THE FOLLOWING EXTRACT IS TAKEN FROM THE BOOK WISH YOU WERE HERE– THE BRANDING OF STOCKHOLM AND PLACES, BY JULIAN STUBBS. AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
The Ice Hotel
Getting people to visit a destination that lies above the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter and then pay a premium price for the privilege has to be seen as a truly great marketing achievement. But that’s exactly what The Ice Hotel in northern Sweden has achieved.
In 1992 an ice seminar was organised by Yngve Bergqvist, who was looking at ways to improve tourism in his home town of Jukkasjärvi, which lies around 17 kilometers from Kiruna in northern Sweden. An igloo of some 60 m2 containing ice sculptures was built to house the event. Unfortunately accommodation at the hotel Yngve managed had run out and so some hardy individuals agreed to spend the night in the igloo. They slept on top of reindeer skins in sleeping bags and the next morning, by way of compensation I should imagine, were given certificates to prove they had done so.
Twenty years later the Ice Hotel brand has spread and now there are ice hotels in sev- eral countries as well as a successful Ice Bar franchise with Absolut Vodka.
The hotel in Sweden is constructed every December and lasts through to the following April, when it melts. Each Spring, around March, 10,000 tons of ice are cut from the frozen Torne river to store for building the following winter’s hotel as well as for creating the unique products that the hotel markets, such as glasses and sculptures made of ice.
Whenever people or organisations com- plain about the difficulties they face in attract- ing people to their particular destination, I like to use the Ice Hotel as an example. Despite severe difficulties, any place, given enough focus on what they have that is truly special and some creative thinking, can succeed.
Few Place Marketing stories can be as inspirational as the one concerning The Ice Hotel in northern Sweden.
LuLeå university; Great Ideas Grow Better Below Zero.
Thanks to my oldest son, I have become hooked, as it were, on the hit AMC television show Breaking Bad.
Now as a rule I try and not watch too much TV – I actually prefer a good book. But Breaking Bad is compulsive stuff. The show is set and produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and follows the story of Walter White, a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer at the beginning of the series. He turns to a life of crime, producing and selling methamphetamine with a former student, Jesse Pinkman, with the aim of securing his family’s financial future before he dies. It’s compelling viewing – but aside from being a great show what is the impact on the setting – Albuquerque, New Mexico. It presents the city in an interesting yet contrasting light: on the one hand being very middle class America, swimming pools and suburbia and on the other as a hotbed of drug dealing, crime and Mexican cartels. It also shows the consequences, which are sometimes utterly appalling, of the choices the characters make. But, from a place branding perspective, is it good or bad for Albuquerque? Would I want to live there or even visit?
But what about the power of television and film?
I have a theory. New York City cops act the way they do because they have seen how New York cops act in the movies. Similarly, film and television can have a huge impact on how a destination acts in terms of their marketing activities.
In a marketing sense, nothing can have as great an impact on a Destination Brand than careful usage of mass media, especially film and television. When we visit cities such as London, New York, San Francisco we more or less know what to expect based on the media picture we have been influenced by. As a kid I watched programmes like The Odd Couple, Streets of San Francisco, Kojak and Bergerac. Films like Bullitt, Puppet on a Chain, Notting Hill and any of the James Bond movies all brought destinations and places to life in vivid technicolor. It made me want to live in New York, visit San Francisco and travel the world. Thats the impact of film and TV on our lives.
UK tourism has enjoyed a huge boost from increased visitor numbers to TV and film locations such as The Da Vinci Code, Gosford Park and Balamory. Frighteningly, I am told 20% of Americans visiting Scotland do so because theyve seen Braveheart. The Harry Potter films alone have led to a 120% increase in visitor numbers to Ainwick Castle in Northumberland, a significant increase in tourism to the region.
Consider the impact of Miami Vice. You can arguably say that undercover narc cops Sonny Crocket and Rico Tubbs helped save south beach from being torn down 30 years ago. When the show first aired in 1984 Miami was at a low point following race riots, the influx of drug cartels and a rise in violent crime. The show, directed by Michael Mann, almost reinvented the city as a star in its own right. His famous edict of the show no earth colours carried over into real life and all the decrepit south beach hotels did themselves up in pinks and blues and the district exploded back into life.
So what about Breaking Bad? With its seedy plot of drugs and crime is it good or bad for Albuquerque?
In some respects the sage advice of P.T. Barnum, the great American showman, could apply: ‘I don’t care what they say about me, just make sure they spell my name right!’
“When Breaking Bad began airing five seasons ago, we were less than thrilled by the subject matter, which is based on a fictional character and story,” says Dale Lockett, head of the Albuquerque Convention & Visitors Bureau. But given its popularity, “people are traveling to our city to see the locations featured in the show and then spending time at our attractions, restaurants and hotels,” he adds.
One local tour operator, the ABQ Trolley Co., added a three-hour, $60 per person Breaking Bad tour timed to the shows season premiere – and promptly sold out all seven scheduled departures.
Without doubt it seems whatever the subject matter, TV and film are powerful mediums and brand carriers for locations and places. Added to that its just a damn good TV show.
Anyway, thank god it’s now over. I can return to reading my books.
Ive always thought that you can best judge a city by taking a good walk around it early in the morning. You need to get out really early though, around five thirty, before the cleaners have managed to cleanse the streets of the nights various passions. Its the theory that a chain is best judged by its weakest link and at such a delicate hour, as a city stirs into life, all of its frailties and truths are laid on the pavements to be seen and often trodden in. In New York Ive walked all the way from Battery Park, through Washington Square and on up fifth to central park five miles in all. Ive walked nearly every street in central London and jogged through most of its parks, and one of my favourites, a walk from Union Square San Francisco up over Nob Hill, to get a view of Alcatraz, and then down to the Presidio. A good walk often gives the brain a chance to sort out most issues in life.
But today Im in Lisbon on an early July morning and its a city bathed in a warm sunlight, made even more pleasant by a gentle atlantic breeze. First impressions are not good however. The streets appear to be mostly made up of sixties concrete blocks of one sort or another with filthy air conditioning units hanging out of most of the windows. Graffitti adorns the majority of buildings, in fact the graffitti adds the only element of real life to the brutal and failed architecture. I find one rather pleasant and large park, nestled between two busy roads. Some statues, lakes and a few small buildings give glimpses of a city of elegance, from a time long past.
A city that has now mostly been wrapped in a concrete overcoat. The beauty of even this green oasis with its wonderful ancient trees is however marred once again when I come across a huge concrete blockhouse of a building, looking like it has been dropped into place from above by the mother ship. Its just simply inhuman looking. Again it has been adorned in colourful and rather poetic graffitti. The building looks like some sort of genetic mutational cross between an oversized public convenience and the fuhrerbunker in its final days. I just stare and wonder what the architects of a generation ago were thinking? Was there really that much drug abuse in the sixties? Gropius gone very badly wrong.
Getting people to visit a destination that lies above the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter and then pay a premium price for the privilege has to be seen as a truly great marketing achievement. But that’s exactly what The Ice Hotel in northern Sweden has achieved.
In 1992 an ice seminar was organised by Yngve Bergqvist, who was looking at ways to improve tourism in his home town of Jukkasjärvi, which lies around 17 kilometers from Kiruna in northern Sweden. An igloo of some 60 m2 containing ice sculptures was built to house the event. Unfortunately accommodation at the hotel Yngve managed had run out and so some hardy individuals agreed to spend the night in the igloo. They slept on top of reindeer skins in sleeping bags and the next morning, by way of compensation I should imagine, were given certificates to prove they had done so.
To get a free chapter of WISH YOU WERE HERE click this link:
http://page.upthereeverywhere.com/destinations-marketing-book-chapter?utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.upthereeverywhere.com%2Fup-for-real%2F
To get a free chapter of WISH YOU WERE HERE click this link:
http://page.upthereeverywhere.com/destinations-marketing-book-chapter?utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.upthereeverywhere.com%2Fup-for-real%2F
