Tourism and the critical cosmopolitanism imagination: ‘The Worst Tours’ in a European World Heritage city

Abstract

With its old core classified as a World Heritage Site since 1996, Porto has recently been experiencing a tourism boom. Voted ‘Best European Destination’ of the year three times since 2012, this mid-size city core area is experiencing an economic renewal after decades of neglect. Many of the new ventures are tourism-orientated: restaurants, bars, hostels, short stay apartments and specialised crafts shops are populating previously derelict eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings, bringing new life to previously depopulated streets. Most of these ventures are fronted by middle class individuals who saw their traditional economic outlets wither during the Portuguese economic crisis and consequent international bailout in 2011. This paper analyses a particular tourism venture: a walking tour of the city called ‘The Worst Tours’. The offspring of three architects, these tours differentiate themselves by not aligning within a hegemonic model of tourism that focuses on the built heritage of the UNESCO classification and its historical discourse on the city, offering instead a more politically engaged discourse in which the urban and social impacts provoked by Portugal’s economic downturn and the touristification of the city’s economy are highlighted and discussed with the tour participants. I will approach the tour through the lens of critical cosmopolitanism and the idea of a cosmopolitan imagination producing new relations between self, other and the world in moments of openness.

Keywords:

• Tourism
• heritage
• economic crisis
• middle class
• resistance
• critical cosmopolitanism

Notes

1. An award created by a consumers/travellers organisation and voted on line by consumers worldwide: https://www.europeanconsumerschoice.org/travel/european-best-destination-2012/

2. http://www.europeanbestdestinations.com/top/europe-best-destinations-2014/

3. Information collected from: https://www.oecd.org/edu/Portugal_EAG2013%20Country%20Note.pdf. [consultation made in June 2016].

4. Information collected from: http://www.visitporto.travel/Visitar/Paginas/Noticia.aspx?noticia = 1500. [consultation made in June 2016].

5. Information collected from: http://www.publico.pt/local-porto/jornal/ryanair-lancara-cinco-novas-rotas--a-partir-do-porto-ate-final-do-proximo-ano-244556

6. http://www.europeanbestdestinations.com/best-of-europe/european-best-destinations-2017/ According to the organisers, a city had never received so many votes: over a third of the 400,000 participants voted for Porto http://expresso.sapo.pt/sociedade/2017-02-10-Porto-volta-a-ser-eleito-Melhor-Destino-Europeu.

7. The Porto University Architecture Faculty is the home to two Pritzker awards (1992 and 2011); the specificity of its training is emphasised by people referring to it as ‘the Porto school’.

8. Between 2008 and 2012 Portugal was the EU country with the highest increase in emigration: 155% (the second highest rate of migration increase was registered in Cyprus with 72%). During the same period Portugal was the second EU country with the highest percentage of individuals of working age living abroad: 11.5% (the first was Romania with 14.2%) (in: http://observatorioemigracao.pt/np4/3905.html [consultation made in June 2017]).

9. The numbers in brackets throughout the text specify the timeframe and minute of the quotes taken out of the interview I carried out in February 2016 with two of the organisers/architects .

10. http://fugas.publico.pt/restaurantesebares/297091_o-melhor-bolo-de-chocolate-do-mundo-porto

11. A toasted sandwich, typical of Porto.

12. The ‘promenade architecturale’ – the observer’s pathway through the built space – is a central element of Le Corbusier’s architectural and city-planning designs (Samuel 2010).

13. Porto’s inhabitants’ nick name, meaning tripe-eaters due to the fact that stewed tripe is the local dish.

14. On this predominance of the historical in the narrative and self-representation of the city in the UNESCO-classified area tours, see Santos (2014).

16. Enrolment in the tours is made via social media, that is, the tours’ website or Facebook page.

17. All Tripadvisor comments presented in this text can be found at https://www.tripadvisor.pt/Attraction_Review-g189180-d4860395-Reviews-The_Worst_Tours-Porto_Porto_District_Northern_Portugal.html [accessed in July 2017].

18. According to the organisers, the number of tours per month varies from ca. 10 to 15 in the winter months to twenty-something in the spring and autumn to reach a rate of one per day (and thus 30) in the summer months.

19. I make use of Pratt’s (1991) concept of the contact zone to emphasise power asymmetries and tensions, even though the Worst Tours are devoid of the colonial dimension that is so central to Pratt’s definition.

20. In https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/oct/20/top-10-cool-city-tours-around-world-guided-walks

21. This was a grassroots neighbourhood collective experiment that started in April 2011 and was terminated in April 2012 by police intervention under the orders of the Porto Council on grounds of illegal occupation of what was (empty) municipal property.

22. History as a hegemonic narrative is always dominated by heroic white males, and Porto is no exception in this regard.

23. On the ‘undisciplined’ nature of Southern European countries, see the then Dutch finance minister and head of the Eurogroup’s statement in March 2017 that Southern European countries had not made proper use of EU financial support: ‘You can’t spend all the money on drinks and women and then ask for help’ (http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/03/eurogroup-chairman-dijsselbloem-in-hot-water-over-drink-and-women-comments/.