Hybrids 1100km trip (Part 6 of 8 - Kaunas, day 3)

Gatis said:

That does not work in advertisement business. In tourism sector offer always is bigger than demand - before going somewhere people want to be sure that every minute and every view will be perfect. In reality this is never achieved. But those who manage to convince that it WILL be like this, still take the "cream".

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Agree, but only partly. There is other side of the coin. OK, in the first time viewers gets this "must see" image in their heads and decide to go to that particular place - but if this image is too far from reality and they come and see the place is disappointing to them, they don't keep silent - they warn their friends, acquaintances: don't go to that place. Grape-vine is very important when it comes to tourism. People will believe more their friends, not tourism agencies, they are not fools. The very important factor in this is the state of mind - if people hopes to see the best, then they could get disappointed even if the place isn't ugly. But, if they know from the beginning - there is something nice to see but also ugly things, they have prepared themselves, expectations isn't too high and the mind isn't so demanding - and they go back pleased. So, I see the advertisement strategy, which try to make too false image of the place - as a shortsighted and useless in the long-term.

Gatis said:

This is inevitable - SSC serves as an enormous advertisement board, going against the mainstream here does harm. But it is interesting to try and challenge this.

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Yes. I do it sometimes in my pics also. At first, we are not working for tourism agencies and we can show here everything what we want. Of course, almost everyone wants to represent their country from the best side, and in most cases it is really more interesting to see the very nice views, not the ugly ones, but... Sometimes it's also very interesting to see some well taken shots of interesting ugly things. Yes, ugly can be interesting, it can raise emotions and left memories - at least, I sometimes feel in that way and as I have observed here, I'm not the only one. For example, I have appeared in some of the urban photo contest weeks here in SSC - and the best success wasn't with Riga Old Town or Saules akmens pics, but with the pic which showed railway, train and dirty soviet surroundings in Ķengarags/Dārzciems area! Sometimes "nice" can be boring but "ugly" - very interesting, and although it sounds paradoxically - even "nice"! But of course it's hard challenge - to show the ugly as interesting.

When thinking a bit - yes, agree with the first part. Too often have heard complaints of Latvian tourists regarding the striking difference between "paradise-like" advertisements and harsh reality in two places - a) Egypt; b) Istanbul. As a result these locations are not on my "first 50 things on Earth to see" list. I would have quite another attitude towards both places, if they would have less selfpraising attitude.

Second part - rather not. It is rather popular to show grit as art. People in New York or London can afford it - they have been tired of "excessive Ordnung" and see beauty in old brick walls with graffiti on it and a bum sleeping in forefront. Those millions of tourists coming to London don't care about it - London is well known and whatever they do, it makes them only more interesting. But place the same "graffiti+bum" picture in tourism booklet about Tirana or Krasnoyarsk (just examples of less touristy cities) - would you be interested to find more about these cities? Me not, I will just turn the page and look for something else.

Gatis said:

When thinking a bit - yes, agree with the first part. Too often have heard complaints of Latvian tourists regarding the striking difference between "paradise-like" advertisements and harsh reality in two places - a) Egypt; b) Istanbul. As a result these locations are not on my "first 50 things on Earth to see" list. I would have quite another attitude towards both places, if they would have less selfpraising attitude.

Second part - rather not. It is rather popular to show grit as art. People in New York or London can afford it - they have been tired of "excessive Ordnung" and see beauty in old brick walls with graffiti on it and a bum sleeping in forefront. Those millions of tourists coming to London don't care about it - London is well known and whatever they do, it makes them only more interesting. But place the same "graffiti+bum" picture in tourism booklet about Tirana or Krasnoyarsk (just examples of less touristy cities) - would you be interested to find more about these cities? Me not, I will just turn the page and look for something else.

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Yeah, I agree that for attraction of tourists it couldn't work, mainly because of 1 thing - if you see some great picture with brick wall and a bum and feel the emotions, you unconsciously know - it's not the charm of that place itself, it is the charm of that moment, which is catched by talented photographer. You realize, that if you would go there, the place could look absolutely ugly and boring and without any charm, because THE MOMENT will not be there anymore. But you can always trust on the things like Big Ben or Eiffel Tower. But I repeat once more - I think, we shouldn't turn SSC into some tourism catalog, so the "alternative" pics (and especially if they are taken profesionally) are very welcomed here. Not only for the "artistic" aspect, but sometimes it's just interesting to see the everyday places, to compare in what environment people live in each country - that's the reason why I sometimes find interesting to see pics of commieblock districts, I can imagine how it could be living there.