Emanuele Giordano

Practices of outdoor illumination have dramatically changed in the last decades as functional lighting has progressively given way to a more qualitative vision of light. Its traditional role for security purposes has been progressively matched by the use of illumination for city beautification. This is now a major consideration for new lighting strategies. As a result, a growing number of European cities explicitly include the development of nocturnal tourism among the objectives of their lighting policies. However, little attention has been paid by academic research to this growing trend. Focusing on the internationally renowned lighting project " Ruta de los Rios de Luz " this research paper explores the use of lighting design for tourism purposes. Through interviews with individuals who played an important role in the project, the discussion below scrutinizes the lighting design decisions and the economic, environmental and political objectives that inspire the growing utilization of spectacular forms of illumination for tourism purposes.

L’article interroge la construction et les perceptions liées au projet d’illumination patrimoniale « Ruta de los Rios de Luz », développé dans la ville espagnole de Valladolid. En adoptant une approche performative de l’expérience visuelle, l’article permet d’aller au-delà de la vision traditionnelle d’une relation entre l’expérience visuelle et la mise en lumière du paysage nocturne fondée essentiellement sur la séduction. Au contraire, la superposition des différentes méthodologies de recherches a permis de mettre en évidence une expérience visuelle de ce paysage-lumière plus complexe, variée et multiforme, offrant de nouvelles perspectives sur les qualités relationnelles et performatives de l’engagement quotidien avec l’esthétique urbaine.

Accounts on how creative strategies and paradigms have been copied and circulated from one city to another are not new in tourism studies. However, they are traditionally characterized by arguments of serial reproduction that tends to conceptualize the process of policy circulation like a linear adoption of exogenous prescriptions copied by another city. As such they tend to share a negative viewpoint on the results of this strategy of policy emulation. Yet, the emergence of light festival events at a global level does not conform to such theorization. Largely inspired by few ‘best practice’ cases, like Lyon's Fête des Lumières, more than 100 light festivals are nowadays active around the world, experiencing a constant growth both in revenues and number of visitors. To examine how mechanisms, actors, concepts, strategies and artefacts related to the successful global circulations of light festivals, a ‘policy mobilities’ perspective has been adopted and semi-structured interviews were conducted with key personnel to track the relationships fostered through international networks of experts and lighting professionals. The results show how, even if the circulation of light festivals reflects a strategy of policy emulation, these events are not replicated in a serial and unproblematic way, but are selectively acknowledged and appropriated by local actors. This process of adaptation allows them to be successfully transplanted from one city to another, escaping the problem conventionally related to the ‘serial reproduction’ process. Yet, most of these events do not conform to models of tourism based on endogenous creative capital. Light festivals are often big-budget events, driven by commercial imperatives, characterized by a strong top-down approach and endorsed by international networks and agreement.

RIASSUNTO: Storicamente l’arcipelago delle Galápagos è stato identificato come caso esemplare di uno sviluppo turistico in grado di rispettare il patrimonio ambientale e come esempio di un sistema ecoturistico  d’eccellenza. Tuttavia nell’ultimo decennio la crescita demografica e la motorizzazione della mobilità insulare hanno profondamente modificato il tradizionale processo insediativo della popolazione e quindi gli equilibri interni del sistema stesso. Attraverso lo studio della principale isola dell’arcipelago, Santa Cruz, nell’articolo si vogliono analizzare le ragioni di questo cambiamento, evidenziando come per la prima volta nella storia dell’isola sia in corso un rapido processo di periurbanizzazione che mette a rischio il patrimonio tangibile ed intangibile dell’isola.

SUMMARY: The development of peri-urbanization in Galápagos: the case of Santa Cruz island. – Historically the Galápagos archipelago has been identified as an exemplary case of a tourism development able to preserve the environmental heritage and as an example of an eco-tourism system of excellence. However, over the last decade, population growth and the motorization of the insular mobility have fundamentally changed the traditional process of settlement of the population and therefore the internal equilibrium of the system. Through the study of the main island of the archipelago, Santa Cruz, in the article we discuss the reasons beyond this change, noting how for the first time in his history the island is undergoing a rapid process of peri-urbanisation that puts at risk the tangible and intangible heritage of the island.

RÈSUMÈ: Dans le dèveloppement de la periurbanisation en Galápagos: le cas de l’île de Santa Cruz. – Historiquement, l’archipel des Galápagos a ètè identifiè comme un cas exemplaire de dèveloppement durable capable de respecter le patrimoine environnemental et comme un système d’èco-tourisme d’excellence. Toutefois, au cours de la dernière dècennie, la croissance de la population et la motorisation de la mobilitè insulaire ont fondamentalement changè le processus traditionnel de règlement de la population et donc l’èquilibre interne  du système. Grâce à l’ètude de l’île principale de l’archipel, Santa Cruz, dans article seront analysèes les raisons de ce changement, soulignant comment, pour la première fois dans son histoire, l’île est en cours d’un rapide processus de pèriurbanisation qui met en pèril son patrimoine tangible et immatèriel.