, in de Santa Ana M. (ed.), 2004, p. 41. 288 “[…] las postales turísticas sirven también como sustitutos de la experiencia de la fotografía: ellas nos indican lo que hay que ver y también desde dónde hay que verlo, es decir, nos enseñan a fotografiar y a enfrentarnos a los lugares desde determinados puntos de vista. En consecuencia, funcionan como miradores en los que se proyectan los panoramas normalizados del paisaje turístico: son resúmenes del lugar o, en otras palabras, artefactos icónicos que condensan [...] lo interesante, lo significatvo, lo que identifica, caracteriza y distingue un sitio de otros”. (Translation: MGP) Ibidem, p. 42. 289 These postcards have been purchased by me in Lanzarote and scanned for solely research purposes. All rights belong to their owners. 133

Picture 18 Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion.

Picture 19 Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion.

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Picture 20 Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion.

Picture 21 Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion.

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It is, however, important to note that due to the progressive expansion of the use of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the likes, the purchase and consequent use of postcards has seen a general decline in recent years, especially among the younger generations. Sending postcards has always been one of the most important activities of the tourist experience since it had a strong social significance. A postcard serves as a sort of pars pro toto for the tourist ˗ a simulacrum of the person who is temporarily away ˗ but also as a tangible proof of the journey that has been undertaken, a “been there, done that” statement. Moreover, a postcard generally represents a “one to one” – or at least a “one to few” – kind of communication tool; it presupposes that the sender and the recipient have some kind of acquaintance with each other. Social networks, on the other hand, give an easy and quick possibility of sharing with others where one has been and what the place looks like, in a way that often can be referred to as “one to many”, where the recipients could very well be unknown and not directly linkable to the sender in any way. Another element which makes postcards and pictures shared on the internet different is the time span between the sending action and the receiving. Postcards are sent by post and require a certain amount of time to reach their destination, “virtual postcards” instead are available in the very second they are shot and shared. It could be said that in the first case the sharing of the tourist gaze is diachronic, while in the second case it synchronic to the travel experience. One could maintain that “virtual postcards” supposedly interfere with the mediated information gathered through advertising, media, tour operator catalogues and travel guides. At the present time no specific study on this matter exists, however, I have been researching photos published with the hashtag #lanzarote on the mobile application Instagram290 and came across an interesting phenomenon: many, though of course not all, of the photos posted and shared portray the same subjects that can be found in paper postcards, often shot from exactly the same viewpoint.

290 Instagram is a photo sharing social network, available only as an App for most smartphones. Pictures and accounts, however, can as well be accessed from the Internet. The posted photos are categorized through “hashtags” to allow any user to search for them according to relevance. www.instagram.com, accessed 11.03.2013 136

See the example below. The first picture is a postcard for sale in most stands around the Island and depicts the Parque National de Timanfaya, the second picture was downloaded from Instagram291 and the third one was taken by me during my last field trip in May 2012.

Picture 22 Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: scansion.

291 credit for this picture goes to the author, the user “lallometti”. Picture posted on 04/01/13. Used with permission. No direct link available. 137

Picture 23 Picture posted by the user lallometti on the mobile App Instagram on 03.01.13. Used with permission.

Picture 24 Picture of the Timanfaya National Park. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

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As it can be observed, all three pictures show the same place from the same perspective, but this is no coincidence. The simple explanation is that it is only possible to visit this part of the park with an organized coach drive, which is already included in the entrance ticket. The route was designed by Manrique himself to exalt the peculiarities of the place and give tourists an insight of the volcanic phenomenon. The coaches stop at set panoramic sites to allow the passengers to take pictures of the landscape, and one of these stops finds itself exactly in front of the view shown above. So what could be considered at first sight as a spontaneous decision – shooting a picture of a beautiful place – actually has been influenced by a deliberate decision taken a priori by someone who had a vested interest in providing the tourist photographer with a particular gaze. Such examples are very common in Lanzarote, which could be easily defined as “an Island to be photographed”. The works of Manrique, and of the people who collaborated with him, created a series of gazes to which the tourist is more or less prone to conform. Cases similar to the already illustrated Timanfaya Park are the Haría Valley, which can be photographed from a panoramic spot where tour buses stop, prompting the tourists to produce an array of similar pictures of that same view; the Jameos del Agua, where tourists’ access and consequent flow is regulated to follow only one direction, generating a preferential point of view; and the famous “lava window” at the Fundación César Manrique. As Urry stated, travelling is indeed a “search for the photogenic”.292 Bus tours and excursions are organized to obey the photographic desires of the tourists, although for this very same reason the element of spontaneity in enjoying what is to be seen goes missing. It is plausible to think that all the tourists who have undertaken a similar bus tour on the Island have taken similar pictures. Through this process the gaze, created by Manrique and carried out by tourism specialists, gets incorporated by the tourists and is virtually reproduced and shared an infinite number of times, providing a confirmation of the validity of the gaze itself:

292 Urry J., 1990, p.139. 139

In den Urlaubsfotographie halt der Tourist Ausschnitte seine eigenen Wirklichkeit fest. Diese Realität zeigt weniger die bodenständigen Aktivitäten seiner Reise, als vielmehr die Ausschnitte einer imaginären Welt. […] Einen Einblick in die imaginäre Welt der Urlauber vermitteln die beliebtesten Fotomotiven.293

Urry pointed out the core elements of the relationship between tourism and photography:

- Photography is linked to the appropriation of an object. It is a power/knowledge relationship. - Photography could be a way of transcribing reality, since “the camera does not lie”. - Taking a photograph often means selecting, structuring and shaping a particular gaze which is aimed at beautifying the object photographed. - Photography involves a democratization of human activities during the tourist experience. Every element could be equally interesting or uninteresting, depending on the proposed gaze. - Photography involves obligations. Tourists need to stop in particular places in order to snap a photo, photo-opportunities can’t be missed. - What tourists look for in a holiday is often a set of photographic images, which they have already been reproduced in tour operators brochures and the likes. Once he has reached the destination the tourist will try to capture those same pictures for himself, in an attempt to demonstrate that he’s really been there.294

It is worth mentioning, as a last point, what Barberani maintains about tourist imagery. Reprising back to R. Amirou, she states that the tourist gaze could also be considered as a meta-social discourse, and that it is composed of five elements:

293 Schrurian-Bremecker C., Anpirschen, beobachten, abwarten, schießen, in Köck Christoph (Editor), Reisebilder: Produktion und Reproduktion touristischer Wahrnehmung, Waxmann, Berlin 2001, p. 204. 294 Urry J., 1990, pp 138-140. 140

- a return to nature, based mainly on the travel literature which often praises a more authentic contact with nature as opposed to the alienation of modern life. - a return to a less structured and more spontaneous way of socialization, in all aspects of life: dress code, family structures, working habits, etc. - a sense of solidarity and communion of intents and interests which usually develops between people that share the travel experience. - the creation of “ephemeral egalitarian societies” between the co-travellers, usually a temporary corporative spirit which forms between the people staying in the same resort, or being a part of the same travel group, where there is no hierarchy. This status is comparable to that of a pilgrimage. - a series of social encounters which are based on a “ludic” element, where the actors participate playing a role as if it was real, which they are ready to abandon once they return home. In this sense Amirou defines tourism as a “serious game”, which requires the player a totally engagement so as to obtain the desired outcome, may it be doing sport, losing weight, meeting new people, etc.295

Such elements lead to a meta-social discourse on society because they provide a definition of it based on contrapositions: nature vs urban areas, spontaneous relationships vs structured societies, “playing time” vs working time, etc. This new definition actually represents a criticism of modern society itself and sets the basis for a possible new “good society”, where all these positive elements are included.296

295 See Barberani S., 2006, pp. 216-217. 296 Ibidem, p. 217 141

8.1.2 Catalogues, travel guides and travel magazines

Die Faszination des Bildes ist die kulturelle Basis der touristischen Reise. Seitdem diese Reise in Bilder beschrieben wird, verändern sich die populären Wahrnehmungen und Aneignungsweisen von Umwelten. Räume werden mit ihren Inventaren immer weniger als Produktionslandschaften und immer stärker als bildgeprägte Konsumareale adaptiert. Durch Bilder werden Menschen mit ihren Handlungsweisen als typisch fixiert, durch Bilder erhalten sie einen imaginierten kollektiven Charakter und ein imaginierten Aussehen. Seitdem wir als Touristen unterwegs sind, haben wir spezifische kulturelle Techniken entwickelt, mit denen wir Bilder herstellen, mit denen wir sie repräsentieren und rezipieren, mit denen wir sie massenhaft vervielfältigen und verändern.297

The pictures shown in travel catalogues and guides have an important function: each tourist must be able to imagine that in his travel destination there is something that he can achieve by himself. At a closer look it is clear how most of the pictures are quite standardized, they depict a timeless landscape, usually free from human beings. In the few cases where people are pictured, they serve as reference individuals to make the whole situation more credible, but they are rarely identifiable with “tourists”.298 The pictures are addressed to the tourists because they speak the “tourist language”, they are a promise that what the tourist is looking for is available also in a totally foreign and unknown environment. Nowadays no tourists travel anymore looking for the unknown anymore. As already mentioned, tourists rarely travel without having any idea of what the destination has to offer and which attractions and facilities will be available. Tourism marketing has quickly learnt how to deal with this phenomenon by offering the potential tourists a pre-view of what can be expected, therefore the tourists naturally expect what has been shown. José Manuel Marrero Henríquez maintains that “the tourist, before becoming a mass tourist, was a textual tourist, sitting on a comfortable chair with various guides at

297 Köck Christoph, Vorwort, in Köck Christoph (ed.), 2001, p. 7 298 See Wöhler K., Aufhebung von Raum und Zeit, in Köck C. (ed.), 2001, p. 85 142

hands’ reach”299, that is “the textual tourist didn’t explore real landscapes; he explored excerpts from travel guides, he saw the places that were described in each page, he smelled the fragrances that were mentioned, he lived the adventures that were promised”.300 Moreover

The textual tourist considers the guide as his best mentor. Cheap, handy and practical, the guide lists the places which it is essential to visit and it allows the tourist to find those travel packages that will include everything that is worth being seen at a lower price. The guide trains the textual tourist to become a mass tourist and clearly defines his path, what can’t be left out and what is superfluous. Its informational certainty does not come from the erratic, subjective experience of a single traveller, […] the guide offers the essential information about a country or a region because it is the result of the accumulated experience of multiple travellers, ordered, structured and expounded with practical purposes to help future travellers.301

Most pictures of Lanzarote which are present in travel guides, catalogues and travel magazines highlight the image of a strong, wild nature, with its colours and contrasts. Therefore the tourists are usually already prepared for the landscape that is awaiting them. The descriptions of Lanzarote that can be found in travel agencies’ catalogues are all definitely visual, with the help of many adjectives, which nearly present almost a sequence of pictures before the eyes of the potential tourist:

299 “Ante de serlo, el turista de masas fue turista textual en un cómodo sillón con unas guías a mano(Translation: MGP) Marreo Henríquez José Manuel, Del turista textual al lector ecológico, in de Santa Ana M. (ed.), 2004, p. 15. 300 “El turists textual non recorrió paisajes; recorrió pasajes de guías turístics, vio los lugares que en cada página se describían, olió las fragrancias que cada una de ellas refería, vivió las pripecias que en ellas se le prometían.” (Translation: MGP) Ibidem. 301 “El turista textual tiene en la guía su máxima valedora. Barata, manejable y práctica, la guía le da a conocer los lugares que son imprescindiblr visitar y le permite escoger el paquete de viajes que al menor costo da mejor cuenta de todo aquello que merece la pena ser visto. La guía prepara al turista de masas y delimita claramente su recorrido, qué no puede dejar de ver y qué es superfluo. Su certidumbre informativa no proviene ni de la experiencia subjetiva y errática del individuo viajero, [...] la guía ofrece la información esencial sobre un país o región porque es el resultado de la experiencia acumulada por múltiples viajeros, ordenada, estructurada y expuesta con finalidad práctica para futuros viajeros” (Translation: MGP) Ibidem, pp 15-16. 143

Lanzarote – die mystische Feuerinsel. Ein bizarres Landschaftsbild im Naturpark Timanfaya, grüne Palmenoasen und geheimnisvolle Grotten neben aufwendig angelegten Lavafeldern für Wein- und Gemüseanbau. Die hübschen, kleinen Orte mit ihren weiß getünchten Häusern und grünen Fensterladen spiegeln César Manriques Einfluss wider. Die Strände – hell, dunkel, kilometerlang, lebhaft oder verschwiegen. Lanzarote, wo Natur und Kultur verschmelzen.302

Other descriptions also show the chances of connecting the pleasures of natural beauties with other, more mundane, activities:

Lanzarote verzaubert durch seiner Kontraste: lange Sandstrände, kleine Buchten und kristallklares blaues Wasser vor einer Kulisse aus schroffem Lavagestein und weiß getünchten Häusern. Lernen Sie in kleinen Dörfer und Fischerhäfen die Gastfreundlichkeit der Inselbewohner kennen und probieren Sie den einheimischen Malvasia-Wein aus dem Weinanbaugebiet La Geria und viele andere kanarische Spezialitäten. Das ausgewogene Klima, ein umfangreiches Kultur- und Kunstangebot sowie zahlreiche Sportangebote sind ideal Voraussetzungen für gelungene Ferien. Die Insel wurde von der UNESCO zum Biosphärenreservat erklärt.303

And moreover:

Lanzarote kennen zu lernen ist ein unvergessliches Erlebnis. Betrachten Sie die exotisch phantastischer Vulkanlandschaften, wo von Menschenhand durch Kombination aus Natur und Kunst außerordentlich schone Orte geschaffen wurden, zum Beispiel die Lavagrotte „Jameos de Agua“.304

In the following description, on the other hand, the link between Lanzarote and Manrique, though present in the previous ones as well, is particularly underlined:

302 TUI Schöne Ferien Katalog, Kanarischen Inseln, Kapverdischen Inseln, Mai-Nov 2010, p. 21 303 IST REISEN Katalog, Spanien, Portugal, Sommer 2010, p. 282. 304 NECKERMANN Katalog, Flugreisen Spanien, Portugal, Sommer 2010, p. 192. 144

“Lanzarique: Entdecken Sie die sagenhafte Insel mit den Augen César Manriques. Sie sehen neben den berühmten Feuerbergen auch die vulkanischen Höhlen und Grotten, die diese Insel so bezaubernd und mystisch wirken lassen“.305 Having analyzed the descriptions provided by seven of the major tour operators in Austria, it is interesting to note that some of the adjectives used to refer to Lanzarote are actually quite uncommon when referred to an Island in everyday life ˗ words such as mystic, bizarre, unique and mysterious ˗ and they recall many terms used in travel literature and adventure novels. This stress on the uniqueness and out of the ordinary character of the Island of Lanzarote is none other than an emphasis of the character of the experience that is being sold to the potential tourists. As mentioned earlier in this paragraph, the tourist while reading guides and catalogues needs to get the impression of being on the verge of an adventure, he needs to feel that he is about to discover something on his own. Therefore the travel destination needs to be mysterious and bizarre, to catch the attention of the tourist looking for a so called extraordinary experience. On this matter Ira Silver suggested that

since the tourist industry only markets those images that it anticipates will be verified during travel, for tourists authenticity is not necessarily determined by gaining a genuine appreciation for another culture, but rather by verifying a marketed representation of it.306

Another aspect of Lanzarote that is underlined by this kind of advertising is the peculiarity of the Island being small, not densely populated and relatively quiet, characteristics that supposedly most tourists’ originating countries don’t have and that make it a desirable destination. As a matter of fact, the most frequently used adjective in all the descriptions analyzed is “small”, as in small villages, small coves, small houses, small farmers markets, etc. According to Silver it is necessary to fuse images of modern

305 FTI TOURISTIK Katalog, Spanien, Portugal, April-Oktober 2010, p. 130 (my emphasis) 306 Silver Ira, Marketing Authenticity in Third World Countries, In: Annals of tourism research, Vol. 20, 1993, p. 303 145

and primitive “to show the potential mass tourist that resort destinations are neither too remote (with too few amenities), nor too touristy […].”307 As already maintained, the ads and descriptions are very visual thanks to the kind of language used. Another popular element is the use of adjectives related to colours or to the intensity of the (sun) light: bright, white, blue, green, multicolour, gold, dark, crystal clear, etc. A sentence like “Die hübschen, kleinen Orte mit ihren weiß getünchten Häusern und grünen Fensterladen spiegeln César Manriques Einfluss wider“308 recalls of the brush strokes of an impressionist painter and is surely suggestive.

8.2 Souvenirs

Shopping is a popular tourist activity, although it is rarely the main reason for the journey alone. People often bring souvenirs back from their vacations, therefore tourism is always associated with souvenirs: these are items that are produced and sold to the traveller as reminders of the tourist experience. As a matter of fact, the name “souvenir” actually comes from the French and means “reminder” or “remembrance”. A souvenir is something that comes typically from a certain place, therefore is often considered as a pars pro toto, or a simulacrum. Tourists buy souvenirs because they certificate their presence in a given place. Nevertheless souvenirs are not just objects, they also have a symbolic meaning. In this sense, important issues need to be taken into account, for example what makes a souvenir authentic and which identities play a role in the purchase and exchange market of souvenirs. The development of souvenir production represents the development of social roles and the relationship between locals and tourists. According to Graham Dann the collection and exchange of souvenirs is a habit that probably originated in the Paleolithic, when explorers would bring back to their cave

307 Silver I., 1993, p. 306. 308 TUI Schöne Ferien Katalog, Kanarischen Inseln, Kapverdischen Inseln, Mai-Nov 2010, p. 21 146

objects – ie. stones or shells – that they had found on their way as a proof of having reached a distant destination, but also as a mere object of curiosity.309 In the modern era, the first (striking) example of souvenir collecting is the removal of decorations and monuments from the Parthenon in Athens by Lord Elgin in 1801, who took them to London, where they are to still be seen in museums. In this case, the conditions of this looting culturally belonged to a colonial mentality: only qualified people who have studied the history and art of these people could appreciate and understand the classical taste. Therefore it seemed reasonable to “acquire” such "souvenirs". The anthropologist Duccio Canestrini calls this phenomenon "tourist kleptomania".310 As many studies imply, the purchase or collection of souvenirs always includes a component of “appropriation” of the other, that should provide an higher grade of understanding of a culture. On the other hand, a souvenir is an object that constitutes evidence of a trip undertaken away from home, and therefore has a social signification. According to Gordon311 souvenirs can be divided into five categories:

- Pictorial image: postcards, videos, books, etc. - Piece-of-the-rock: objects that can be collected in nature and that symbolize a non-urban environment, i.e. shells, rocks, etc. - Symbolic shorthand: objects (often handmade) that somehow evoke the place they come from, i.e. miniature Eiffel Towers or Coliseums. - Markers: souvenirs that have the name of the place impressed on them, i.e. T- Shirts, mugs, ashtrays etc. - Local products for example typical foods or clothing, that are produced using local raw materials.

309 Cited in Canestrini Duccio, Trofei di viaggio. Per un’antropologia del souvenir, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2001, pp- 26-28.

310 Canestrini D., 2001, p. 29 311 cited in Swanson Kristen K., Horridge Patricia E., Travel motivations as souvenir purchase indicators, in Tourism Management, n. 27, 2006, p. 673 147

Since the development of modern tourism in the sixties - the possibility of quick and cheap travel and its consequent democratization, the production of traditional items to be sold as souvenirs became a very topical issue. The biggest problem was to produce something ethnic that could also meet the tastes of tourists. This meant not only that the locals had to form an awareness about their own culture, but also that the manufacturer should have a basic knowledge of the culture and/or the expectations of tourists. In the places that had the first contacts with modernity through tourism, as it happened for example in Bali, there took place an ironic phenomenon, the so-called "cultural involution”, according to Philip F. McKean:

[…] modernization in Bali is occurring; tourism induces new ideas and is a major source of funds. Yet, the tourists expect the perpetuation of ancient traditions, especially in the performing and plastic arts, and would not visit in such numbers if Bali were to become a thoroughly modern Island. Both conservatism and economic necessity encourage the Balinese to maintain their skills as carvers, musicians, and dancers in order to have the funds for modernization.312

Two identities play a role in the souvenir trade: the tourists who buy souvenirs and the local inhabitants who sell the souvenirs, and in most cases produce them. The nature of these roles is re-defined in each interaction and the motivations of buying and selling can be different for the two groups. First, let us consider the motivations from the tourist side. As we have said, people travel because they are attracted to exotic societies and the unknown. Nevertheless, in the last 50 years the introduction of mass tourism and the building of resorts have reduced the chances of possible contacts with the local people. In my experience in resort areas with a very high concentration of tourists compared to the rate of local people, for example in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, the only

312 Philip Frick McKean, Towards a theoretical analysis of tourism: economic dualism and cultural involution in Bali, in Valene Smith (ed.), 1989, p. 126.

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activity that a tourist can practice outside the hotel is the purchase of souvenirs. All other activities are organized by the tour operator, so that the tourist has really few opportunities to come into contact with local people, and little to no interactions occur without the mediation of some economic transaction. This means that the two groups almost always remain separated and their values do not necessarily need to fit each other. According to many researchers, tourists travel to get closer to the "myth" of the exotic and, in many cases this is only possible through the souvenir shopping experience. The statement "been there, done that" could then be replaced with "been there, bought that". The souvenirs purchased not only convey a message about a place, but also lead to a "rise" in the tourist career, in the sense that tourists who visit the same place supposedly end up buying similar objects. Those are often so strongly representative, that they can be recognized immediately. A souvenir then offers not only a memory of a particular place, but also a definition of the tourist himself. To own an item that comes from an exclusive place is a powerful status symbol, a trophy. Morgan and Pritchard have tried to investigate the relationship between the ownership of souvenirs and the construction of identity:

[…] we develop a sense of personal identity, both as an individual and as a member of a group, not only from our gender, race and so forth but also through the process of negotiating and creating our own material worlds. We gain and express our identity through the appropriation and consumption of products as the material of symbolic practices and as mediators of their sense of being in their own time and place in a social and cultural context. 313

The two researchers called this process “identity through possessions”.314 This symbolic consumption plays two roles: one looking on the inside - how we perceive ourselves - and one looking on the outside – how we present ourselves to others. The symbolic significance of the gift is then balanced by two powers:

313 Morgan Nigel, Pritchard Annette, On souvenirs and metonymy: narratives of memories, metaphor and materiality. In Tourist Studies, 5(1), 2005, p. 33 314 Ibidem. 149

- Similarity: the souvenir represents the affiliation to a certain group; - Differentiation: the object emphasizes individuality.315

The souvenirs that we buy speak about us, about our personal history and become a part of our personality. Ownership shifts the process of "souvenir as a representation of a place" to "souvenir as a representation of a person." Therefore souvenirs are kept in our houses like little trophies of our lives that confirm our achievements. According to Canestrini souvenirs take on a further meaning when they are given: when one gives a gift, this object has the function of compensating the distance. The souvenir is a “presence” (a "gift" is also called "present" in English, "present" in French and “presente” in Italian) to excuse an “absence”, that of the traveller.316 Gordon calls this kind of souvenirs "re-entry fees" because through them the person is accepted back into the society.317 It is important to say that the motivations for souvenir production from the locals inhabitants’ side, has been somewhat less analyzed than the souvenir purchase motivations of the tourists. The reason for what can be seen at first sight as lack of interest, is actually that the production of souvenirs is rarely a phenomenon that can be considered alone, since it influences, and is influenced by, other aspects of a society, such as the economy, gender roles, politics, religion and identity processes. As MacCannell states

[…] when an ethnic group begins to sell itself… as an ethnic attraction, it ceases to evolve naturally. The group members begin to think of themselves… as living representatives of an authentic way of life. Suddenly any change in life-style is not a mere question of practical utility but a weight question which has economic and political implications for the entire group.318

315 Morgan N., Pritchard A., 2005, p. 33 316 Canestrini D., 2001, p. 45-47. 317 Cited in Canestrini D., 2001, p. 46. 318 Cited in Byrne Swain Margaret., Roles in Indigenous Tourism: Kuna Mola, Kuna Yala, and Cultural Survival, in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, p. 86. 150

There are many examples in of such trends anthropological research, as for example the carving of traditional masks among the Dogon in Mali319, or the production of Molas among the Kuna Yala in Panama.320 In Lanzarote, however, the production and sale of artifacts and souvenirs does not really pertain to the presentation and conservation of the Lanzarote culture so as to preserve a specific ethnic group, but rather the perpetuation of a tourist model that refers to eco-tourism and highlights the geological and environmental peculiarities of the Island. There are various places in which souvenirs can be bought: souvenir stands, local markets, supermarkets, tourist centres, farms and vineries. Among the kinds of souvenirs that can be generally bought in any tourism destination and that fit the categorical distinction stunderlined at the beginning of this paragraph – T-shirts, postcards, hats, mugs and other items, with a particular accent on items with “Lanzarote” printed on them, which we have previously defined as markers – there are other souvenirs which can be referred to as “airport art”. The term "airport art" is relatively new. This definition generally refers to cheap souvenirs or so-called ethno-kitsch souvenirs, artworks that are made specifically for the tourist market and for the masses. Often the objects lack any cultural background or clear connection with the place. “Airport art” products are mainly mass produced: the artworks lack not only a cultural identity, they are also competitors for the country-specific, traditional arts and crafts. They threaten the means of subsistence of small producers and may cause the loss of certain manufacturing techniques. "Airport art" knows no limit when it comes to “kitsch”. The reason lies in the transformation of objects of everyday life into objects that have an ethnic connotation.

319 see i.e. Griaule Marcel, Conversations with Ogotemmeli: and introduction to Dogon religious ideas, Oxford University Press, London, 1965. 320 see Byrne Swain M., in Smith V. (ed.), 1989, pp. 83-104. 151

According Canestrini those items help to reduce the distance between the two realities, native place and travel destination321.

Picture 25 Souvenirs for sale at the La Geria Vinery souvenir store, i.e. plastic mugs with embossed English first names on them. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

These souvenirs are popular because they are able to portray any local identity, but also to represent a temporary identity, the tourist identity. The trivialization of souvenirs follows the trivialization of travelling and the standardization of these objects is the standardization of the holiday type. As already mentioned, in Lanzarote such souvenirs are very common, and they are not only sold at the airport. Examples are plastic cups with names on them, ceramic ashtrays and bowls with a flower motive, leather stools with various symbols carved on them, a variety of other items with no particular link to the Island like Swiss knives, bottle openers, magnets, coin purses and the likes. These souvenirs are sold at major tourist attractions, at souvenir shops (most of them owned by Chinese immigrants, which are strongly present on the territory), and surprisingly enough at the weekly Teguise

321 Canestrini D., 2001, pp. 100-107. 152

Market, which is actually advertised as a market where tourists can get in contact with traditional arts and crafts of Lanzarote. After such premises a question arises spontaneously: what makes a craft souvenir authentic in Lanzarote? The problem of authenticity will be taken into consideration in the next paragraph, although it is important at this point of my research to stress some key concepts to better understand how “authenticity” works in terms of souvenirs production and purchase. Littrell, Anderson and Brown322 have tried to examine what tourists think is authentic when they buy souvenirs. In their article "What makes a craft souvenir authentic?" they suggest that on holidays the tourists buy goods that look exotic and attractive, which in their daily lives are not normally seen as interesting. That is, the pattern of souvenir buying differs from that of consumable items. The understanding of the term "authenticity" has a strong connection with western culture. The recognition of authenticity in the arts should be objective and derive from an expert knowledge of the subject, but it also has to do with so-called good taste. The exotic objects displayed in our Western museums in some way define what is to be considered authentic: something that shows no interference with the modern world and should be produced using traditional techniques.323 Nevertheless, such a definition limits what can be perceived as authentic and artistic. The risk is that the critics, by picking one type of objects as authentic, exclude the validity of all other means of artistic/historical production. Therefore it could happen that artisans are prompted to interrupt the production of traditional items that are still used in their everyday life, because these cannot find a place in the souvenir market. "Authenticity" is a socially and historically constructed concept, which is negotiable. Therefore, its meaning depends on the context.

322 Littrell Mary Ann, Anderson Luella F., Brown Pamela J., “What makes a craft souvenir authentic?”. Annals of Tourism Research, 20, 1993, pp. 197-215.

323 Cohen, Price, cited in Ibidem, p. 199. 153

According to Spooner324 tourists buy souvenirs that are little different from what is available at "home" and this spatial distance speaks for authenticity. The difference in the type of goods has to do not only with the appearance, but also with the social and cultural conditions of production. In their research Littrell, Anderson and Brown identified those qualities that are thought to make a souvenir authentic in the eyes of tourists325:

- Uniqueness and originality: if there can be no similar objects because of the material or the type of production. Tourists do not consider souvenirs that one can buy in any store as authentic. - Processing: authentic souvenirs need to be handmade and produced using traditional materials (excluding plastics). - Cultural and historical integrity: shapes and designs should be original. The objects should not be produced elsewhere. - Aesthetics, functionality and usage: authentic is what is beautiful or functional. - Craftsmen and materials: artisans must be indigenous and working with local materials. An authentic piece of art/object must be processed as in the past, but the appearance can be very modern. - Shopping experience and authenticity: some tourists think it is important to watch the artisans at work, others want certificates of authenticity or like reading dedicated literature.

The research also showed that the tourists twho had travelled more, tolerated unauthentic souvenirs less 326. This result raises the question whether one can talk about a tourist career in souvenir purchase patterns.

324 cited in Littrell M. A., Anderson L. F., Brown P. J., 1993, p. 199. 325 Ibidem, pp 204-207. 326 Ibidem, p. 211 154

According to Kim and Littrell327, the attitude of tourists to the local culture of the place being visited influences the perception of authenticity, and the motivations of souvenir buying. The researchers identify two attitudes:

- World mindedness: "a frame of reference, or value orientation, favoring a world view of the problems of humanity, with mankind, rather than the nationals of a particular country, as the primary reference group."328 The cultural knowledge of tourists enables them to have a more objective evaluation of the quality of products, in spite of their national origin. - Ethnocentrism: represents the belief about what it is morally suitable to buy abroad. Ethnocentric tourists could see the sale of foreign souvenirs to be wrong because it could hurt the local economy, or because it represents an unpatriotic behavior. Therefore, foreign products might be perceived as less valuable.

Frequent tourist experiences influence what is bought as a souvenir: according to the results of this study a greater knowledge has a cultural influence on the scheme of souvenirs purchase patterns. Travellers who had visited a country several times, and had collected a prior knowledge of the arts and culture, seldom bought "symbolic markers" and ethnic products. Probably, since these products can be identified so strongly with the place, tourists had already bought them during a first visit. Further contacts with the place have changed the idea of authentic and continued exhibition of the same products had a negative effect on their desirability.329 As already mentioned, in Lanzarote one can find almost all those kinds of souvenirs that can be found in any other tourist location, but also some typical products, and in particular: the wine produced in the area of La Geria, Aloe Vera products

327Kim Soyoung, Littrell Mary Ann, Souvenir buying Intentions for self versus others. In: Annals of Tourism Research, 28/3, 2001, p. 641.

328 Sampson, Smith, cited in Ibidem. 329 See Kim, Littrell, 2001, pp. 649-653. 155

(especially cosmetics, but also beverages and medicines), marmalades and jams made out of local fruits and vegetables (tomato, banana, prickly pear, cactus, etc.), spices (mojo verde or mojo rojo, a mix of coriander and other spices which constitutes one of the main ingredients of the Lanzarote cuisine), gofio (a flour made of toasted grains which can be used to make soups, stews, desserts, ice cream, sauces, and more), palm liquor (typical of the area of Haría), fabrics coloured with cochineal extract and jewels made with olivine, a semi precious stone typical of volcanic areas, or with volcanic stones. Some of these products are not solely typical of Lanzarote, but also of all the Canary Islands, i.e. gofio, marmalades and mojo. Indeed it is possible to buy all the above mentioned products almost everywhere in supermarkets, souvenir shops and general drug stores. Two products which are strongly linked with their geographical origin are the wines of La Geria and the palm liquor of Haría, which are typically for sale only where they are produced. Bus tours and organized excursions, nevertheless, usually stop near these factories or stands to allow the tourists to have a free taste and perhaps buy something. The fact that these products are only available in certain places – in the case of Haría also quite difficult to reach and off the beaten track – adds an exclusive character to the purchase of an out of the ordinary product. It is also interesting to note that although European regulations about carrying liquids in hand luggages on planes is strictly observed at the airport of Lanzarote, that does not apply to the transport of bottles of wine in the cabin, which is usually allowed with no problem. Two other facts are worth mentioning. First, the major tourist attractions such as the artworks of Manrique all have souvenir shops which are rather different from the others. They usually sell artifacts that portray the Manrique trademark symbols, reproductions of his works, books published by the Fundación César Manrique, but also common objects like mugs, magnets, necklaces, key rings, etc. with the logo of the tourist centre that one is visiting. Although such souvenirs are usually more relevant than those available in other souvenir shops and stands, the question whether they are to be considered authentic or not is hard to answer.

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Probably, when talking about souvenirs, a further distinction should be made between the concept of authenticity and that of being “representative” of a certain place. A print or reproduction of a painting by Manrique can hardly be considered as an authentic object, but nevertheless it is representative of Lanzarote and no other place. Not only does it convey as much significance as the real artwork, but it is also immediately recognizable and it conveys a statement about its origin. The link between Lanzarote and Manrique, both as a person and as an artist, is so close that the concept of authenticity may need a new definition through the negotiation of the identities at play. Second, it is evident that in recent years there has been a trivialization of the relationship between souvenirs and their origin. In Milan - Italy, for example, it is not unusual to find Venetian masks for sale at souvenir stands, though the two cities are about a three hours’ drive away from each other. This detail could depend on the fact that there has been a “flattening” of travel destinations, which result in their being more or less interchangeable within the same cultural framework. The real problem arises when souvenirs from totally different cultures or continents are for sale side by side. In Lanzarote each Sunday morning a market is held in the city of Teguise. It is a very popular tourist attraction, to the extent that in the high season it is very difficult to find a place on public buses going to Teguise, and people can wait even for hours before their turn comes to get on the next coach comes. Now, the market is advertised as a place where tourists can get to know the traditional products of the Island better as well as other goods:

In den denkmalgeschützten Straßen von Teguise findet jeden Sonntag ein großes Verkaufsfest statt. Kunsthandwerker, Bauern und Ramschverkäufer stellen ihre Ware aus. Senegalesen bieten Holzmasken und Skulpturen, andalusische Zigeunerinnen Seidenkrawatten und Dessous. Am Nachbarstand wird Keramik angepriesen. Auch Kulinarisches kommt nicht zu kurz: Bauern bringen Wein und Ziegenkäse, dazu Eingemachtes wie Tomaten und Bananenmarmelade.330

330 Merian Live!, Lanzarote, Travel House Media GmbH, München, 2011, p. 85 157

At a closer look the impression is actually more that of a pastiche. At this market not only is it possible to find food stands from all over Europe, but also handicrafts and souvenirs from the most varied places, such as Italy, the Andes, Australia, Russia, etc. See the pictures below.

Picture 26 Murano Glass souvenirs for sale at the Teguise Market. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

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Picture 27 African Masks for sale at the Teguise Market. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 28 Maori souvenirs for sale at the Teguise Market. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

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8.3 Re-thinking authenticity

The problem of conceptualizing “authenticity” is fundamental to anthropological research on tourism. We have already seen how, in the study of souvenirs, it is quite difficult to define what is authentic and what is not, if it is not to some extent a sterile exercise, because one could maintain that authenticity is in the eye of the beholder as well as the product of a negotiating process intrinsic to the tourist experience itself. John Urry stated, in regard to the problem of authenticity, that “tourist gazes come to constitute a closed self-perpetuating system of illusions”.331 According to him this is a problem which arises from the host-guest interaction. On one side the guests are to be considered as pilgrims who travel on a quest for authenticity in another “time” or “space”, on the other side this intrusion caused by fascination for what is other is considered to be unacceptable by the hosts, leading to the creation of so called “back stages” as a resistance strategy and to the organization of what MacCannell defined as “staged authenticity”.332 The first conceptualization of the notion of authenticity is to be dated back to the 18th Century when J.J. Winkelmann started using this term as opposed to “falsification” in the scope of Art Critics: authentic is what is “natural”, “true”, “unique” and “original”, in the sense of “in its pristine form”. Later on the term started being used when referring to objects that were displayed in museums in order to determine “whether objects of art are what they appear to be or are claimed to be, and therefore worth the price that is asked for them or… worth the admiration they are being given”.333 Consequently “this museum-linked usage has been extended by tourists, tourism marketers and scholars to products such as rituals, festivals, cuisine, housing, or dress”.334

331 Urry J., 1990, p. 7 332 see Ibidem, p. 9. A wider explanation of “resistance strategies” will be given in the next chapter of this work. 333 Trilling L., cited in Reisinger Yvette, Steiner Carol J., 2005, p. 67. 334 Ibidem. 160

Authenticity started being problematized in the study of tourism in the 1960s and one of the first authors to address the problem was D. Boorstin, whose view on the matter was effectively negative. According to him

tourists have “provincial expectations” and so prefer inauthentic, commodified products, imitations, images and so called “staged attractions”. […] tourists are not able to experience authentic foreign cultures because of the presence of their large numbers, […] generating pseudo-events and commodifying cultures.335

About a decade later D. MacCannell claimed a similar point of view, maintaining that tourists were searching for those authentic experiences that they felt were lacking in their everyday lives, though they are actually unable to fully witness the authenticity of other cultures because of the nature of the tourist transaction.336 Another interesting view on the matter was proposed by N. Wang, according to whom two kinds of authenticity can be identified: the authenticity of toured objects and the existential authenticity. The latter should be crucial in explaining the tourist experience because “people feel they themselves are much more authentic and more freely self-expressed than in everyday life, not because they find that tour objects are authentic but simply because they are engaging in nonordinary activities, free from the constraints of the daily life”.337 In their article Reisinger and Steiner give an account of the conceptions of authenticity grouped into three broader ideologies – modernism/realism, constructivism and postmodernism – to demonstrate that authenticity shouldn’t be considered as a paradigmatic concept due to its instability, and to the fact that there is no common understanding of its status.338 Modernists and realists – Boortsin and MacCannell among others – consider authenticity as a quality that can be objectively determined, that means that the

335 cited in Reisinger Y., Steiner C. J., 2005, p. 67. 336 Ibidem, pp-67-68. 337 Wang D., cited in Ibidem, p. 68. 338 Ibidem, p. 66 161

confirmation of authenticity must necessarily refer to an ideal real world to which a certain object, artefact, ritual, etc. must conform to be considered as such. This kind of authenticity is usually not considered objective if perceived by tourists, but it is dependent on the judgment of experts. Authenticity is an attribute of “the real thing” which cannot be experienced through a superficial contact with the matter, but can only be judged through a deep knowledge of it. 339 According to the authors this idea of authenticity is no longer accepted in academic circles, as well as

Boorstin’s and MacCannell’s confident judgments about real and pseudo events and front- and back-stage cultures [which] are based on modern beliefs about a certain immutability of it, about the locus of control over it, and about the context-free evolution of it which are not widely embraced as they once were.340

Opposed to this ideology, there is that of constructivism, which considers authenticity to be a socially constructed concept based on the observation of the “genuineness” of things, rather than on objective phenomena:

things appear to be authentic not because they are inherently so, but because their genuineness is constructed by beliefs, perspectives, or powers. Constructivist authenticity can be negotiable […]; it depends on context […], ideology, dreams, images, or expectations of the toured objects.341

According to V. Adams, culture and authenticity are socially constructed through the interactions between hosts and guests and since genuineness is in the eye of the beholder, the tourists’ experience is always authentic, though experts might be of a different opinion.342

339 Reisinger Y., Steiner C. J., 2005, pp 68-69. 340 Ibidem, p. 69. 341 Ibidem. 342 Ibidem, p. 70 162

E. Cohen, on the other hand maintains the existence of a true-false personal continuum of perception that individuals use to evaluate their experiences through various stages, from total authenticity to complete falsehood. In this sense, he agrees that the judgment of authenticity is constructed through interactions by different actors, often reiterated and potentially ever changing.343 Another important element stressed by Gradburn and taken up by Cohen is the so called “emergent authenticity”, that is “tourism products that were initially counted as artificial and obviously constructed […] eventually get incorporated into local culture and perceived as such. They become authentic with the passage of time.”344 One can say that also constructivists take into account the supposed naïveté of tourists stressed by the modernists, but within a different approach:

Authenticity is a projection of tourists’ own beliefs, expectations, preferences, stereotyped images, and consciousness onto toured objects. It is not based on any real assessment of natives but is projected from Western consciousness. What is promoted to tourists becomes authentic, while what is not promoted is assumed to be not authentic and not worth seeing. […] constructed authenticity is always relative and depends on a context, ideology, and time.345

A totally different approach is that of postmodernism, according to which “it is irrelevant whether something is real or false, original or copy, reality or symbol”346. Tourists seem to be little concerned with the origins and originality of their experience as long as they find it enjoyable. In this regard, Umberto Eco in his analysis about Disneyland, wax museums, western themed cities in the US and the such, came to the conclusion that this is the age of “hyper reality”, or the age of the absolute Fake, where the reproduction of a fantasy world, or of a world that no longer exists, could as

343 Reisinger Y., Steiner C. J., 2005, p. 70. 344 Ibidem. 345 Ibidem. 346 Ibidem, p. 72 163

well improve its features without putting the authenticity of the provided experience under question.347 Cohen believes that tourists actually are aware of their potentially harmful impact on other cultures and therefore are prone to accept some violations of authenticity, as long as their experience remains enjoyable and offers some sort of proximity to their expectations: “most tourists accept commercialized objects as authentic as long as they are convinced that these objects have traditional designs and have been made by members of an ethnic group“.348 The authors conclude their article with a provocative consideration, which though is particularly interesting in relation to this work and the following paragraphs:

If the postmodernists are right in claiming that tourists are less concerned about authenticity, then worrying about object authenticity is a waste of time. No one, including the tourist, cares about it anymore. If the constructivists are right in claiming that authenticity is socially constructed, then object authenticity as a phenomenon is so fluid, insubstantial, and beyond consensus that it is useless as a basis for future research and knowledge making. If the modernists are right in claiming that authenticity is an objective measurable quality of toured objects, then this should be easily discernible empirically, so it does not need to be studied and researched.349

Moreover, they suggest instead that Heidegger phenomenology should be used to define authenticity:

In contrast to constructivists and postmodernists, Heidegger as a phenomenologist advocated appreciating what appears (the phenomenon) as a gift of being, learning from it, using it, working with it, rather than obsessing over what is withheld (the postmodernist problem) or what is different each time (the constructivist problem). If Heidegger used a term like authentic to apply to things, whatever appears would be authentic. What is

347 see Eco Umberto, Travels in Hyper Reality: Essays, Harcourt Brace & Co, San Diego New York London, 1986 348 Reisinger Y., Steiner C. J., 2005, p. 72-73 349 Ibidem, p. 73 164

cannot be other than it is. What is given is always genuine, real, reliable and true, even if it’s incomplete.350

And therefore “if Heidegger is right, everything that tourists experience, what they see, touch, hear, smell, and taste, is real and authentic in itself. […] Tourists explore their own experiences and understand the world they visit in their own terms”.351 The current approach in tourism anthropology, when dealing with authenticity, seems then to be subjective rather than objective, to the extent that some authors speak of performative authenticity, that is a kind of authenticity that can be perceived and sensed through bodily experiences and sensations, even when they might have been staged.352

8.4 Branding places

It has been pointed out in the previous paragraph that MacCannell in his negative view of the tourist experience suggested that tourists are unable to witness authenticity when travelling, but rather have pseudo-experiences. In the 1970s he suggested the use of the term “staged authenticity” when referring to tourist attractions and the relative tourist experience. When it comes to tourism, authenticity is actually easy to “stage”. In current times we can recount a series of places which are not authentic per se ˗ since they are copies or reproductions of something that already exists elsewhere ˗ and though they attempt to provide a real experience to the visitor, for example the Caesar Palace or Venice hotels in Las Vegas. The mise en scene of such easily recognizable places is usually referred to as “disneyfication” and by that it is implied that staged authentic

350 Reisinger Y., Steiner C. J., 2005, p.78 351 Ibidem. P. 80 352 See Timm Knudsen Britta, Waade Anne Marit (editors), Re-Investing Authenticity, Tourism, Place and Emotions, Channel View Publications, Bristol, 2010, Chapter 1. 165

places and experiences, and the relative sets of significances that they convey, can be commoditized, merchandized and advertised as if it were the real thing. Such theoretical considerations acquire a special interest when applied to marketing and economics. In the era of globalization, where information about places and their peculiarities are potentially equally accessible by everyone, it has become vital for cities, regions and even entire countries to stress their uniqueness, and through that to find a well established place on the tourist market. According to Anne-Britt Gran turning places into brands has become an important trend in current marketing strategy353:

Place branding is based on a strategic approach to reputation management, stipulating that a change of image is an ongoing, holistic, interactive and wide-scale process, requiring much more than a quick change of logo or slogan. Thus, brand management for a city, country or a tourist destination does not merely consist of attaching new labels and creating messages, but consolidates the essential characteristics of the individual identity into a brand essence. As part of this holistic process, the creation of a brand sets social, economic and cultural processes in motion which can nuance, strengthen or correct the perception of others. In other words, place branding is both about communication and behavior.354

Branding a place means creating an image of that place that can be sold and that is recognizable by the potential buyer without further information. According to P. Kotler, who first theorized the marketing of places in the early 1990s355, the image of a place is “the sum of beliefs, ideas and impressions that people have of that place. Images

353 Timm Knudsen B., Waade A. M. (editors), 2010., p. 26 354 BalMet Promo Project, Place branding and place promotion efforts in the Baltic Sea region. A situation analysis, Final Report, October 2010, available from http://www.bdforum.org/cmsystem/wp- content/uploads/files/projects_baltmetpromo.pdf, accessed 21.01.2013 355 See Kotler Philips, Heider Donald H., Rein Irving (editors), Marketing Places, The Free Press, New York, 1993. 166

represent a simplification of a large number of associations and pieces of information connected with that place”.356 Such images, which could be also thought of as stereotypes, are somehow staged, although one cannot maintain that they have been necessarily invented, since they always need to pertain to the intrinsic characteristics of the place itself in order to be valid. Once more recalling Kotler, Gran points out that such images need to follow five criteria, that is they need to be: valid, believable, simple, appealing and distinctive.357 Place branding has the function of adding value to already existing features, to differentiate one place from another. Branding creates a place’s visual logo, which works the same way as with any other product or goods. Gran’s point is that “it does not matter that people (tourists) behave as if authenticity exists; that they accept that authenticity is staged if it looks real; and that they think about places as they think about other brands.”358 Place branding is made for selling, not to resemble the real thing, therefore a quest for authenticity is pointless. Building up a positive image of a place has to do with a marketing strategy called “reputation management”. According to Ooi and Stöber this strategy entails three tracks:

- employing of professional branding consultants (municipalities, tourist organizations, etc.) in order to create a positive brand image; - creating high profile icons (monuments, sporting events, etc.) which would be associated with the place: - branding the place through endorsements and recognitions from other authorities (i.e. UNESCO). 359

Arts, culture and heritage are often the easiest way to go when looking for elements that will make a certain place stand out from its competitors, that is because art

356 cited in Gran Anne-Britt, Staging Places as brands: Visiting Illusions, Images and Imaginations, in: Timm Knudsen Britta, Waade Anne Marit (ed.), 2010, p. 27. 357 Ibidem, pp 27-28. 358 Ibidem, p. 28 359 Ooi Can-Seng, Stöber Birgit, Authenticity and Place Branding: The Arts and Culture in Branding Berlin and Singapore, in Timm Knudsen Britta, Waade Anne Marit (ed.), 2010, p. 67. 167

and culture are normally local and place-specific. Moreover, the exhibitions of art and cultural products are often performative, that is they often allow the person (tourist) to interact with them and add an element of expectation and excitement to the visit. Another important element of place branding is that also the local people are also willing to identify their places with the arts, culture and heritage that has been branded, in some sort of an internal search for identity that is being aided by professionals.360 Such premises rise further concerns about the problem of authenticity. How can one be sure that what is being branded – and therefore advertised – is “real”? How can a definition of a place made up in order to attract tourists, investors, stakeholder represent the real essence of the place itself? Ooi and Stöber361 account three main reasons why a coincidence between the branded place and “real” places is hard to achieve. First, a brand cannot provide an honest representation of a place simply because it was created to sell. That means that positive aspects of a certain place will be highlighted, while the negative ones will be voluntarily left out or made little of. In addition to that “place brands are inevitably selectively framed to seduce different markets”.362 Second, branding campaigns may lead to commodification of a certain place or social feature, destroying the original spirit of the place itself. Once certain events, activities or places are advertised and become iconic their pristine nature risks being transformed into something different from what it once was. Third, a brand is normative, in other wods the image that it wants to convey can be a change factor on the actual place it is portraying, or it can restrain a certain form of art, cultural product, etc. to from evolving naturally, leading to the creation of a “surrogate” of what once was real. It is evident how, dealing with the development of tourism in Lanzarote, place branding has played an important role in today’s image of the Island.

360 Ooi Can-Seng, Stöber Birgit, in Timm Knudsen Britta, Waade Anne Marit (ed.), 2010, p. 68. 361 see Ibidem, pp.68-69 362 Ibidem, p. 69. 168

Chapters 2 and 4 took into account how tourism developed in Lanzarote and the role played by artist César Manrique from a socio-historical perspective. In the next chapter, it will be considered how Manrique’s works represented what can be considered as an attempt at place branding ante litteram, since this marketing strategy was first theorized in the early 1990s, that is around thirty years after Manrique started working on the Island.

8.4.1 The “Lanzarote-Brand” and the “Manrique trade-mark”

The figure of César Marinque may be considered as controversial. On the one hand there is no doubt that he had a great influence on the spirit of his times, not only in Lanzarote, but also all over Europe, as demonstrated by the many recognitions he received. On the other hand, his work has received various criticism, both concerning the way he operated and the fundamentals of his thinking. Fernando Gómez Aguilera, Director of the Fundación César Manrique, in his preface to the book La palabra encendida363, which offers a collection of Manrique’s most important writings and speeches, makes a clear analysis of this matter:

César Manrique took Lanzarote as his greatest artwork. […] His aesthetic programme underwent controversies, which have attracted critics from sectors that have accused him of trivializing and thematizing the Island, as well as domesticating and aestheticizing the landscape to the point that, following the logics of the leisure market, he created a sort of artificial place- object.364

363 Manrique César, La palabra encendida, Universidad de León, León, 2005. 364 “César Manrique assume Lanzarote como su gran obra. [...] Un programa estético el suyo sometido a controversia, que ha merecido críticas en sectores que le acusan de banalización, de tematizar la isla y de domesticar y estetizar el paisaje hasta configurar una suerte de lugar-objecto artificioso, en la lógica de la industria del mercado del ocio”. Original emphasis. (Translation: MGP) In Ibidem, pp 10-11. 169

The process which led to such considerations has been partly analyzed in the first part of this work. Nevertheless it is important to consider how his “programme” has influenced the current appearance of Lanzarote in the present day and how it contributed to creating a some sort of recognizable “brand”, making his name and his persona into a well established “trade-mark”. As I have already pointed out, the development of tourism in Lanzarote followed a conjunction of economic events, such as the progressive decrease of exports in goods produced on the Island – i.e. cochineal derivates – as well as an economic crisis which had led many inhabitants to emigrate elsewhere due to the lack of means of subsistence. In an attempt to generate a durable and sustainable industry on the Island, the government engaged in some first timid attempts at creating tourism facilities from the 1950s on, well aware that the only goods that were fairly abundant on Lanzarote were its climate, the out of the ordinary landscape and the beautiful beaches, which, however, offered a great potential for further expansion of the tourist market. Looking back at that period, in 1978 Manrique himself stated: “Only ten years ago, Lanzarote was nothing. It was considered the Cinderella of the Canary Islands. To many it was almost a shame to be born on this Island. Lanzarote was hardly even existing on the maps.”365 Following a process similar to the one already started by the artist Néstor in Gran Canaria366 and his tipismo, and having travelled the world and seen what the consequences of an indiscriminate development of tourism could cause, Manrique was aware of the need to develop a plan for the future creation of a tourist industry on the Island, a forerunner for his times:

from a key historical date, Lanzarote grouped, under the leadership of an exceptional Council President, a selected group of people who, following my enthusiasm, started working on the Island, converting this work, all already

365 “Lanzarote, hace solamente diez años, era nada. Se la consideraba Cenicienta de Canarias. Para muchos constituía casi una vergüenza el haber nacido en esta isla. Lanzarote apenas existía en el mapa”. (Translation: MGP) Manrique C., 2005, p. 40. 366 See paragraph 2.1 170

present in my mind, into an incredible and ongoing exercise for Lanzarote; a loving and enthusiastic effort, with an absolute faith in a successful outcome, results that made the Lanzarote people see the original personality of their own landscape.367

And moreover “the first slogan that we created was: “we don’t need to copy anyone”; “we must bring out the intrinsic character of the Island, so that others will come and copy us”. This was our main task, and once we realized it, time proved us right.”368 These excerpts point out three important elements: first and most evident, the awareness of having to do with a place with huge potential, not only in terms of expected tourist capacity, but also regarding its aesthetic qualities, which make it a one-of-a-kind place on earth: “we don’t need to copy anyone, they rather should come and copy us” is a recurrent slogan in Manrique’s “propaganda”. Second, the establishment of a plan, which in its purposes should emphasize the qualities of Lanzarote and at the same time should serve as a series of directions to preserve these qualities in the future. This plan proved to be original already in its earlier stages and was undertaken with great enthusiasm. A third point, less obvious, more subtle, is the intention of Manrique and his collaborators to show the Lanzarote people (and by extension the future tourists) “the original personality of their own landscape”. This last implication of Manrique’s discourse is in my opinion the most interesting, because it raises once again the question of what can be considered “orginal”, and therefore authentic, in Lanzarote. The artist seemed to have a clear view of what represented the authentic on the Island: its architecture, its colours, the materials

367 “A partir de una fecha clave e histórica, Lanzarote agrupó, bajo la batuta de un exceptional presidente de Cabildo, a un conjunto selecto de personas que, bajo mi entusiasmo, comenzamos a trabajar por la isla, convirtiéndose esta labor, ya todos mentalizados, en un ejercicio continuado e increíble por Lanzarote; esfuerzo entusiasta y amoroso, con el absoluto convencimiento y fe en unos resultados satisfactorios, resultados que hicieron ver a los lanzaroteños la original personalidad de su proprio paisaje”. (Translation: MGP) Manrique C., 2005, pp. 40-41. 368 “[…] el primer eslogan que pusimos en marcha fue: “no tememos que copiar a nadie”; “tenemos que sacar a relucir la personalidad intrínseca de la isla, para que nos vengan a copiar a nosotros”. Este fue nuestro principal cometido y, una vez realizado, el tiempo nos ha dado la razón.” (Translation: MGP) Ibidem, p. 40 171

used vs the introduction of new trends in the building and organization of spaces which had been imported from the continent in the later years. He collected pictures of what he considered to be the most representative elements of the Island’s humanized landscape in the book Lanzarote. Arquitectura inédita. In his own words, in this work

is made a recompilation of what is really interesting in this aspect [the architecture] of our Island, which is now facing a period of great danger, mostly due to the economic and tourist boom. Due to this fact, some anarchical building projects are about to begin, which don’t have the least aesthetic feeling and which are going to spoil the tourist future of the Island, actually they are already doing so.369

Manrique in a later writing explained that this “alternative way” was showed to him by the Island and its geology themselves: his credit was simply due to his having made an inventory of these peculiarities that architects, builders and farmers could use in the future as orientation for any new construction.370 He wanted to set up what he himself called “Utopia”: a space where arts, sustainability and crafts could be integrated and preserved against the somewhat irrational development of cities that he had witnessed in other countries. On the other hand, as Carlos Jiménez Martinez maintains

[the] authenticity canons imposed by Manrique in aspects such as vernacular architecture, fit, in some occasions, more with nostalgia and spectacles patterns imposed by tourism industry at a worldwide level, and less with the real contemporary needs for the inhabitants of those places. The results […] bring serial and filed built up houses, maintaining just a surface aesthetics, an empty wrapper, so typical of Postmodernism.371

369 “se hace una recompilación de lo verdaderamente interesante en este aspecto de nuestra isla, que se encuentra en un momento de gran peligro, debido sobre todo a su auge económico y turístico. Por esa causa, se están comenzando una serie de construcciones anárquicas, sin el menor sentido estético, que podrían estropear, y de hecho ya lo están estropeando, el porvenir turístico de la isla”. (Translation: MGP) Manrique C., 2005, pp. 25-26 370 Ibidem, p. 52. 371 Jiménez Martinez C., 2007, p.8. 172

Manrique’s choice operated by selecting some elements as original, unique and therefore authentic, instantly created a (perhaps involuntary) musealisation and crystallization of those same qualities that the artist wanted to preserve. That is, having first published a book where these features are elevated from vernacular to somehow worthy of consideration, and then having inserted these elements into the PIOT regulations on what can be built on the Island and how it can be projected, has in a way “frozen” Lanzarote in a certain moment in time. Architecture on the Island hasn’t evolved very much in the last 50 years and the feeling that the visitor gets while driving or walking through the small villages is exactly that of a staged authenticity. Everything looks maybe a bit too clean, a bit too tidy, a bit too much “all the same” to give an impression of spontaneity. For example, when questioned about this matter, an old man in Teguise admitted that “before Manrique” not all the buildings where white and other colours were used as well, though maybe less often, but now such a thing wouldn’t be possible372. This feeling is reinforced by the striking difference of the capital Arrecife with all its surroundings. The city isn’t obliged by the PIOT to follow the same regulations as other municipalities, therefore its appearance is incredibly different from that of the rest of the Island: relatively high buildings, traffic lights, groups of flats in just any colour, modern buildings with extensive use of glass, etc. It just resembles any other coastal city, and yet while it is in the middle of the Atlantic, it has a certain Mediterranean flavour. Although it is hard to maintain that the relatively chaotic look of Arrecife is more desirable than that of small old villages like Haría, it is also not possible to overlook the fact that the capital offers to the visitor a vibrant atmosphere which is otherwise lacking elsewhere.

372 personal communication, Teguise, 27.05.2012. 173

Picture 29 Three views of Arrecife. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

It is, however, worth mentioning that villages like Haría, Mancha Blanca, San Bartolomé and Yaiza perfectly portray that image of Lanzarote that has been built up through place-branding and that make Lanzarote a desirable travel destination. When looking at the picture below, for example, it is hard not to think of those descriptions that can be found in brochures and travel guides, such as “Ebenfalls typisch für Lanzarote sind die hübschen, kleinen und sauberen Orte mit ihren weiß getünchten Wohnhäusern

Picture 30 A view of the village of Haría. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

174

und den farbigen Fensterläden.”373 Another interesting example is that of the Marina Rubicón settlement, once a fishing community about 4 km from the bigger village of Playa Blanca, now completely renovated and turned into a marina fot tourists’ boats and yachts.

Picture 31 Views of Marina Rubicon. Pictures taken in May 2012. It is noticeable how, though in the middle of high tourist seasons, the streets are empty. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

373 NECKERMANN Katalog, Flugreisen Spanien, Portugal Sommer 2010, p. 192 175

In the surroundings of the Marina and its harbour it is possible to find mainly restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, some doctor/dentist practices, one supermarket and various designers’ and duty-free shops. Hotels and resorts are also situated nearby, but what strikes the attention is the almost total lack of housing facilities not dedicated to tourism. The result is a rather weird feeling: the streets are empty and quiet, many shops are for rent or just closed, just a few tourists occasionally passing by on the promenade – both by day and at night. Marina Rubicón looks just like one of those reproductions of Wild West ghost towns that can be found in theme parks. It was built following the directions given by Manrique, it portrays the original and traditional architecture, and for these same reasons it is missing its aim of being authentic: Marina Rubicón is not “alive”, it doesn’t have inhabitants, but only workers, which come and go like cinema extras. In its aesthetic perfection it is comparable to a non-place.

Picture 32 A restaurant in Marina Rubicón. The building features a typical Lanzarote oven, which in this case only has a decorative function, though in the past it used to be present in every farmers’ house. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi. 176

With the intent of giving an example of what an authentic Lanzarote house looked like before the advent of tourism, Manrique turned an old and crumbling farmers’ house into a museum, namely the Casa/Museo El Campesino. In the words of Manrique:

In front of our eyes we have an infinity of wonderful and completely functional examples of typical architecture, where the farmers of Lanzarote during many years learnt little by little, and due to a series of climatic necessities, to give and adequate shape to their houses, obtaining in this wise way a first class architecture.374

Picture 33 Views of the Casa/Monumento El Campesino. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

374 “Delante de las narices tenemos infinidad de ejemplos maravillosos y completamente functional de arquitectura típica, en donde los campesinos de Lanzarote durante muchos años aprendieron poco a poco, y por una serie de necesidades climatológicas, a darle forma adecuada a sus casas, logrando de esta sabia manera una arquitectura de primera categoría.” (Translation: MGP) Manrique C, 2005, p. 26. 177

This house is actually composed of a conglomerate of buildings which used to have different functions. It was typical in Lanzarote for extended farmers families to live in self-sufficient compounds, so in each house a series of facilities, i.e. wells, bread ovens and mills, were present. The building, however, is not meant to stand for a “real” house, but once again it represents a collection of popular features, which Manrique had considered to be the most characteristic: balconies, doors, windows, chimneys, furniture, etc. The house is not inhabited, since it was restored to pay homage to the strength and hard work of farmers and was meant as a museum, therefore a further section built after Manrique’s death now shows different aspects of the old Lanzarote way of life through various exhibitions.375 Although it was meant to portray the authentic look of a farmers’ house, it is possible to spot overall the distinctive elements of Manrique’s aesthetic sense, especially in the use of materials and in the general spatial organization. This is a further demonstration that it is virtually impossible to distinguish, at a present state, where the boundaries of Manrique’s intervention are. It is also difficult to understand whether it was Manrique taking inspiration from Lanzarote, or today’s Lanzarote being inspired by Manrique:

Art is an anthropological matter and in Lanzarote we have worked at a level of absolute devotion, in an intimate contact with its geology, understanding its weft, its volcanological body, achieving the miracle of the birth of a new aesthetic concept, expanding the frontiers of art, integrating it in all its facets in a totalizing symbiosis that can be defined as LIFE-MAN-ART.376

This symbiosis is a core element of Manrique’s work and ideology. As already said, he tried to highlight and exalt the qualities of what Nature had achieved through the volcanic eruptions. In this sense, his idea was to present the outlook and culture of the

375 see http://www.fcmanrique.org/obraDetalle.php?idObra=57&col=4, accessed 24.01.2013 376 “El arte es una cuestión antropológica, y en Lanzarote hemos trabajado a un nivel de entrega absoluta, en contacto íntimo con su geología, entendiendo su trama, su organismo vulcanológico, logrando el milagro del nacimiento de un nuevo concepto estético, ampliando las fronteras del arte, integrándolo en todas sus facetas en una simbiosis totalizadora que se define come ARTE-HOMBRE-VIDA.” (Translation: MGP) Manrique C., 2005, p. 64. 178

Island of Lanzarote as the product of the actions of Nature, adapting them to the tourist gaze. This aspect of Manrique’s aesthetic programme is usually referred to as “Art- Nature/Nature-Art”377 and with this definition he meant a kind of art which is completely integrated with the natural environment in order to construct a place where people can enjoy their communion with nature in a ludic space, while with didactic aims. In his own words:

Meditating, observing and studying, I came to the conclusion that I could enrich the diffusion of art in a new way, in an wider and more didactic sense, attempting to select natural places introduce painting, sculpture, gardening, etc. in a big space, accomplishing something - since I have proved the educational success for the many visitors of these suggestive places - that I have called “symbiosis Art-Nature/Nature-Art”.378

This educational aim is evident in many of his works, among them all it is surely worth mentioning the Jameos del Agua, where with a wise use of space, light and colours he tried to show what nature and the volcanic forces had created. Moreover, the educational aim has been further stressed by the institution of a museum of volcanology called Casa de los Volcanes379 in the immediate adjacency of the actual artwork, so as to offer to the visitor a better and deeper understanding of the volcanic phenomenon that he has just witnessed through installations that require the participation of the visitor. The conversion of daily life objects into artworks, and its opposite, is a fundamental element of Pop Art, which Manrique got to know better during his stay in New York and thanks to his acquaintance with Andy Warhol. As a consequence of his proximity to this form of art Manrique maintained the necessity of the fruition of art in

377 in Spanish “Arte-Naturaleza/Naturaleza-Arte”. 378 “Meditando, observando,tudiando, lleguéa la conclusión de que podía enriquecer de una nueva manera la difusión del arte en un sentido más amplio y didáctico, tratando de seleccionar lugares naturales para introducir en un gran espacio la pintura, la escultura, la jardinería, etc., logrando algo, en donde he comprobado el éxito educativo de los numerosos visitantes de estos lugares sugestivos, y que he llamado: “simbiosis Arte-Naturaleza/Naturaleza-Arte.” (Translation: MGP) C. Manrique, cited in Zamora Cabrera Antonio, La artealización de Lanzarote, Tesina del Master de Arquitectura del Paisaje, Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya, 2009, p. 44. 379 “House of the Volcanoes” (Translation: MGP) 179

situations and places which were totally different from the canonical museums and that would require the visitor to be pro-active rather than just contemplative. The figure of Manrique is, then, hard to define unambiguously and he himself was against being labelled in any way: “Thinking of being classified makes me depressed. I wish to be freed from this poor feeling, so that I can do whatever I believe to be more positive, didactic and cultural.”380 Being architect, painter, sculptor, gardener, artisan and in some way a visionary, in the end he turned Lanzarote into what he called an obra total, a total artwork, that is the integrated product of different forms of art381, but also to the extent that due to its particular geological conformation which influenced every aspect of the culture, each feature of the Island could virtually be perceived as a “natural work of art”, thanks to its intrinsic aesthetic qualities. Nevertheless, as Javier Durán maintains, Manrique wasn’t the only one who had the authority to decide the fate of the rising tourist industry, but he had a more important faculty: “the assumption of authorship and, as a consequence of that, the fusion of the progress of the Island with a name and the use of this name to promote this model. Without this overlap nothing in Lanzarote would have been the same”382 because the following scenario wouldn’t exist:

- the authorship as happiness: the artist represents the government of the Island and his fame reaffirms the validity of the project. The economic situation in Lanzarote gets better and the progress is seen positively. - the authorship as focus: Manrique is himself a means of attraction for the Island, due to his eccentricity and total communion with the environment. - the authorship as legacy: regards the expectations about the future of the Island and the actions that need to be undertaken to create a sense of

380 “Me deprime el pensar que me cataloguen. Quiero estar fuera de ese pobre sentimiento, para hacer lo que creo más positivo, didáctico y cultural.” (Translation: MGP) Manrique C., 2005, p. 100. 381 Zamora Cabrera A., 2009, p. 58-59. 382 “La asunción de la autoría y, como consecuencia de ello, la fusión del progreso insular con un nombre y la utilisación del nombre para promover el modelo. Sin este solapamiento nada en Lanzarote hubiese sido igual”. (Translation: MGP) Durán Javier, La marca Manrique, in de Santa Ana (ed.), 2004, p. 115. 180

community in the society: The Fundación César Manrique is created in order to provide the necessary support for the future.383

The kind of tourism which has developed in Lanzarote, and that we have already analyzed in previous chapters, is the consequence of the attention that Manrique dedicated to its image and to its environment, though as already pointed out, he wasn’t the only person responsible for the outcomes of this ambitious project. Among others there should be mentioned the then president of the Cabildo, and his collaborators and advisors, such as Jesús Soto and Eduardo Cáceres. According to M. A. Perdomo, tourism expanded mainly thanks to the aesthetic image that was created for it, to the extent that Lanzarote started becoming popular for the great care that had been put into adapting the tourist infrastructures to the architectonic conditions and to its environment.384 The work of Manrique is particularly appreciable because he managed to substitute the lack of regulations in the question of building and soil usage with an aesthetic plan that avoided the realization of those pastiches neocanarios, which are so deprecative on other islands, as well as the unregulated expansion of tourist infrastructures, thus preserving the original character of Lanzarote. Perdomo asks himself whether this “tourist aesthetic” can be considered as authentic and his point of view on the matter is definitely negative:

much of the private sector has found a shield in the argument of plasticity in order to perform the game of speculation and town planning growth. The architectural aesthetic of tourism would then be the “tourist mask” or the “exterior façade” of the big business of tourism, which focuses on land speculation and the sale of plots.385

383 Durán Javier, in de Santa Ana (ed.), 2004, pp 115-116. 384 Perdomo Mario Alberto, “El modelo de desarrollo turistico en la isla de Lanzarote: ¿Hacia una estética del turismo?”, I Jornada de Historia de Fuerteventura y Lanzarote, Tomo 1, Cabildo Insular de Fuerteventura y cabildo Insular de Lanzarote, Puerto del Rosario, p. 442. 385 “Buena parte de la iniziativa privada se ha escudado en el argumento plástico para llevar a cabo el juego de la especulación y del crecimiento urbanístico. La estética arquitectónica sería la “mascara turistica” o la “fachada xterior” del gran negocio del turismo, que se centra en las parcelas de la especulación de suelo y en su venta”. (Translation: MGP) Ibidem, pp. 442-443. 181

It is then clear how the conflict between identity, authenticity and thematisation is focal in an analysis of the tourist impact in Lanzarote. In particular in this case “identity” refers to a series of relations that are established with the territory, while “thematisation” refers to a fictional and staged way of creating a relationship with the environment. In between is the once more fundamental concept of “authenticity”, the perception of which influences the understanding of the other two elements.

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9. Resistance Strategies

9.1 Back regions vs front regions

It has already been mentioned in the previous paragraphs that MacCannell considered the “tourists’ spaces” as being organized around staged authenticity. The term “staged” actually recalls the theory elaborated by E. Goffmann in his The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, who defined the daily life of individuals using the metaphor of a stage play, as being constructed on two levels: the front stage, where social roles are played, and the back stage, where the individual is able to express his true self.386 As Silvia Barberani maintains, this perspective was first taken up by MacCannell and then by J. Boissevain, who talking about tourist interactions with hosts ‒ defined the existence of two different areas, the front regions, where the encounter between hosts and guests takes place, and the back regions, where the hosts can conduct their regular lives away from the tourist gaze.387 As Urry summarizes

the gaze of the tourist will involve an obvious intrusion into people’s lives, which would be generally unacceptable. So the people being observed and local tourist entrepreneurs gradually come to construct backstages in a contrived and artificial manner. […] The development of the constructed tourist attraction results from how those who are subject to the tourist gaze respond, both to protect themselves from intrusion into their lives backstage

386 see Goffman Erving, La vita quotidiana come rappresentazione, Il Mulino, Bologna 1992. 387 Barberani S., 2005, p. 90. 183

and to take advantage of the opportunities it presents for profitable investment.388

The contrast between front regions and back regions can be considered endemic to the tourist transaction389 and is the cause of a whole series of strategies that hosts can undertake with tourists. On the one hand the way in which tourism is conceived – in the sense of getting to know other cultures better – is itself a means of “intrusion” into other people’s lives, despite the fact that the local people might not be ready or willing to let tourists enter their private social sphere. On the other hand, the chance of focalizing the tourists’ gaze on some particular attractions, gives the residents a way to keep their privacy under control. This aspect is definitely relevant for the Lanzarote inhabitants. Idoya Cabrera for example, in relation to the perception that the people of Lanzarote have about the numbers of tourists, stated:

you are living here but you are totally surrounded by tourists and for example in Gran Canaria and Tenerife the stay to the beaches and some days they go to the Teide and then go down to the beaches, but here in Lanzarote we have Jameos del Agua, Montanas del Fuego, Castillo… a lot of points of interests and also the Island is very easy to drive over there and the landscape is very interesting and for this reason tourists are spread over the Island and the perception is different from the society.390

The impression of being surrounded by tourists is very understandable when we consider that a population of little more than 140.000 inhabitants hosts two or three million tourists per year391, and “in ONU they said in order to do a balanced society it’s good 10 local people for 1 tourist and here the [average] relationship is 2:1”.392

388 Urry J., 1990, p. 9. 389 Barberani S., 2006, p.90 390 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 391 see paragraph 2.3. 392 Idoya Cabreara Delgado, 12.09.2011 184

The existence of front/back regions, and the perceived necessity of protecting the latter from the tourists, usually has two kinds of consequences, which are closely interdependent. The first one is that the hosts are often unable to negotiate a definition of themselves, of their culture and of other elements of their society which are relevant to tourism, because they have already been selected, re-signified and packaged by tourism specialists – often not even autochthonous – through that place-branding process described earlier in the work. We could also say that tourists bring their own gaze from home with the expectation to see it confirmed by direct experience, and this process limits the chances that local inhabitants have to provide an authentic experience for their guests, being prompted to conform to this external definition of themselves, rather than trying to subvert it.393 The second consequence, unlikelythe one just pictured, is that the commodification of the local people’s culture can lead to a rediscovery of cultural elements or even to new significances, in the sense that the hosts could evaluate aspects of their own culture differently, thanks, or due, to the tourist gaze. As an example, when questioned about the influences of the publishing of Lanzarote. Arquitectura inedita by Manrique, I. Cabrera stated that “people from Lanzarote started to show pride in their architecture, but not before, because they thought that Lanzarote was the Cinderella of the Canary Islands, above all because there is no water.”394 The second aspect is particularly interesting for this case study. As has already been pointed out, the tourist image of Lanzarote was created mainly thanks to the work of Manrique, who first started awakening in the people an awareness of living on an Island with huge tourist – and aesthetic – potential, which had to be protected in order not to be irreversibly spoilt. The consequent self-awareness of the Lanzarote inhabitants has led through the years to many manifestations to express their right to live in an eco- sustainable environment that would not ruin the tourism, the only means of subsistence available on the Island. These manifestations may represent one of the most important legacies that Manrique left to his people, in the sense that as well as being a multi-

393 See Barberani S., 2006, p. 83. 394 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 185

faceted artist, he was also a public persona who had acquired great credibility thanks to his many speeches, which he held both publicly and through the media. During one of the many “round tables” organized by the Fundación César Manrique in 2012 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his death, Techi Acosta told an anecdote that exemplified the good relationship between the artist and the media “remembering that Manrique used to enter Radio Lanzarote and tell the director, Augustín Acosta: «Augustín, I’m going to talk!»”.395 Manrique often stood in front line for the defense of Lanzarote, and the population was always at his side.

9.2 Protests and demonstrations

On 18th May 2012, during one of the round tables organized by the FCM, Carlos Matallana, himself an artist born in Lanzarote, stated that already in the 1960s and 1970s “César was the devil, because he created controversy and society was very conservative while he was very modern.”396 Things were about to change though, and in the 1980s, following the progressive development of tourism and its consequent intrusion in the local peoples’ lives, an inversion of trend occurred and the population started taking the publicity of Manrique more seriously, and in many cases to support him. In the last years of his life Manrique almost totally abandoned working as an artist and decided to dedicate all his time to social and environmental activism, because he saw the urge to stop a process that had initiated as a way to free Lanzarote from poverty and lack of infrastructures, but was in fact leading to other kinds of poverty, i.e. cultural and environmental.

395 “[…] recordando que Manrique entraba en Radio Lanzarote y le decía a su director, Augustín Acosta: «Augustín, voy a hablar»”. (Translation: MGP) available from http://www.fcmanrique.org/nota.php?idNoticia=281, accessed 20.01.2013 396 “César era el diablo” porque creaba polémica y la sociedad era muy conservadora mientras que él era muy moderno.” (Translation: MGP) available from http://www.fcmanrique.org/nota.php?idNoticia=262, accessed 08.02.2013 186

The next paragraphs take into account some of the most important moments of Manrique’s work for the conservation of Lanzarote, analyzing some of his writings and protests that he organized or took part in.

9.2.1 “Momento de parar” (Time to stop) 1985

Attaining utopia is tantamount to achieving the impossible. Utopia can become a reality when the soul asserts itself, straining with the enthusiasm of a record- breaking leap to reach the signal achievement of creation. The fulfillment that comes with the ability to reach harmony of union, attainable only with the power of intuitive instinct that not even man, and the establishment of apparent logic, can control, is what constitutes the full satisfaction deriving from the capacity to create.

It was fate that prophesied and willed the working of an utopian miracle on the Island of Lanzarote.

For the first time in their history, the people of Lanzarote have acquired a general feeling for aesthetic values through the exemplary works on the Island. The singular nature of such works derives from a new aesthetic sense in response to a new concept of Art with a profoundly educational significance. With the anthropological understanding that comes with a general vision, they have fully grasped the need to care for the beauty of their architecture and their surroundings.

At another level, the people of Lanzarote have discovered an energy they had never before dared to use: the power of self determination and solidarity, as they have begun to awaken to the destruction of their harmony, their environment and identity.

Unbelievably, that miraculous and harmonious unity, the conscious implementation of the new concept of Nature-Art on Lanzarote, has co-existed

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with an absolute lack of understanding, of any forward-looking vision, of how brilliant the Island’s future could have been. Had we only understood, we could have proudly set an example for the whole world from a perspective of enduring wealth, instead of tolerating the suicide we are instigating with our clumsy and unlimited selfishness.

The real drama in all this, after all the effort deployed and work done to raise our volcanology to the highest summits, with the overwhelming enthusiasm that springs from a love for and an understanding of its enormous hidden and non categorized beauty, is the emergence of a series of “interests” whose sole purpose is to exploit the prestige earned by our people, with complete disregard for the Island’s ruin and the extermination, in a few short years, of a legacy of hundreds of millennia of volcanological and geological evolution.

The question is: Who is responsible?

We believe that any government is under the obligation to protect the space that serves as the medium for life, education, culture, wealth and, above all, the “endurance of that wealth”.

And yet all we hear are excuses, impediments, references to previous authorizations or outdated laws and an endless list of apparent obstacles that seem impossible to remedy, to justify the failure to halt the barbarity that is inexorably closing in on us.

There is a remedy for everything. But it takes enthusiasm, having the truth on one’s side and the courage and honesty of conviction. Everyone knows that the only real obstacle is all about buying and selling.

May we still hope? Can we save what we still have left? Is it a matter of intelligent vision?

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I truly believe that it could hardly be more obvious, blatant and elementary that the time has definitely come to STOP.397

In this text it is possible to indentify four points which are central to the discourse of Manrique about the major problems that were arising in Lanzarote already in the 1980s. First, he stresses the already-mentioned awakening in the inhabitants of a new feeling for aesthetics on the Island, but also in tourism entrepreneurs and council authorities, as a consequence of the emphasis that Manrique himself put on the peculiarities of the landscape. Second, as a consequence of the first point, the power of self-determination and solidarity that originated from the awareness that what had been built and created through the years could be destroyed due to the actions of people who were only interested in economic benefits. Third, the lack of understanding of the problems relevant to the conservation of the environment by those people who were actually supposed to be responsible for protecting it, with the consequence that the brilliant future that Manrique had expected for the Island might very well not become reality. Fourth, the artist asks who was responsible for the situation, and concludes that it had been the local government, the authorities, but also the economic situation, which led everyone to think only of profits and not about the conservation of the environment, the only means of subsistence on the Island. Finally, Manrique concludes by saying he hoped for a slowdown, if not for a total stop of the exploitation of the resources. Years later, in 1998, the FCM published the Manifiesto por la sostenibilidad de Lanzarote, a document that reflects the position of the Fundation and that served as a basis for the awareness campaigns that were been organized in 1999398, when 15,000 leaflets were distributed to the population by volunteers, together with 10,000 car

397 English translation provided by the Fundación César Manrique. Original text to be found at http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/menu/Momento%20de%20parar.pdf, accessed 08.02.2013(1) 398 http://www.fcmanrique.org/actiDetalle.php?idActividad=54, 11.02.2013 189

stickers that read “momento de parar”399. The document was also made public through the media, both local and regional. One year later, in 2000, volunteers distributed copies of the whole Momento de parar text, plus pins, keychains and stickers which referred to the campaign, bearing the slogan “¡Parar ya!” (“stop now!”).400

Picture 34 Volunteers working for the ¡Para ya!” Campaign. Source: Internet.

In the words of Idoya Cabrera

FCM was very angry with this development because despite these thoughts and these beliefs Lanzarote was exploited… with roads and very big infrastructures like sports […] and the golf camp. It was an idea that they wanted to build eight golf fields in the south of the Island. Eight! Because they said one golf field is not benefit, you have more benefit in an Island if you have different golf fields and they wanted to put eight. People and the society from Lanzarote in the year 2000 go out in the streets and protest and defend Lanzarote. And they thought of Cesar Manrique.401

399 “time to stop”. (Translation: MGP) 400 Ibidem. 401 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, Interview, 12.09.2011 190

9.2.2 “Lanzarote se està muriendo” (Lanzarote is dying) 1986

Lanzarote se está muriendo is a relatively long text by Manrique, written in the form of a letter to the Island of Lanzarote. Here I present only a few excerpts from the whole text, to give an account of the most salient themes that Manrique dealt with.

Do you know Lanzarote what your death could mean? If you die, it will be forever, it being impossible to recover your life.

The paradox of the recent history of our beloved Island, is worthy of a careful study as an example of primitive and selfish barbarism.

The huge success of Lanzarote, is clear and transparent, thanks to the stylistic level and transparency of what has been done. Given this obvious fact of wealth, it would be logical and elemental to follow the same line and philosophy, to continue enriching life on the Island, its cultural progression and social well being, reaching a high level LIFE-CULTURE. Suddenly, without prior notice, in a matter of two months, we find ourselves facing the prospect of an overflowing destructive selfishness threatening the Island, by stupid and brutal speculators [...].

We, those born in your land, know about your magic, your wisdom, your important volcanic features, your revolutionary aesthetics; we've struggled to save you from the historical oblivion and poverty that you always suffered, today we begin to tremble with fear and watch how they destroy and overcrowd you, we realize the impotence of our complaints and cries for help, before the hysterical greed of speculators and lack of decision by the authorities who allow and sometimes encourage the irreversible destruction of an Island that could be one of the most prestigious and beautiful of this planet. [...] Lanzarote is a small Island, with a limited space and sized to sustain a certain number people. If we really want to have an Island with a vital space for its harmonious development, intelligent planning should urgently stop the

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irrationality of the chaotic growth, which is unsupported by legal rules and that, in any civilized and educated country, would seem to be truly criminal.

Now, on this date, Lanzarote is reaching a peak, overwhelmed by the number of cars and tourists, crossing the threshold of concern and protest from many visitors who are disappointed by an image that no longer corresponds to what they are shown in their home countries. [...] The first atrocities began to be committed in the municipality of Tías; with the most absolute lack of vision for the future, its most pristine coastline the biggest architectural agglomeration of the Island, with a horrible competitiveness of plastic standardized signs. The area also lacks a minimum of free spaces for squares or parks, so that this whole so-called tourist ensemble falls into competition with the vulgarity of the rest of the urban horrors committed along the Spanish Mediterranean coast during the Franco era. [...] The reigning insensitivity coupled with the complete lack of enthusiasm are annihilating the love I used to have. The only valid thing for these perpetrators is success in selling in great quantities and in gaining millions, regardless of everything that was done at the beginning. It is outrageous that this clumsy simplicity in sales is based on all the great attractions we have created in Lanzarote, since, in the absence of these, they would not sell a thing. This is truly demoralizing, it is like throwing stones at your own window.

The ecological deterioration is increasing with the lapilli being extracted from some volcanoes which should be untouchable. The volcanoes are being injured most heavily by bulldozers which are turning them into landfills, damaging them irretrievely; each day the number of constructions without limitation grows chaotically, the deterioration of open spaces increases. People don’t come to Lanzarote to see traffic lights or traffic jams (which already today no longer fit into Arrecife), or to stay in cheap, sloppy apartments, as this is not attractive for anyone. Lanzarote is fast becoming a tourist suburb.

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What we cannot understand, given the experience accumulated by the great urbanization failures along the coast of the Mediterranean, is why the authorities should continue tolerating all this destruction that will be irreversible in the future.

I have repeated ad nauseam that care must be taken, having quickly seen the approach of the selfishness of some idiots who always failed to see the enormous potential of an Island that could have been and may still be the most profitable and original in the world. The solution lies in the hands of the Autonomous Government itself, and that is its great responsibility, if they don’t want to be reduced to pulling their hair when it is too late.

The intelligent attitude of the Lanzarote inhabitants, working together with the government, would be to reject and denounce those who, taking advantage of the prestige and international renown attained by the Island, now seek to lead us into the sad and repetitive vulgarity that prevails in most tourist attractions around the world. We managed to see the "Utopia", live in an area of a volcanic Atlantis unique in the world. Do not let the desire for profit and the evil intentions of speculators make our environment a standard and overcrowded hell, that will ruin our bright future. [...] We hope that through the efforts of the authorities and the inhabitants of the Canaries of good will, we can guarantee the survival of the unique Island of Lanzarote, and the remaining Canary Islands.

On this date I am writing because I want to record my accusation before the urban chaos and the architectural atrocities being committed; I want to make clear my attitude and behaviour regarding the accomplishments of the people of Lanzarote and everything I have created on the Island, so no one can blame me of indolence.402

As it can be seen, this text is definitely more negative and polemical about the course of events taking place in Lanzarote than the previous one. While in Momento de

402 Translation: MGP. Original text to be found on the Fundación César Manrique website, available from http://www.fcmanrique.org/recursos/menu/lanzarotemuriendo.pdf, accessed 27.02.2013 193

parar Manrique still sounded hopeful about the future, though well aware of the arising problems in Lanzarote se està muriendo, written just a year later, he seems to be much less positive. Manrique illustrates four points which are relevant to this research. First, he is aware that the success of the tourist model he created for Lanzarote is being recognized both in Spain and abroad. This success, however, is endangered by the speculators who have no respect for the culture, architecture and environment of the Island, and therefore will be the cause of the failure of this pioneer project. Second, he points out these speculators’ lack of recognition, they are unaware of the fact that it is the current outlook of the Island, and its consequent continuation, that is allowing them to take advantage of it, in a self perpetuating circle. The destruction of Lanzarote’s environment would mean a reduction of the possibilities for these people to make money through speculation so paradoxically they should be interested in preserving what they are actually destroying. Third, Manrique recognizes that money now rules everything on the Island and advises for a re-discovery of the higher purposes and more noble aims of conserving the Island. The artist seems to be sure that the population should be the first and most important supporter of such a plan, and only then could the government come into play. Fourth, as a consequence of the previous point, Manrique wants a more active participation of the Government, especially in wiser planning of the actions to be undertaken to stop speculation and corruption and to conserve the environment on the Island. He is aware that measures need to be taken as soon as possible, as there is no in more time for indolence. The fact that Manrique was right in having such concerns is proved by the protests and demonstrations events that took place just a couple of years after the publication of his paper.

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9.2.3 The “Playa de los Pocillos” demonstration in 1988

Picture 35 César Manrique and other demonstrators during the Playa de Los Pocillos protest in 1988, bearing a banner that reads "This beach is ours". Source : Internet.

The Playa de los Pocillos protest on 22nd August 1988 is to be considered a milestone in the modern history of Lanzarote. The demonstration was organized by Manrique and the association El Guincho in order to protest against the construction of a resort which was going to occupy part of the public beach of Los Pocillos in Puerto del Carmen. The protest arose because of two issues: first, the resort was being built partly on public land, on the right end of the beach, closing the view from that side and taking away a relatively big portion of it. Secondly, this expropriation was actually the final act of a constant tourist growth and land exploitation, against which Manrique had been working hard in the previous years, being well aware that despite of the good intentions economic matters were about to win over environmental concerns.

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Many Lanzarote inhabitants participated in this non violent demonstration, led by Manrique. In a video reportage published by the website Memoria de Lanzarote403, it is possible to see Manrique and other demonstrators approaching the workers and trying to convince them to get off the excavators. The authorities requested the building company to stop the works for a while to avoid disorders, but the resort – today called Las Costas – was eventually built. According to Idoya Cabrera everyone who lived those times still has vivid memories of the pictures and videos of the manifestation where you can see

César Manrique with a microphone saying “they are trying to kill Lanzarote” [and] trying to stop the building of a hotel […] almost inside the beach. There is another one, Aparthotel los Fariones, it is also inside the beach, but it was built after Manrique died. Las Costas was the first and it was like a myth.404

Carlos Matallana commented the protest in these terms: "For me it was a milestone for the number of people it involved, spreading environmental awareness in Lanzarote".405

403http://www.memoriadelanzarote.com/detalle.php?Tema=&Temac=&Tpadre=&Tpadrec=&f=VIDEO&i r=10277, accessed 08.02.2013(2) 404 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, Interview, 12.09.2011 405 “Para mí fue un hito por cómo arrastró a tanta gente, sembrando la conciencia medioambiental en Lanzarote” (Translation: MGP) available from http://www.diariodelanzarote.com/2012/05/18/lanzarote01.htm, accessed 08.02.2013(3) 196

Picture 36 César Manrique giving a speech during the Playa de los Pocillos protest in 1988. Source: Internet.

9.3 “No a las petroleras, Sí a las renovables!”

In December 2001, the Spanish Government approved a decree in which it was stated that the company REPSOL had been authorized to start oil prospecting just kilometers off the coasts of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. In February 2004 the Supreme Court quashed this permission, following a petition by Canary Labour Party.406 Eight years later, on 16th March 2012 the Spanish Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism announced that three multinationals had be authorized to finally start oil prospecting in the Canary waters, between 9 and 80 km off the coasts, and eventually exploit the oilfields found.407 Straight away the FCM started a counter-campaign of protests and demonstrations against the drillings, maintaining that the kind of tourism that has

406 Oficina de Acción Global, Argumentario general sobre las prospecciones petrolíferas en Canarias, Cabildo de Lanzarote, Arrecife, 03.01.2013, p.4. Available from http://www.cabildodelanzarote.com/Uploads/doc/20130125154047548.pdf, accessed 12.02.2013 407 Ibidem. 197

developed in Lanzarote, based on eco-sustainability and the conservation of the environment, is by no mean compatible with petrol platforms, since a hypothetical environmental disaster would indelibly affect the only form of industry present on the Island.408 At the same time, the FCM stated the necessity for Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and the other Canary Islands, to develop energy self-sufficiency, focusing on the renewable resources already present (e.g. wind and sun, but especially geothermal), rather than concentrating on oil, which could have a great irreversible impact on the eco-system.409 On March 24th 2012, the first protest was organized in the capital Arrecife, with the slogan “No a las petroleras, sí a las renovables”410, with the participation of around 25,000 people, a large number for a small Island like Lanzarote. On June 1st 2012, the Cabildo de Lanzarote set up a commission, the Oficína de Acción Global, whose aim is to stop oil prospecting and promote the expansion of other, sustainable energetic models, which would allow Lanzarote to be totally self-sufficient by the year 2025.411 Since March 2012, many governmental organizations, at all levels, have been filing petitions against oil prospecting, i.e. the Cabildo de Lanzarote, the Cabildo de Fuerteventura and the Gobierno de Canarias. Furthermore, many other organizations have been working to give their support, apart from the already mentioned FCM; the Spanish section of the WWF, Greenpeace (which sent a petition to the Environment Commission of the European Union in September 2012), Ecologistas en Acción and Izquierda Unida.412 Awareness campaigns have also been undertaken by various magazines and newspapers (see Picture 37), and infos and news on the issue have been shared on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, in particular, a dedicated group has

408 http://www.fcmanrique.org/nota.php?idNoticia=252, 11.02.2013 409 Ibidem. 410 “No to tankers, yes to renewable” (Translation: MGP) 411 Oficina de Acción Global, 03.01.2013, p. 4 412 Ibidem, p. 13 198

been created called “No a las petroleras, sí a las renovables”, where regular updates and pictures are posted.413 On the side of REPSOL, one of the main arguments in favour of the installation of oil platforms is the fact that they would create many jobs, which would benefit the population. However, according to studies carried out by by the Oficína de Acción Global, this is actually hard to maintain. Tourism employs about 500,000 people in all the Canary Islands, while REPSOL, in 2012, was employing 43,298 workers in all the world. The only petrol platform that REPSOL has on Spanish territory (off the

Picture 37 Sensibilisation campaign of the Magazine coast of Tarragona), is over 30 years old and NU2 against oil prospecting in front of the coasts of 414 Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. Source: Internet. employs 60-65 workers. REPSOL has also been expecting to create around 3,000-5,000 jobs exclusively in the catering and supporting facilities. This is unlikely to happen, according to the Oficina de Acción Global, since the total jobs created by all the planned platforms could hardly equal those created by a single hotel, according to their calculations.415 Another important implication regards the consequences that the building of such platforms, and in the worst case leakages and environmental disasters, would have on the tourism industry. Various tourism associations and federations have been taking position against oil prospecting, for example, the International Federation of Tour Operators (IFTO), which has recently sent a documento to the Spanish Ministry of Industry

413 https://www.facebook.com/NOALASPETROLERAS, accessed 12.02.2013 414 Oficina de Acción Global, 03.01.2013, p. 24 415 Ibidem, p. 25. 199

expressing its concern about the prospecting implications, not only in regard to the tourist industry, but also to environmental conservation.416 Furthermore, other petitions have been filed, for example by the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) and by the Deutscher ReiseVerband (DRV), whose President, together with the Chairman of the DRV Sustainability Committee in a letter to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism José Manuel Soria López wrote

without doubt the Canary Islands are one of the major tourist destinations for the German Market and we certainly would appreciate to remain so for the foreseeable future. The DRV fears that oil production and oil rigs near the coast of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura could lead people to decide against the Canary Islands in favour of other destinations. […] We are well aware of the financial advantages oil production could bring to the Spanish economy. But we also kindly ask you to weigh up these benefits against a vital tourism economy and an intact environment which is the basis of a relaxing holiday experience. Advantages and drawbacks should therefore be weighed up extremely carefully.417

A similar case is that of the Baleares and the coast off Málaga, where oil prospecting has also been planned and strongly condemned by various associations. However, Minister Soria, in this case, announced in January 2012 that the plans for these drilling sites been abandoned due to the strong impact that they could have on tourism.418 Consequently the Oficína de Acción Global asks the following question: “Why does the Spanish Government now put under question the prospecting in Ibiza and Málaga, but not in the Canaries, when the industry of these Islands, too, depends on

416 Oficina de Acción Global, 03.01.2013, p. 26. 417 http://no0ilcanarias.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/carta-agencias-viaje-alemania.pdf, 12.02.2013(2) 418 Oficina de Acción Global, 03.01.2013, p. 27. 200

tourism?”.419 This question is even more timely if is considered that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has stated, in another context, that tourism has a privileged function when it comes to environmental awareness and conservation, fighting climate change and fostering sustainable development.420 As already mentioned, the population of Lanzarote, and of all Spain, has been participating in protests, and many “performances” and awareness campaigns have been organized. Apart from the first one on March 24th 2012, many others worth mentioning have been organized, for example a performance in the Playa del Reducto in Arrecife, where many people all dressed in black created a “human chain” along the beach to symbolize the dangers of petrol leaks. On 17th June 2012 the protest spread to the mainland, with a march through the streets of the city of Barcelona, and on 10th August 2012 a new march was organized in Puerto del Carmen, starting from the Playa the los Pocillos. The Fundación César Manrique, has always been in the front line during these events, distributing leaflets, stickers, creating logos and slogans. A small stand is also present inside the Fundación, where leaflets are available in English, Spanish, German and Italian, and a petition can be signed by visiting tourists.

Picture 38 Sticker distributed by the FCM featuring the logo of the Foundation and the words "Petrol? No" Source: Internet.

The problem of oil prospecting had a wide echo in the media and on the internet. It has also created a whole series of digital artworks made to impress, to shock and to

419 “¿Por qué el Gobierno de España cuestiona ahora las prospecciones en Ibiza y en Málaga, y no en Canarias, cuando la industria turística de las islas depende también del turismo?” (Translation: MGP) Oficina de Acción Global, p. 29. 420 Ibidem. 201

create awareness in the public opinion. The one showed below (Figure 39) is particularly interesting because it refers directly to Manrique, but also because it shows a possible scenario, that of a petrol platform in front of the Playa de Papagayos, one of the beaches most loved by tourists because it is situated in a protected area and looks particularly wild and out of tourism logics. The writing reads “Papagayo, Lanzarote. In the end Manrique stopped making sense”421.

Picture 39 Graphic posted on Facebook.com. Source: Internet

A solution to the contrast between REPSOL, the Spanish Government and the Cabildo de Lanzarote and Fuerteventura seems to be far away. Some newspapers (e.g. laprovincia.es) report that the first explorations of the sea depths could already start in the first half of 2013422, which seems to imply that REPSOL and the Spanish Government together represent an alliance that has enormous political and economic influence.423 On the other hand, a positive result might depend on the collaboration of various organs, on the national and international mobilization and on the engagement of organizations such as the WWF and Greenpeace, which have great resonance on public opinion worldwide.

421 Translation: MGP. 422 http://www.laprovincia.es/canarias/2012/10/08/repsol-iniciar-sondeos-proximos-meses/488958.html, accessed 12.02.2013(1) 423 Oficina de Acción Global, 03.01.2013, p. 69. 202

On this matter, the paper written by the Oficina de Acción Global, concludes

Anyway to obtain that [success], support is essentially needed as well as the active participation of you all, of the political groups, of the conservationists, of the mass media, of the citizens groups, of the scientific institutions, each one in their own way, with their independence and their methods, always with the criteria of respect and seeking unity and coordination towards the final goals. This work requires a great team effort of all of us, of each of us, saving our differences in other aspects, displaying consistency and common sense.424

As the excerpt points out, the participation of the inhabitants of Lanzarote is required at all levels, with the knowledge that only cooperation will lead to the achievement of a common goal, which is the conservation of Lanzarote. Apart from the economic component of the problem - keeping a healthy tourism industry that will allow the population to maintain its current life style in the absence of other means of subsistence on the Island - a core element is the awareness of the population that they live in an environment that has no equal and therefore needs to be protected. The work of Manrique, with the help of the FCM, has survived through the years and seems to have had a great impact on the identity construction of the Lanzarote inhabitants. In a study carried out by the Centro de Datos de Lanzarote in December 2012, 800 people living in Lanzarote were questioned about their point of view on the matter of oil prospecting. It is particularly interesting to note that 91.7% is aware of the decision taken by the Spanish Government to allow REPSOL to build petrol platforms in their waters and that 72.1% of them is against it. Moreover, 70.2% of the respondents believes that oil prospecting and tourism are two activities that are not compatible and

424 “Pero para ello se necesita también de manera imprescindible el apoyo y la participación activa de todos ustedes, de los grupos políticos de las Islas, de los medios de comunicación, de los colectivos ciudadanos, de las instituciones cientifícas, cada uno a su manera, con su independencia y con sus métodos, siempre bajo el criterio del respecto y procurando unidad y coordinación en los objetivos finales. Este trabajo requiere de un gran esfuerzo en equipo, de todos, de cada uno de nosotros, salvando nuestras diferencias en otros aspectos, haciendo gala de coherencia y de sentido común.” (Translation: MGP) Oficina de Acción Global, p. 70 203

72.2% stated that they do not consider as worth it starting with oil prospecting, even in the case that petrol is effectively found. 425 In 1988 César Manrique seemed to already have a clear vision of what the future of Lanzarote was going to be, of the main problems that would have to be faced in the future, and of the only possible solution: cooperation for the maintenance of a clear identity that would not follow the logics of profit:

It took many years of fighting for Lanzarote to learn how to save its identity, its peculiarities which distinguish it from the rest of the countries in the world: its vernacular architecture, its dry volcanic landscapes, which make it so characteristic. And when the battle seemed to be already won, because the idea had been sewn in the conscience of all the good Lanzarote people that the task of salvation is a common business, since no one may be oblivious, it turned out that everything was falling apart for the lack of a vision of the future by industrial and commercial companies, whose only goal is to make money, momentary money, without caring about the future of a whole natural territory that has succeeded in standing up for its own good. And that without any kind of respect for its people and its future economy.426

425 Oficina de Acción Global, p. 77. 426 “Muchos han sido los años de lucha para que Lanzarote aprendiese a salvar su identidad, sus peculiaridades que lo distinguen del resto de las tierras del mundo: su arquitectura vernácula, sus resecos paisajes volcánicos tan característicos. Y cuando ya la batalla parecía ganada, porque se había llevado a la conciencia de todoa los buenos lanzaroteños que la tarea de salvación es una empresa común, en la que nadie puede estar ajeno, resulta que todo se está viniendo abajo por la falta de visión de futuro de empresas industriales-comerciales cuyos únicos fines son ganar dinero, dinero momentáneo, sin que les importe el futuro de todo un territorio natural que había logrado singularizarse, para su bien. Y sin la menor clase de respeto para sus habitantes y su economía presente y futura.” (Translation: MGP). Manrique C., 2005, p. 70. 204

9.4 Corruption in Lanzarote

In paragraph 2.1.1.2 I dealt with how recent happenings might be threatening the status of the Biosphere Reserve in Lanzarote. To summarize this up, in February 2011 the Spanish Newspaper “El País” published a report on corruption in Lanzarote in an article titled “La política tiene precio en Lanzarote” (“Politics has a price in Lanzarote”427), stating that in Lanzarote

as in other places, the economy turned to tourism and construction, so that between 1996 and 2006, the rate of population growth was 10 times higher than the Spanish average. In 20 years, Lanzarote doubled its inhabitants. […] Under this pressure, corruption has done the rest. The Island paradise is storming the courts, with more than 30 disputes that have declared as illegal half of the accommodation units, which were financed by European funds that must be returned. And to finish, a UNESCO official has told the Financial Times that Lanzarote risks losing its title of Biosphere Reserve.428

The multilingual magazine “Lanzarote 37°”, in its English version, goes even further into detail, stating that

one political party, the PIL, was even classified by the Guardia Civil as a ‘criminal organisation set up to exploit business owners’. Its ‘historic’ leader, Dimas Martín, went on to face a total of nine criminal charges. The idea was

427 Translation: MGP 428 “Como sucedió en otros lugares, la economía se volcó hacia el turismo y la construcción, de forma que, entre 1996 y 2006, la tasa de crecimiento de la población ha sido 10 veces superior a la media española. En 20 años, Lanzarote ha duplicado sus habitantes.” [...] “Bajo esa presión, la corrupción ha hecho el resto. La isla paradisíaca es un hervidero en los juzgados, con más de 30 contenciosos que han dado lugar a sentencias que declaran ilegales la mitad de las camas hoteleras, realizadas con fondos europeos que han de devolverse. Y para remate, una responsable de la Unesco afirma en Financial Times que Lanzarote corre el riesgo de perder su título de reserva de la biosfera.” (Translation: MGP). http://elpais.com/diario/2011/02/13/domingo/1297572756_850215.html, accessed 25.09.2012 205

always much the same: if you want to make money on our Island, as a hotel owner, council sub-contractor, or whatever, first you have to pay.429

An interesting example of the current situation and what is being done to solve such issues is given by the initiative ”Legalidad urbanística”430, sponsored by the Cabildo de Lanzarote since 2008. Their website offers a detailed analysis and documentation, available for everyone to check, of the present real estate situation on the Island with a focus on sustainable tourist development. According to the website, as of today there are 22 open cases before the courts for supposedly illegal building projects (many of them already finished and operating), which do not comply with what is stated in the PIOT. The majority of these violations occurred in the area of Playa Blanca, in the south, but there were some cases in Costa Teguise as well. According to current legislation, for each unit of accommodation built, the construction company must also provide other structures for the community, i.e. parks, playgrounds, etc… so that for each ground parcel not more than 50% is dedicated to tourist activities. Idoya Cabrera, who is responsible for the Environment Department at the Fundacion César Manrique stressed that

the problem with these hotels is that they say “we are going to build this” and they do it, but other ones say “we are going to build this” then the city hall says “but you need to do a public park” and they build over it. And some of them say “we are going to build three floors” and they build five. The different cases have different problems, but there are 22 cases in justice. And the local government, Cabildo, denounced and was in tribunal with them and the Fundación Cesar Manrique was after them with the local government… just in case local government doesn’t want to do that because

429 http://www.lanzarote37.net/en/local-news/detailansicht- lokales/article/corruption_on_lanzarotebrlanzarote_in_the_eyes_of_the_spanish_press/9.html, accessed 13.02.2013 430 “Urban legality” (Translation: MGP) See http://legalidadurbanistica.org/presentacion, accessed 14.10.2012 206

of internal politics of something Fundación Cesar Manrique was here and now we are giving a lot of money for this justice and tribunals.431

A famous case is that of the “Princess Yaiza” hotel in Playa Blanca, a five star – extra luxury resort, whose building permit was applied for May 30th 1998 and already granted the next day, on June 1st 1998.432 It is important to remember that on May 20th 1998 the so called “Moratorium” of the PIOT, which reduced the number of accommodation units allowed, had just been approved, but wasn’t effective yet. The granting of such a project led to an increase of 660 beds in an area that was already over- built, and would have become illegal as soon as the “Moratorium” came into effect. According to the website “Legalidad urbanística”, the approved license allowed the building of a four stars hotel with a total of 660 beds, which would add to the 4.506 ones already granted, exceeding not only the number that had been planned by the 1991 PIOT to be reached between 1996 and 2001, but also what was set out in the Plan Parcial of 1983.433 Moreover, the Plan Parcial permitted a maximum of three floors, only two of which could be above the ground level, while the final plant of the “Princess Yaiza” hotel has a total of five floors, two of which are underground. The license was therefore revoked by a tribunal sentence on June 30th 2008. However, at the present time the hotel is still open and working. If found guilty, as in this case, the penalty depends on whether the revocation of the license leads to the interruption of the building project or the restoration of the previously approved zoning planning scheme, even when it means demolishing already functioning buildings, though this last measure has proved hard to be applied. According to the website “the cancellation of the license entails the requirement to restore an altered

431 Idoya Cabrera, Interview, 12.09.2011 432 Under investigation: legality of the Marina Rubicón, Lanzarote 37°, N° 4 I, July-September 2001, p. 21. 433 http://legalidadurbanistica.org/hotel-princesa-yaiza, 14-02-2013 207

reality, which has been transformed by acts carried out under a license that has been revoked and therefore is no longer legal”.434

434 “La anulación de la licencia conlleva la necesidad de restablecer una realidad alterada y transformada por los actos ejecutados al amparo de la licencia que se declara nula y que, por ello, desaparece del mundo jurídico (ATSJC 1-10-2008)” (Translation: MGP) available from http://legalidadurbanistica.org/y-ahora- que, accessed 14-02-2013(1) 208

10. What future for Lanzarote?

The last two chapters have dealt with two core problems in the study of the processes of identification which have occurred in Lanzarote in the past sixty years. One is the progressive creation of a “Lanzarote trade-mark” through Manrique’s vision, which has somehow been appropriated by tourism specialists, foreign tour operators, investors, stakeholders and so on; the other is the consequent attempt of re-elaboration of these same attributes by the inhabitants, which re-define themselves through a common goal, that of conserving their Island to preserve their identity. The current situation has led to the emergence of a subtle contradiction, that is the contrast between the Island’s prestige abroad and the domestic criticism. This topic was widely discussed during the five “round tables” organized by the FCM in 2012 to celebrate the 20 years anniversary of Manrique’s death. The overall impression is that of a negative view of the future of the Island, due to many factors, among which the current economic crisis plays a core role, since it is inducing people to look for profit and forget about the importance of environmental conservation. During the “Round Table” César Manrique. Una conciencia pionera de los límites435, for example, Faustino García Márquez illustrated the new harmonization laws for tourism requalification which the Canary Islands Government is preparing

“Legislation is being prepared to remove everything that has been done," he said, and provided several details: the influx of tourists to the Canary Islands between 1999 and 2010 fell by thirteen percent while the accommodation capacity grew by 22 percent, and in Lanzarote it increased by a 34 percent; in other words in 15 years (between 1987 and 2002) a further 60 percent of the

435 “César Manrique. A pioneer awareness of limits.” (Translation: MGP) 209

total surface that has been urbanized in all the history of Lanzarote was covered in asphalt, urbanized and built on However, instead of relallocating limits "now they are going to change the legislation to accelerate these processes”.436

So instead of thinking about the disruptive consequences of an excessive urbanization “what is coming is a sprint"437 in that very direction. The question is, how is Lanzarote going to preserve its identity, as well as its “trade mark”, once the Island is highly urbanized and covered with concrete? How will it be possible to provide the tourist with a unique experience, when Lanzarote looks just like Gran Canaria, Tenerife or other touristy areas in Spain? It seems obvious that the Government and tourism specialists will have to come up with new ideas and a new positioning on the tourist market, since the current image of the Island is being threatened by those same legislators that are supposed to protect it, and by those corporate companies which seem to be working against their own interest. This was the theme of a recent438 conference entitled Innovación turística y Promocionalización para las empresas de Lanzarote439, where the need to reform the “Lanzarote trade-mark” to better fit the ever evolving tourist market was maintained, but also the need to create new advertising models, which would better apply to the new media and the relative platforms, i.e. Internet:

The methods of obtaining information have changed, as well as the tastes of customers, who are also becoming more involved in the process of choosing

436 “Se está legIslando para desmontar todo lo que se ha hecho”, dijo, y aportó varios datos: la afluencia de turistas a Canarias entre 1999 y 2010 bajó un trece por ciento mientras que las plazas alojativas crecieron un 22%, y en Lanzarote aumentaron un 34 por ciento; o que en 15 años, entre 1987 y 2002, se asfaltó, se urbanizó y se construyó en Lanzarote el 60 por ciento de la superficie que se había urbanizado en toda su historia. Sin embargo, en lugar de volver a poner límites “ahora vuelven a cambiar la legislación para acelerar esos procesos.” (Translation: MGP) Se está legislando para desmontar todo lo que se ha hecho, available from http://www.fcmanrique.org/nota.php?idNoticia=277, accessed 11.03.2013(1)

437 Ibidem. 438 28th February 2013 439 “Tourist innovation and promotion for the enterprises of Lanzarote” (Translation: MGP) See Turismo Lanzarote y Rumbo.es apuestan por la promocionalización para poner en valor la marca Lanzarote, available from http://www.cabildodelanzarote.com/tema.asp?sec=Noticias&idCont=10762&idTema=17, accessed 11.03.2013(2) 210

their vacations. "New technologies make us free to choose our destinations. So we no longer need a web page with three photos and a brief description of our establishment. We have to win customers over with a proposal that meets their new demands." In that sense, Pons440 explained that tourist customers value positively the presence of virtual tours, videos and experiential photographs in the on line marketing of such products. "Therefore," he said, "it is necessary to undertake a change in the promotion, communication and marketing of the product that provides an answer to the demanding challenges and that puts the tourism sector of Lanzarote in the present century."441

Therefore, according to Jimmy Pons, it is necessary to “define the goals and create a product, which enables the conversion of the tourist resources into experiential products [...] which are focused on the brand impact”.442 The seminar Lanzarote y la Reserva de la Biosfera443, attended approximately by 150 people, came to similar conclusions. One of the main points stressed during the seminar was the necessity of a better use of the many “neglected” resources on the Island, in particular by employing renewable energies, the diversification of the tourist model and an improvement of the human capital and the chances for a better education.

440 Jimmy Pons, a communication specialist who took part to the conference. 441 “Ha cambiado la manera de recibir la información, y también los gustos de los clientes que, además, son cada vez más partícipes en el proceso de elección de sus vacaciones. “Las nuevas tecnologías nos hacen libres para elegir nuestro destino. Por eso, ya no nos sirve una página web con tres fotografías y una breve descripción del establecimiento. Tenemos que conquistar a los clientes con una propuesta que atienda a sus nuevas demandas”. En ese sentido, Pons explicó que los clientes turísticos valoran positivamente la presencia de tours virtuales, vídeos y fotografías experienciales en la comercialización on line de los productos. “Por eso”, precisó, “es necesario afrontar un cambio en la promoción, en la comunicación y en la comercialización del producto que ofrezca una respuesta a los exigentes retos que e plantean al sector turístico de Lanzarote en el presente siglo”. (Translation: MGP) Turismo Lanzarote y Rumbo.es apuestan por la promocionalización para poner en valor la marca Lanzarote, available from http://www.cabildodelanzarote.com/tema.asp?sec=Noticias&idCont=10762&idTema=17, accessed 11.03.2013(2) 442“definir los objetivos, la creación del producto, que pasa por convertir los recursos turísticos en productos experienciales, [...] enfocados al producto y al impacto de la marca.” (Translation: MGP) Ibidem.

443 “Lanzarote and the Biosphere Reserve” (Translation: MGP), seminar held on 28th February 2013 and Organized by the Cabildo de Lanzarote. For more infos see the document Conclusiones del seminario 'Lanzarote y la Reserva de la Biosfera', available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=18&idItem=5509, accessed 12.03.2013(2) 211

Such goals would be obtained by improving the feelings of belonging and affection of the population of Lanzarote about the Island and through the maintaining of those qualities which created strong respect and prestige for Lanzarote abroad. These goals are expected to be achieved thanks to the social networks and communication chances which should be improved in the future, such as a greater frequency of similar seminars where the inhabitants of the Island and various experts can discuss such topics together. Moreover, the necessity of a new territorial planning was stressed. This was already a core point of the PIOT Avance published in 2010, together with the issue of new impulses in the primary sector, in order to contrast what has been defined as the “tourism monoculture”. An important intervention at the seminar was that by the Counselor of the “Biosphere Reserve Area”, who stated that it is evident that in Lanzarote a high environmental conscience has developed, especially when related to the constructive participation of the population in many initiatives. The Counselor valued “also all the good that has been done in Lanzarote, as recognized by the UNESCO representative who said at the time that there was no risk of the Island losing its Seal of Biosphere Reserve”.444 Alejandro Gonzáles, Professor of the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, – already cited in this work – proposed a Decalogue for the future of the Island, based on:

- the conservation of the cultural and natural heritage; - the promotion of renewable energies; - increased investments in the primary sector, in order to provide an antidote to eventual economic crises in the tourism sector;

444 “todo lo bueno que también se ha hecho en Lanzarote, tal y como reconoció el Delegado de la Unesco quien afirmó en su día que no hay ningún riesgo de que la isla pierda su sello de la Reserva de la Biosfera” (Translation: MGP) Conclusiones del seminario 'Lanzarote y la Reserva de la Biosfera', available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=18&idItem=5509, accessed 12.03.2013(2), p.4.

212

- reducing the dependence on external resources; - a diversification of the offer of both tourist offer and economic activities; - the improvement of the public transport; - renewing the housing plants to use less land; - saving on water consumption and restoring those crops compatible with the environmental conditions; - improving the qualities of the human capital; - promoting citizens’ participation and environmental education.445

The necessity of a renewal of the image of Lanzarote on the tourist market has also been demonstrated by other data, for example those of the visitor numbers at the Island’s main attractions, which according to many sources has seen a significant decrease in the last year.

According to the website Lanzarote Guide Book

during the course of 2012 the six main Centres of Art, Culture and Tourism recorded a total of 2,356,496 admissions – a figure that is down by 10.6% on 2011 and which is also the lowest since 1992. Lower admission figures have also had a knock on effect on other important revenue streams, reducing income generated by on site restaurants and gifts shops at these attractions by 9.79% and 11.31% respectively.446

As possible factors have been stressed the current difficult economic situation, which has also led to a decrease of tourists visiting Lanzarote in general, as well as the high percentage of recurring tourists, who hardly visit the Centres more than once, typically on their first visit.447 On the other hand

445 Conclusiones del seminario 'Lanzarote y la Reserva de la Biosfera', available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=18&idItem=5509, accessed 12.03.2013(2), p. 8. 446 available from http://www.lanzaroteguidebook.com/news/news/details-1311/visitor-numbers-down-by- 10-at-lanzarote%E2%80%99s-main-attractions, accessed 12-03-2013(1) 447 Ibidem. 213

either way a drop of this magnitude when tourist arrival numbers are relatively stable is certainly cause for concern and possibly suggests that the Islands tourist authorities may need to start focusing on creating newer attractions rather than relying solely on Manrique´s creations, many of which are now well over 30 years old. That looks unlikely in the current economic climate however as the Island government is being squeezed on both sides by falling admissions revenues and declining subsidies from Madrid.448

The tendency of 2012 seems to be confirmed by the first data available for January 2013, according to which in January 2012 186,419 people visited Manrique’s Centres of Art, while in the same month of 2013 they were 152,545, with a variation of - 9.79%.449 With environmental awareness and concerns being more and more important and relevant on the tourist market in the recent years, the fact of having been a pioneer in these issues seems not to be enough anymore when it comes to attracting new tourists. Eco-sustainability is being used by a number of different tourism destinations as a way to position themselves on the tourist market, making it harder for Lanzarote to stand out among the many new possibilities. It seems to be necessary for the Island to find a new appropriate development model, if the goal is to maintain its specificity, but also to introduce new means of production that are not only dependent on tourism. Another element that has been stressed is the role that the figure of César Manrique is playing nowadays. It has been pointed out in the previous chapter how Manrique’s authority in the identity discourse is still “used” to legitimate those protests that have as a base his point of view and his vision, though his “presence” seems to have lost part of its allure, if what the previously cited data imply is true.

448 available from http://www.lanzaroteguidebook.com/news/news/details-1311/visitor-numbers-down-by- 10-at-lanzarote%E2%80%99s-main-attractions, accessed 12-03-2013(1) 449 “Afluencia a los Centros de Arte, Cultura y Turismo de Lanzarote. Afluencia según mes (enero 2013). Comparación con 2012”, available at http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem=5469, accessed 12.03.2013(2) 214

It has now been illustrated how the authorities and the tourism specialists perceive the current state of things on the Island and the actions which are believed to be necessary to preserve, or even improve, the current situation. It would also be useful, though, to understand how the inhabitants of Lanzarote perceive their condition in relation to the above mentioned themes. The Centro de Datos de Lanzarote each year publishes a document in which the results of a statistical survey are summarized. This is supposed to investigate the inhabitants’ perception of various aspects of life on the Island. The latest survey, published in 2013450, deals with the data collected in November and December 2012, when a total of 800 inhabitants of over 18 were interviewed regarding: the current economic situation and life quality, social issues, oil prospecting, the role of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, the images associated with “Lanzarote”. The results are interesting and worth a detailed analysis. The respondents seemed to have a negative point of view of the economic situation and life quality, since 76% of them answered that they considered the current economic situation to be much worse than one year earlier. Nevertheless, those interviewed maintained that the economy of Lanzarote in general seems to be worse than that of the single households.451 Similar results were given to the question about life quality, since 60% of the respondents stated that life on Lanzarote has worsened compared to 2011. The social issues which are considered to be most crucial are (in order of importance): unemployment, economic crises, politics, health system, transports, the consumer price index, tourism and, lastly, education.452 The inhabitants’ view on oil prospection has already been analyzed in the previous chapter (see par. 9.3) and it has been pointed out that the inhabitants of Lanzarote generally don’t agree with the installation of petrol platforms in the Canary waters, even in the case that they should bring economic benefits. According to this

450“Encuesta de temas insulares. Lanzarote (diciembre 2012)”, available at http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=51&idItem=5413, accessed 13.03.13 451 Ibidem, p. 5. 452 Ibidem. 215

study 72,2% of the respondents did not agree with the permits granted by the Spanish government to petrol companies.453 The management of the Island by the Cabildo de Lanzarote is also considered in negative terms by the population, in particular 41,1% affirmed that the interests of the inhabitants and of Lanzarote in general have been badly managed. The points with which the respondents where more satisfied were: the tourist promotion, security and emergencies, landscape protection. However, on the other hand, the aspects which were negatively considered were: relations with youth and sports, heritage protection, cultural activities and public infrastructures. It is interesting to note how the image of Lanzarote is perceived by its inhabitants. Each person interviewed was asked to state three qualities that they associate with the thought of the Island. First was Life quality/Tranquility with 49.4%, then Landscape/Beaches/Environment with 42.8%, followed by Climate/Sun with 14.9%, My Homeland/My Island/My Household with 14.6%, Tourism with 13.4%, Aridity/Volcanoes/Desert/Lunar Outlook with 11.8% and Neglected/Needing Changes with 10.2%, only to mention those elements which collected more than 10% of the preferences.454 Other concepts which seemed to be very relevant for other questions, for example Corruption (3.8%) or Politics (2.6%), did not seem to be relevant when related to their image of the Island. It can be concluded that it seems that the inhabitants of Lanzarote have mixed and somehow problematic perceptions of the society they live in. In other words, economics is perceived negatively, though life quality, when referred to one’s personal situation and not to the whole Island in general, is perceived to be good. Nevertheless this situation is perceived to be worsening, since many respondents stated that life on Lanzarote has had better qualities just a year before. What are believed to be the main social issues on the Island, however, did not come up when the people interviewed were asked to associate three keywords to their image of “Lanzarote”. According to the study older people have much more negative

453 453“Encuesta de temas insulares. Lanzarote (diciembre 2012)”, available at http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=51&idItem=5413, accessed 13.03.13, p.6. 454 Ibidem, p. 38. 216

opinions about the quality of life, and people who have resided on the Island for longer periods also seem to be more pessimistic.455 The social perception of Lanzarote still seems to be positive overall, when actually that same “life quality” which seems to get worse every year is the main plus that living on the Island provides. Having said this, it is possible to maintain that those actions, which were included in the PIOT Avance, and that are also considered to be vital by those specialists who have spoken at the various Conferences and Round Tables mentioned, will somehow meet the expectations of the inhabitants. That is, the diversification of economic activities, of crops and of industrial productions should affect that area of discontent which perceives the current economic situation to be very negative.

455 455“Encuesta de temas insulares. Lanzarote (diciembre 2012)”, available at http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=51&idItem=5413, accessed 13.03.13, p. 15. 217

CONCLUSION

The study of the relationship between the art work and aesthetic ideal of Manrique and the development of tourism in Lanzarote proved to be complex. On the one hand tourism is a multifaceted phenomenon influenced by the interactions between two actors, hosts and guests, which can differ strongly from area to area and whose relationship can be hard to define objectively. On the other hand, the figure of Manrique is controversial, in the sense that the discourse about his life and his works is the result of various elements, from historical evidence to the commonly shared tales about his character, which sometimes almost turn into mythology and become a personality cult. The problem of defining the concept of authenticity, moreover, added further problems to an already composite frame, in which the tourist image of Lanzarote seems not only to be the result of a branding activity, but also the point of origin of a discourse about sustainability, derived from its intrinsic geological qualities. Focusing on authenticity and its application to the tourism industry, as well as on the analysis of the “tourist gaze”, prompted me to use conceptual frameworks not strictly pertaining to anthropology, such as marketing and advertising, in an attempt to provide a multidimensional picture of the many forces that are currently operating on the Island and that are having an influence on identity processes, both internal and external. As already pointed out in the introduction to this work, the aim of my research was to:

- analyze the relationship between the artistic work of César Manrique and the development of tourism on the Island; - analyze how his aesthetic ideals have influenced the current situation and how the outlook that the artist created is perceived and re-elaborated by the inhabitants and tourists;

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- analyze the relationship between the artworks of Manrique and authenticity, in relation to tourism.

With the awareness that these three aspects are strictly interrelated and cannot be considered as separate from each other ˗ since they all contribute to create a system of beliefs, identity negotiations and fruition practices ˗ I will give an account of the most salient elements which arose singularly. As far as concerns the relationship between the work of Manrique and tourism, it is important to point out that the artist’s first means of inspiration was the intrinsic aesthetic and geological qualities of Lanzarote itself. Indeed, Manrique was aware that the Island had a huge tourism potential, due especially to its out-of-the-ordinary character. He was fully convinced that such a peculiar environment could not follow the same development path as other tourism destinations, not only in Spain, but also worldwide. According to Manrique, Lanzarote “deserved” a dedicated development model. He himself often stated “we don’t need to copy anyone, they should rather come and copy us”.456 Moreover, the artist was convinced, and always maintained, that this new developmental model had not been entirely his own idea, but that it was, rather, suggested to him by the conformation of the Island itself. Manrique, therefore, didn’t like to take any credit for what actually constituted his programme. His main contribution was just to have acted as its sponsor. Manrique operated in many directions and engaged in various activities in different fields. Not only was he a painter, architect and sculptor, but somehow he also proved to be a profound connoisseur of the society he lived in, and to some extent he was also a pioneer for his time. Through his artworks he tried to convey a message, that is he wanted to show both the Lanzarote inhabitants and the tourists that the Island’s appearance was the result of geological processes that were still operating. He didn’t want to do that, though, through the institution of museums and other canonic forms of information. He embraced the principles of Pop Art, which challenged the common sense of “fine art” by

456 See Manrique C., 2005, p. 40. 219

potentially turning every object into an artwork. In contrast to Pop Art, which somehow required a decontextualization of the object itself to be effective, Manrique made of context one of the most important elements of his works. The Auditorium built in the Jameos del Agua, for example, acquires significance especially due to the fact that is was built into a volcanic tunnel, making the most of the geological qualities to obtain incredibly fine acoustics. Jameos del Agua is also representative because it features a bar and a dance floor, two things that are usually not associated with an art piece, but that in fact confers a playful character to the place. And this was exactly the aim of Manrique, he wanted to highlight the geological phenomenon that created the lava tunnel by offering a particular experience that would impress the visitor and thus be memorable. The Casa de los Volcanes, the museum built next to Jameos del Agua, was planned after Manrique had completed his work and was not a part of the original project. A further aim was to make public opinion aware about the dangers of not conserving the Lanzarote environment, which had proven to be so fragile. His writings and his public speeches, especially in the last phase of his life, contributed to creating a common sense of urgency and awareness of the fact that the population could make the difference. The Playa de los Pocillos protest, in the late 1980s, is an example of the engagement that the population of Lanzarote felt with the Island they lived in. Current events, such as the manifestation against oil prospecting in the waters off Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, which took place during the whole of 2012, are also a proof that Manrique left a mark on his fellow inhabitants, and that the heritage he left is still capable of bringing people together towards a common goal. Another aspect of the connection between the work of Manrique and the development of tourism, is that of the regulations which originated from his aesthetic ideal. The introduction of the Island’s Development Plan (PIOT), with its many reviews, led to the selection of certain architectural and cultural elements present in Lanzarote, that he believed to be endangered by the increasingly faster development of tourism facilities. These elements, which had been created as an answer to the hard climatic conditions on the Island, and that were strictly linked to culture and everyday life, have

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been extrapolated from their usual context and turned into a model for the future. It was to some extent an arbitrary choice, since Manrique in the book Lanzarote. Arquitectura Inedita made a collection of signs that he believed to be relevant to his vision. This choice granted an homogeneous look to the Island, but on the other hand “froze” Lanzarote to a certain moment in time, that is the period between the 1950s and the 1970s. The normal and natural architectural development of the Island has been regulated by the PIOT and, through it, natural evolution was impeded. The only part of the Island which followed a non-regulated development is the capital Arrecife, and though it is not possible to maintain that its current appearance has greater appeal for tourists than the rest of the Island, it has been noticed that the capital offers a more vibrant and “real” atmosphere, which is otherwise lacking elsewhere. Manrique also had an important role in the declaration of Lanzarote as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and in the consequent development of sustainable tourism on the Island. The artist can be considered a pioneer for his time, since the theme of sustainability was not considered important either in worldwide public opinion, or in the official discourse, until the mid 1980s, early 1990s. When this concept was being theorized for the first time, the whole tourism sustainability process had been in act in Lanzarote for at least 25 years. It is therefore no surprise that the “Charter for Sustainable Tourism” was compiled in Lanzarote in 1995. Sustainability and environmental conservation were turned by Manrique into a “brand”, deeply interconnected with the image of Lanzarote, to the extent that it is impossible to refer to the former without implying the latter. In this sense, Manrique proved again to be a pioneer in what has been later called “place-branding” ˗ that is the re-signification of a tourism destination through the sum of beliefs that potential tourists associate with that place ˗ turning the fragility of the environment from a potential risk to a marketing plus. The second point of my research, that is how Manrique’s aesthetic ideals have influenced the current situation and the way it is perceived both by tourists and inhabitants, is strictly linked to the considerations listed above. Nevertheless, it is important to consider three more aspects.

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First, the artworks of Manrique, which constitute Lanzarote’s main attractions, offer a series of tourist gazes which were selected to provide a certain image of the Island coherent with his ideal. In recent years, however, many theme parks, water parks, golf courses, etc. have been built on the Island, and they have, to some extent, changed not only its general outlook but also the kinds of tourism activities which can be undertaken. The ideal of Manrique has been somehow distorted, though the presence of the artist, especially as an icon, is still dominant. Nevertheless, I have noticed during the interviews and especially during participant observation and my participation in bus tours around the Island, that the work of Manrique is usually not recognized as a reason why Lanzarote has been chosen as a travel destination. Actually, references to Manrique are, though present, always rather subtle and lacking in detail when it comes to travel magazines and brochures. The artist is very often nominated, but little information about his work and his persona are provided. Lanzarote is normally chosen because of its landscapes and thanks to the promise of an out-of-the-ordinary experience, in a place that had not suffered as much indiscriminate tourist development as other places. Alhough reference to Manrique is always implied, the connection to his work is not always referred to. The figure of Manrique becomes relevant once the tourist has arrived in Lanzarote and notices that almost everything that can be done or seen on the Island has somehow been designed, planned or influenced by the artist. Every house, building, park, promenade or highway provides a certain gaze because it has been built following Manrique’s directions. This aspect is well stressed by the informative material found in hotel rooms, provided by the guides, and during meetings with people from the tour operator, with the result that what has been a subsidiary reason for travelling to Lanzarote (if it existed at all), suddenly becomes one of the focal points of the whole holiday period. A young tourist from Italy I interviewed, defined Manrique as a “Jack of all trades”, a statement that was intended to be a joke, but that definitely well describes one of the ways in which the artist is perceived by tourists. Another end result of the application of Manrique’s aesthetic ideals has been the fact that approximately 95% of the economy of the Island is based on tourism or

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activities which are involved with the tourism industry. As I pointed out in the first chapters of this work, the choice of relying on tourism as first means of economy was due to the fact that Lanzarote had no natural resources and the few crops possible on the Island had an on-off fortune, which couldn’t constitute the basis either of an healthy economy, or of self subsistence. Despite the development of a flourishing tourism industry, the fact of having almost totally abandoned traditional farming, and having neglected traditional productive techniques, has relegated Lanzarote to a situation where there is too much room for corruption and speculation. Any crisis in the tourism sector would leave the Island in a critical situation, therefore an inversion tendency would be desirable, as well as new entrepreneurial energies spent on alternative markets. Finally, I would like to stress how the form of tourism created by Manrique constitutes the common field in which the interactions between hosts and guests enable a definition of the self to be formed, as related to the tourism phenomenon. On one hand, the forms of tourism that have developed on the Island ˗ i.e. sustainable tourism, ecotourism or cultural tourism – pre-select the tourists who choose to spend their holidays in Lanzarote, as well as the experiences that they are expecting to have. Moreover, as already mentioned, the accent on environmental issues has the further merit of making tourists aware of the impacts of the tourist activity itself and on the consequences of the tourism industry. This aspect is not self evident and is not to be taken for granted when talking about other destinations, and therefore can be considered as another part of the heritage that Manrique left. Tourists travelling to Lanzarote may not be conscious of environmental problems, but their knowledge and their sensitivity cannot remain untouched by an ecologist discourse which in Lanzarote is present at every level. Some tourists who are more sensitive to such problems, or that – to say it with Pearce – find themselves at a higher stage of the tourist career, might be more influenced and impressed than others, but nevertheless the general impression is that the issue cannot be ignored. On the other hand, I have previously mentioned that Manrique’s discourse has influenced the way in which the inhabitants perceive their role towards the protection

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and conservation of the Island’s characteristics. The interaction with tourists, however, poses another problem, which is less idealistic but still relevant: the protection of tourism on the Island allows the protection of the only means of subsistence and of the only economic resource. The third point that has been analyzed is the problem of authenticity and identity in relation to tourism. At first, I have taken up Urry’s theorization of the “tourist gaze” and I have considered how this gaze becomes objectified. The “tourist gaze” is created through the selection of certain relevant elements and is socially organized, so that its nature depends on many contingent factors, such as the historical period or the social group to which it pertains. The “tourist gaze” is planned prior to the tourism experience by tourism specialists, and the tourist often can only conform to it because of two main factors: first, the anticipation that reading dedicated magazines, guides, brochures, etc. has created. These readings are always patchy and voluntarily full of gaps, in an attempt to hook the reader, but also to keep an aura of mystery on their subject. The tourist, therefore, must be interested in following the directions given in order to satisfy his curiosity, and must accept the validity of the information provided. The second factor, which can also be considered a consequence of the first one, is that people visiting a place for the first time cannot count on previous knowledge about the experiences that are awaiting them. Since the tourist cannot base his judgments on previous knowledge, he is more eager to adapt to the reality that tourist guides, cultural brokers and middle men present to him. It has been showed how through different media and communication tools, the images that tourists tend to reproduce are very similar to each other, if not identical. The greatest difference has arisen in recent years and regards the fruition ways of these media. If only a few years ago pictures were taken with analogical cameras using films, now the diffusion of smartphones and the internet makes everything faster and easier. Previously, the tourist returning from the holidays had to take the films for developing, which could take not only hours, but even days. That added a component of anticipation and curiosity to seeing the photographs and also to showing them to family

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and friends. Nowadays, a picture can be virtually shared the very second it is taken, and not only with acquaintances, but in theory with the whole world. As has been demonstrated, though, a greater freedom in the ways a gaze can be (re)produced does not necessarily imply a more critical approach to what is being seen and in the selection of gazes, which had often been already planned by someone else, in a “search for the photogenic”. Furthermore, I have given a definition of authenticity in relation to tourism experiences. I have pointed out that the concept of authenticity has been defined through three different points of view, usually as opposed to what is “staged” and therefore not “natural”. In particular, I have followed the approach of Reisinger and Steiner, who proposed a critical analysis of what has been understood under object authenticity in the anthropology of tourism in general, and by modernists, constructivists and postmodernists in detail. The two authors suggested that the Heidegger phenomenology would actually be more useful in trying to define how tourists perceive their experiences, simply because Heidegger thought that “what is cannot be other than it is. What is given is always genuine, real, reliable and true, even if it is incomplete.”457 This affirmation is in accordance to what I have previously stated, that is the tourist can often only conform to the gaze he is provided with because the travel experience cannot be replicated – including the case of recurring tourists – and a term of comparison that would help to discriminate the “authentic” from the “staged” doesn’t exist. The tourist’s experience is always authentic. Now, in the case of Lanzarote this aspect poses a further problem, since it can be difficult to maintain whether the development that has occurred on the Island, regulated by the ideals of Manrique and by the regulations of the Cabildo, can be considered as authentic or not. In an attempt to provide an answer to this question, I have introduced the concept of place-branding, which I have borrowed from marketing and advertising. I had already

457 Reisinger, Steiner, 2005, p. 78. 225

previously maintained that Manrique’s attempts to provide a new model for Lanzarote can be considered as an ante litteram place-branding. Place-branding has the function of adding value to already existing features, in order to differentiate one place from another. Branding creates a place’s visual logo, which works the same way as with all other products or goods. Gran’s point is that “it does not matter that people (tourists) behave as if authenticity exists; that they accept that authenticity is staged if it looks real; and that they think about places as they think about other brands.”458 Place-branding is made to sell, not to resemble the real thing, therefore a quest for authenticity is pointless. It is thus hard to achieve a coincidence between branded places and real places, since positive aspects of the place – in relation to the brand that one is trying to create – are going to be enhanced, while negative aspects will be left out. Moreover, a brand is normative, that means that the image it wants to convey can either be a factor of change on the place that it is portraying, or otherwise it can impede certain forms of art, cultural products, etc. from evolving naturally, leading to the creation of a surrogate of what once was real.459 It is clear how such a theoretical approach can be applied to what is going on in Lanzarote, especially if we consider what is reported in the last chapter of this work, that is the fact that tourism specialists are pursuing the creation of a renewed brand for Lanzarote. This new brand should have two main new features: first, it should not rely only on the figure of Manrique and of what he created, second the tourism market should be confronted in a different way (a more technological, multimedial and detailed way), which would be appealing for younger generations and for new markets. As a consequence of what has just been stated, the question whether Lanzarote can be considered as more or less authentic than other places – for example Gran Canaria, which followed a totally different kind of development consequent to tourism – should probably be posed in different terms. If we agree that authenticity is in the eye of the beholder, and that the choice of travelling to Lanzarote is the consequence of a marketing action which is aimed to pre-select the tourists according to preferences,

458 Timm Knudsen Britta, Waade Anne Marit (ed.), 2010, p. 28. 459 Ibidem, p. 69. 226

beliefs and position in the tourist career ladder, etc. then worrying about what is actually authentic in Lanzarote is pointless, because the Island does nothing else than fulfill those expectations that have been promised. Lanzarote cannot be compared to other places, such as Las Vegas, where reproductions of monuments and life styles are the norm. The difference lies in the fact that while in Las Vegas we can see a copy of Venice or the Tour Eiffel, which could technically be compared anytime with their original, in Lanzarote this is not possible. We can see the reiterated reproduction of an architectural model through the years, but we do not have a term of comparison with what would have been if Manrique hadn’t imposed his aesthetic criteria. In Lanzarote what is cannot be other than it is. The alienating feeling that can be perceived in some areas of the Island – as in Marina Rubicón – should probably not be reported as a case of “staged authenticity”, but rather as the result of too much success and engagement. Manrique himself often used the expression “Morir de éxito” when talking about Lanzarote, which can be translated as “dying from success”.460 This aspect implies the consideration of the difference between what Manrique wanted to achieve and the effective consequences of having pursued this goal. Therefore, it is easy to understand why the image of the Island is strongly linked to that of Manrique, and this bond cannot easily be loosened. There are three basic reasons: Manrique provided an aesthetic definition for Lanzarote, which turned into a legislation that widely influences the lives of its inhabitants, but most importantly Manrique constituted (and still constitutes) a media icon. During one of the last Round Tables dedicated to the figure of the artist by the FCM, on November 8th 2012, it was referred how wise a user of the available media Manrique was. In particular it is reported that

Javier Duran concluded his statements saying that the big challenge is to maintain Manrique as media icon before all the corruption and scandals: "The survival of Manrique as media icon depends on the survival of the Lanzarote he created", and hoped that Manrique would not become a cultural or tourist

460 Idoya Cabrera Delgado, 12.09.2011 227

souvenir, but would remain as a symbol of what he really represented. Finally, Juan Manuel Pardellas said he remembered César and "how he was feared by the rulers" and lamented that his death "left us as orphans in the environmental struggle." 461

The Lanzarote he created, though, doesn’t seem to work as well as it did, if we consider that the number of tourists has decreased significantly in the first two months of 2013, with total arrivals now down by more than 7%.462 The reasons for this decrease, apart from the current economic crises, are:

- the fact that sustainability in tourism is no longer a pioneer concept, and nowadays there are many other destinations that offer similar scenarios. The fragmented market would probably require a different positioning or the selection of another “plus”. - the many recurrent tourists do not usually visit Manrique’s artworks more than once, typically the first time. Therefore the creation of new recreational activities are probably desired and felt as necessary. - despite of the many (strict) regulations, Lanzarote is suffering from excessive urbanization, which is slowly changing the character of the Island. This process is, for example, particularly visible in the south. - customer/tourist’s tastes are always changing, and these changes should be taken into account by those tourism specialists who deal with Lanzarote, non only in terms of content, but also in terms of new communication tools.

461“Javier Durán concluyó sus intervenciones diciendo que el gran reto es el de mantener a Manrique como icono mediático frente a la corrupción y los escándalos: “La supervivencia de Manrique como icono mediático dependerá de la supervivencia de la Lanzarote que él creo”, y alentó a que Manrique no se convierta en un souvenir cultural o turístico sino que se mantenga como símbolo de lo que realmente fue. Finalmente, Juan Manuel Pardellas dijo que se queda de César con “cómo era temido por los gobernantes” y lamentó que su muerte “nos dejó huérfanos en la lucha ambiental”. (Translation: MGP) available at: http://www.fcmanrique.org/nota.php?idNoticia=281, accessed 20.01.2013. 462 data avaliable from http://www.lanzaroteguidebook.com/news/news/details-1338/tourist-arrivals-fall- by-257-in-february?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=face book, accessed 28.03.2013. 228

After having considered all these aspects of the relationship between the work of César Manrique, the tourism market in Lanzarote and the current analyzed issues, what seems necessary to the writer is that Lanzarote should finally start emancipating itself from the tourism industry. This necessity has been made clear by both tourism specialists and by the inhabitants of Lanzarote through surveys. Although it might sound like a contradiction, the emancipation of the Island from the “tourism monoculture” would probably allow it to remain still an important tourism destination. The emancipation would also turn the Island into a place where the inhabitants enjoy living. The development of an industrial sector, or of tertiary activities not necessarily linked to tourism, could perhaps help to provide the Island with that “third dimension” that it is now missing, and it would perhaps enable it to finally come of age after having been considered the “Cinderella of the Canaries” for decades.

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PICTURES INDEX

Picture 1. Map of the Canary Islands. Source: http://www.weather2travel.com/images_maps/SPCI.gif, accessed 12.09.2011

Picture 2. Parque Nacional de Timanfaya. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

Picture 3. The vineyards of La Geria. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 4. Hotel Los Fariones today. Source: http://www.farioneshotels.com/images/resorts/04_big.jpg, accessed 23.11.2011

Picture 5. La Romeria de la Virgen de los Dolores. Source: http://bloglanzarote.wordpress.com/page/2/, accessed 31.11.2011

Picture 6. A “typical English pub” in Costa Teguise. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 7. Cueva de los Verdes. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture8. Entrance to Jameos del Agua. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 9. Casa/Museo El Campesino. Entrance to the Restaurant. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

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Picture 10. Restaurante El Diablo and detail of the "Islote de Hilario". Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

Picture 11. The "volcanic grill". Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 12. Entrance to the "camouflaged" Mirador del Rio (left) and view from inside the restaurant (right). Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 13. Castillo de San José. Source: http://www.centrosturisticos.com/centros/CENTROS/published_es/DEFAULT/ /centros/galeria_centros/miac_galeria/miac_galeria07.jpg, accessed: 04.03.2013

Picture 14. View of Jardin de Cactus. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

Picture 15. Entrance to the main building of the Fundación César Manrique. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 16. Multilingual boards at the entrance of the Fundation. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 17. Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion. Copyright belongs to the author.

Picture 18. Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion. Copyright belongs to the author.

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Picture 19. Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion. Copyright belongs to the author.

Picture 20. Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion. Copyright belongs to the author.

Picture 21. Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion. Copyright belongs to the author.

Picture 22. Postcard for sale in Lanzarote. Source: Scansion. Copyright belongs to the author.

Picture 23. Picture posted by the user lallometti on the mobile App Instagram on 03.01.13. Used with permission.

Picture 24. Picture of the Timanfaya National Park. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 25. Souvenirs for sale at the La Geria Vinery souvenir store, i.e. plastic mugs with embossed English first names on them. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 26. Murano Glass souvenirs for sale at the Teguise Market. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 27. African Masks for sale at the Teguise Market. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 28. Maori souvenirs for sale at the Teguise Market. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 29. Three views of Arrecife. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

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Picture 30. A view of the city of Haría. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 31. Views of Marina Rubicon. Pictures taken in May 2012. It is noticeable how, though in the middle of high tourist seasons, the streets are empty. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 32. A restaurant in Marina Rubicón. The building features a typical Lanzarotian oven, which in this case only has a decorative function, though in the past it used to be present in every farmers’ house. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi.

Picture 33. Views of the Casa/Monumento El Campesino. Author: Maria Giulia Pezzi

Picture 34. Volunteers working for the ¡Para ya!” Campaign. Source: http://www.fcmanrique.org/actiDetalle.php?idActividad=54 accessed : 11.02.2013

Picture 35. César Manrique and other demonstrators during the Playa de Los Pocillos protest in 1988, bearing a banner that reads "This beach is ours". Source : http://ociolanzarote.com/en/centres-art-nature/cesar-manrique/, accessed 15.11.2012

Picture 36. César Manrique giving a speech during the Playa de los Pocillos Protest in 1988. Source: http://www.fcmanrique.org/imageDetail.php?idImagen=1196&idCarrusel=5, accessed 08.02.2013

Picture 37. Sensibilisation campaign of the Magazine NU2 against oil prospecting in front of the coasts of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

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Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=425383114166096&set=a.2116271 62208360.51880.207213415983068&type=1&theater, accessed 12.02.2013

Picture 38. Sticker distributed by the FCM featuring the logo of the Foundation and the words "Petrol? No". Source: http://www.fcmanrique.org/imageDetail.php?idImagen=1865, accessed 12.02.2013

Picture 39. Graphic posted on Facebook.com. Source: https://fbcdn-sphotos-f- a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/425692_379381752071913_373630160_n.jpg, accessed12.02.2013

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TABLES INDEX

Table 1. Población de derecho de Lanzarote según municipio y continente de origen (2010), Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=6&idItem=4 965, accessed 12.09. 2011(1) Table 2. Evolution of the population in Lanzarote from 1768 to 2011, ISTAC - Istitudo canario de estadística, available at http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/istac/jaxi-web/tabla.do, accessed 21.09. 2012

Table 3. Evolución de la población de derecho de Lanzarote según municipio (1996-2011). Available from: http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=6&idItem=2 817, accessed 21.09. 2012(1) Table 4. Evolución de la población de derecho de Lanzarote según nacionalidad (2000-2010). Centro de Datos de Lanzarote. Available from http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=6&idItem=4 080, accessed 04.10.2011 Table 5. Afluencia turística a Lanzarote según mes (2012). Comparación con 2011. Centro de datos de Lanzarote, available from: http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem= 5349, accessed 04.03.2013.

Table 6. Afluencia turística a Lanzarote según país de residencia y mes (julio 2012). Source: ISTAC. http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem= 5176, accessed 26.09.2012

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Table 7. Afluencia a los Centros de Arte, Cultura y Turismo de Lanzarote según centro y mes (2011). Source: Centros de Arte, Cultura y Turismo. Cabildo de Lanzarote. http://www.datosdelanzarote.com/itemDetalles.asp?idFamilia=26&idItem= 4968, accessed 15.09.2012

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AKNOLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to...

Ao-Univ. Professor Helmut Eberhart for his precious advice and for providing me with help and motivation through these years.

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Adelheid Schrutka-Rechtenstamm und Univ.-Prof. Dr. Katharina Eisch- Angus for their reviews.

Idoya Cabrera Delgado from Fundación César Manrique, for the time she dedicated to me, for providing me with material and books and for answering all my uncountable questions and emails.

Prof. Roswita Cano-Restrepo, to whom I owe a lot.

Prof. Ruth Hunt, who proof read this work.

My family and my brother, who supported me through the highs and lows and motivated me to go on each time I felt like I couldn’t.

To Žiga, who proved to have infinite patience, shared this path with me, proof read my work and has always been my supporter number one.

All my friends in Italy, who have been on my side through the years and have a special place in my heart.

My friends and working colleagues in Austria, who have been like a second family to me.

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