Lecture 3

Question 1

What is the city of Paris associated with?

Answer 1

architecture, arts and culture, lifestyle, fashion, shopping, delightful food, pleasure and romance.

Being the capital… and most important city …the images of Paris and France, which have been constructed over many centuries, are closely interrelated

Question 2

What is the grand tour?

Answer 2

“Historically, Paris was an important part of the Grand Tour that flourished between the late 17th and early 19th century, when young upper-class men used to travel across Europe for more or less educational purposes.”

• How great locations became great
• Paris was a great stop on this tour

Question 3

Who would go on this grand tour?

Answer 3

…in their early 20s, (mainly) British men would embark on an arts and cultural tour of Europe that could last months or even years.
(this happened in the mid 1600s to mid 1800s)
• Influenced how we tour today

Question 4

What is the world fair?

Answer 4

19th century world’s fair exhibitions (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889 and 1900), were held in Paris with successively rising numbers of visitors and a growing exhibition area.
During the second half of the 19th century, the number of visitors of Paris world’s fairs grew considerably from 5 million (1855) to more than 50 million (1900

• Would tear them down after the fair was over
• Introduced to new tech here

Question 5

What are the most important tourist destinations in Paris?

Answer 5

Notre Dame
Sacre Coeur
• The Musee du Louvre (7.6m); 
• Eiffel Tower (6.4m);
• Pompidou Centre (5.3m); 
• Cite des Sciences et de l’Industrie (3.2m);
• Musee d’Orsay (2.9m);
Arc de Triomphe (1.3m).   
Disney Paris
Versailles

Question 6

What do first time visitor normally do?

Answer 6

The general pattern of visitor practices during the stay widely corresponds with the activities that are recommended by travel guides for spending a few days in Paris.

This is true of most major tourist destinations!

Often nifluenced by travel guides, loking at activites that are recommended, most people stay close to the travel guides

Question 7

Why dont svisitor see Paris for the first time?

Answer 7

images of the city are endlessly reproduced on calendars and postcards around the world, and it has been the setting for countless films and novels.”
• We see images of these places befroe we eveen go

This type of common knowledge about Paris consists of stereotypical images.
-Want to reinforce those sterotypes as a first timer

Question 8

Why are irst time visitors appear to be magically attracted by the most important sightseeing spots and monuments ?

Answer 8

The stereotypical character of the basic knowledge about a tourist place like Paris can be regarded as a major reason why
• Draw to the most major cites and monuments

Question 9

If you go to the same place for a 2nd or 3rd time what kind of patterns do they follow?

Answer 9

Due to the great number of visitor attractions a similar pattern of visiting practices is shown by tourists who come for the second or third time …still feel the need to complete the standard visitor programme.
However… …more experienced repeat visitors often neglect or even avoid the iconic places of mass tourism
• Slowly you start to shift, and avoid these places (first sign of you becoming an experienced visitor)

Question 10

What is an experienced visitor?

Answer 10

Whereas first time visitors only get some quick impressions of the major tourist sights…
…repeat visitors aim at constructing a more integrated and less tourism oriented picture of the complexity of the city.

• Taking in the city and the atmosphere
• Start to fell a llittle more like you belong there

Question 11

What is the major aim of repeat visits?

Answer 11

to enjoy the atmosphere and environment of the city…
…repeat visitors can sporadically return to the major tourist sights, but first of all start to search for what they judge as authenticity beyond mass tourism

Question 12

What do repeat visitors think about others?

Answer 12

…it can be observed that they judge themselves as being somewhat superior to first time visitors.

Many repeat visitors are convinced that they have a better and less superficial perception, and that they can value more adequately the places they are visiting
• “im not just like these tourists, I know this place and value it”

This identity is formed through practices which mark an opposition to first time visitors.

Question 13

What is often rejected by repeat visitor?

Answer 13

Taking pictures, rushing from one tourist attraction to another and similar tourist practices, which are generally attributed to first time visitors,

Question 14

What is Neuschwanstein?

Answer 14

King Ludwig II was obsessed with Versaille and wanted a to scale version for himself on an island off of Bavaria

Was immortalized by Walt Disney as the Sleeping Beauty chateau.

Question 15

What is the feeling of being in Paris?

Answer 15

‘being in Paris’ is based both on iconic monuments and on more common urban ambiance.

• due to both monuments and urban ambiiance

Question 16

What is Simulacra?

Answer 16

(representation or imitation)…
…so to do this well, one needs to understand the experience of a place as a first time visitor (major monuments and attractions)…
…and as an experienced visitor (general atmosphere).
• When you mimic it trying to distil the city in its purest forms
• Helps us intsil what made it a place worth to minic

Question 17

What is one way that we can better understand what males a place unique and a major tourist draw

Answer 17

Successfully mimicking a place requires careful consideration of the original.

Question 18

What does the Paris hotel in Las Vegas to do well?

Answer 18

Hotel Paris Las Vegas is an assemblage of major Parisian iconic sites. Specifically, the Eiffel tower, the Louvre and the Orsay Museums, the Garnier Opera House, the Arc de Triomphe, the Place de la Concorde, the Moulin Rouge are reproduced, most of them finished in a ‘Parisian’ stone. (level of detail is wild)

The main building is made as a ‘chateau’ with a Mansard roof which hosts the hotel rooms.
A starting point…

The reproduction of a themed Parisian environment (be it a theme park, hotel or leisure space), seeking to give to the visitors the feeling that they are in Paris, capitalizes on very distinctive elements that are supposed to represent this city.

Question 19

What do we mean when we say buildings have become iconic?

Answer 19

Since the beginnings of tourism, some buildings have become ‘iconic’ and have been closely associated with their territory .
• Images represent the place that they are in
Reproduced on different media (postcards, posters, advertising leaflets, etc.) they became territorial emblems, they imaged the place in which they were built.
• The make it quickly aware what they are doing

Question 20

What makes a distinct place?

Answer 20

The “look and feel” of a city (in this case, Paris) rests not so much on the few famous landmarks (e.g. the Eiffel Tower), but largely on a set of stylistic elements, the visual minutiae of daily urban life.
…the elements that make Paris look like Paris are the doors, balconies, windows with railings, street signs and special Parisian lamp posts.

Question 21

What is the intangible?

Answer 21

“In themed casinos that purport to recreate an actual space, such as a city, the senses are used in a number of ways to connect the worker and patron to an economy of senses that, as simulated as it is, recreates the holistic tableaus of sense that are present in real cities…”
• The sounds, signs in native language, distinct smells are replicated

“…At the Paris casino, sounds of street performers speaking French mingle with street signs written in the same native language and various French goods in store windows. The smell of crepes and fresh baguettes permeate the Parisian style street outside the casino space, while diners sample French wine on the boulevard that sits against the Strip, just under the recreation of the Eiffel Tower”
• All this works together to make us feel like we are in a place that capitalizes everything that is Paris

Question 22

what is the essence of a place?

Answer 22

Tourism is a dominant creator and disseminator of images, imaginaries and stereotypes.
The reproduction of urban environments (be it Paris, New York or Venice), for tourism consumption, is based on the ‘essence’ of these environments…
• Tourism creastes and disseminates those sterotypes
• The simpler the image the easier it is to get someone to go there

…The task of Las Vegas engineers or Disney ‘imagineers’ is to express this urban ‘essence’.

Question 23

What is unique about Ratatouilles Paris at Disney Paris?

Answer 23

La Place de Rémy is a simulacrum of the city of Paris.
Yet, contrary to the Paris Las Vegas, no major monument of the French capital is represented in the Ratatouille attraction in Disneyland Paris.

No Eiffel Tower, nor Triumph Arch or Louvre. Here, Paris, looks like Paris, only thanks to ordinary architectural elements.

Question 24

What has Disney Paris done to recreate Ratatouilles Paris?

Answer 24

The attractions appear to be a reflection not of the ‘real’ Paris but of the Paris of tourist imaginary.

Question 25

What do Ratatouille and LAs Vega have in commmon

Answer 25

Las Vegas and Ratatouille are representative places of an ‘architecture of reassurance’, an architecture the success of which rests ‘in the emotional reassurance they provide (against…) the constant change of modernity
• We like places to feel familiar, so when mimicing it tries to give us reassuarance