What is the value of cultural tourism, and how is it to be realised? As Cork prepares to become the European City of Culture in 2005, it is beginning to grapple with this question and hoping to find answers that may shape its future well into the coming decades.
Winning the title against stiff opposition at home and abroad was an achievement in itself. It required bringing together varied interests to set out Cork's stall for the European adjudicators and to convince them the city could do justice to the prestigious award. Now it must deliver.
As a destination for tourists, Cork falls far short of the mark. The city may have been eulogised in song and story, but the fact is that tourists view it as a temporary stopover on the way to somewhere else, usually west Cork or Kerry, with a brief sojourn at Blarney to kiss the stone and buy the woollen cardigan.
Cork itself may be to blame for this. Traditionally, the city has sold itself as a gateway to the south-west, flagging its airport and port links as the fastest way to get to the heartland of the region. The literature never dwells too much on what the city has to offer.
This has to change if Cork is to live up to its title, and there is a recognition now that if the various strands can be brought together, working in cohesion, by 2005 the city will be in a position to present itself as a sophisticated centre for tourism.
Last week a symposium in Cork, chaired by the arts consultant and broadcaster, Ms Doireann Ní Bhriain, focused on the question of cultural tourism and its value. Speakers included Dr Justin O'Connor, director of the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture. He and others offered valuable insights into how city authorities and the arts community could combine in projects that were inclusive, well designed and thought out, and how a city like Manchester, which a decade ago suffered from dereliction in its centre, could reinvent itself.
He showed that a city council which took cultural growth seriously would not stifle the arts community with red tape, but would smooth the way in a partnership which required as much a hands-off as a hands-on approach. He pointed out that in Manchester the city council, wisely, concentrated on what it knew best, the public realm etc, and more or less allowed the experts within the arts community to marshal their talents to the best advantage of both the city and the arts. The result, he said, had been a vibrant partnership and a new image for Manchester.
Similarly, Prof Ian Brown, director of the Scottish Centre for Cultural Management and Policy at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, described how a thoughtful approach to marrying the arts to a city's potential had transformed the popular perception of Glasgow as a hard city with an even harder underbelly to one where visitors could enjoy a lively arts scene. That came with an improved public realm, such as good restaurants in pleasant surroundings.
To its credit, Cork Corporation has always fostered the arts in the city and has been a patron even in difficult times. Its support for the Opera House is an example. For a successful year as European City of Culture in 2005 the city will be required to forge a dynamic, professionally managed partnership with its arts community, citizens and business/tourism sector.
At the symposium the city manager, Mr Joe Gavin, spelled out the direction this partnership would take. He told the audience that a separate company would be established to manage the year-long project, incorporating personnel from the city council, arts community, chamber of commerce, tourism interests, Arts Council and the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.
The programme for the year would include: visual arts, literature, language, publishing, music, dance, food, sport, heritage, drama, multimedia, film, opera and maritime events. Cork could expect benefits to accrue, Mr Gavin said.
The overall cost of the programme would be €12 million, half of which would be contributed by the Exchequer and the balance raised by sponsorship, local authority grants and income from events, he added. That investment, he suggested, could be viewed merely as a down payment on rewards in the years ahead.
Artists and arts practitioners would have the opportunity to develop new areas of work and engage a broader audience in their own city and much further afield; by proclaiming itself internationally as a city of culture in which the arts were actively promoted, the city would attract increased volumes of tourists looking for more than sun holidays; and a catalyst would be provided to make Cork, physically, a more pleasing city to the eye.