Tourism, as defined by David Crouch and Nina Lubbren is "a journey to and in places, identities and experiences" (6). Across these different components, the Mexico advertisement campaign has placed emphasis on the visuality involved in numerous facets of what tourism concerns, both materially and metaphorically. Some of their ads display the material depiction of Mexican sites through images/texts displaying concrete places. Others, on the contrast, posit metaphorical depictions to "construct ideas and desires of the experience of tourism"(6).
I argue that Mexico's current tourism marketing campaign serves as a perfect example of this. In the remainder of my analysis of such advertisements, you will begin to see how the Tourism board has re-labeled the reputation of Mexico by positioning images and narrative of Mexico in enhanced ways. Most recently, the Mexico tourism board has launched a big advertising campaign towards both the United States and Europe in the hopes of seducing new travelers to all it has to offer. In a grand effort to attract tourists from all over the world, Mexico has disseminated a good number of advertisements with varying themes of travel experiences for all kinds of travel needs and desires. Keeping in mind that "the great majority of touristic images tend not to be paintings or other objects of 'high art' but ephemeral relics of advertising" (Crouch & Lubbren 5), it seems as if the Tourism board has adopted this method in the attempts of re-defining Mexico's negative visual culture to international markets.
Furthermore, with the impressive look of such advertisements, the marketers of such a campaign seem to mimic a theory set-forth by David Crouch and Nina Lubbren in their introduction mentioned earlier. Their suggestions represent a perhaps hopeful vision that states that "tourists do not necessarily respond to economic and social realities; they however, respond strongly to the images that are in circulation about their touristic destinations". Could this perhaps be the strategy behind the current dissemination of the new Elite Mexico Experiences ad campaign? Is it true that if the Mexico Tourism board is successful in displaying the cultural beauties of its country, that it can change tourist common perceptions and fears? Are the ads and images strong enough to be up in the running against the images and stories present within newspapers across the world? Perhaps they are not, but it will become quite clear as to why they sure are trying to be.
The approach chosen by the Mexico Tourism board are the big and shiny advertisement spreads housed within the luxurious and oversized 10"x 13" formatted glossy pages of ELITE Traveler: The Private Jet Lifestyle Magazine. The reason for the high priced space within this particular magazine is a strategy applied by the board to represent a whole new image culture before the peering eyes of the most lucrative slice of the American population; the super wealthy. Entirely new visual imagery is present within these beautiful advertisements. Imagery that has been encoded to represent how Mexico is a place of adventure, celebration, fun in the sun, exploration, luxury, and a spectacular time for all types of tourists. If you desire a particular experience, Mexico has it, seems to be the preferred meaning uncovered within the advertisements. This preferred meaning is easily uncovered within the Tourism's main logo (pictured above).
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I will expose the experiences of Mexican archaelogical sites, beach celebrations, and fishing, that are represented in the letters M, X, and O. The graphics within the letter M interestingly enough portray recognizable carvings within pyramids. The X displays a sun within it's center, signifying the sun drenched beach culture present at Mexican beaches. And last but not least, the final letter in the logo displays blue waves in the form of ocean water, which perfectly signify the fishing tourist draw heavily promoted within one particular ad. |
