Fireworks Tourism: New forms of Tourism and Destination Management based on the Experience Economy - Nanos Fireworks’ mark
Pine and Gilmore (1998) following the fundamental shift of the consumption rhythm and mode that has empowered consumers, encouraging them to seek intensified consumption moments, conducted a seminal research on the experience production. With the inauguration of the new paradigm of the experience economy, which recognizes experience as a distinct fount of economic value, the two benchmark scholars challenged holistically the business realities of the former traditional marketing era of the mass production of goods and provision of services.
Within this ambit of the experience market, every facet of the experience place branding is redirected towards this orientation: Cities, destinations and hotels. "Entire cities have transformed themselves into major stages for a continual stream of events, which can lead eventually to a 'festivalisation' of the city…The growing prominence of events has led some cities to promote themselves as 'eventful cities'.(Richards and Palmer 2010, p. 2) Contemporaneously, destinations are positioned as "experiences" (Richards 2001), choreographing their creative efforts with experiential marketing movements and attuning their physical and artificial panoply of resources (the landscape, the history, the culture, the climate, the locals) to managerial initiatives that release a unique competitive advantage.
In Pine and Gilmore's (1998) paradigm the experience is the outcome of the deliberate effort of a firm to exploit the resources of the service and industrial economy ("services as the stage, and goods as props") with an ultimate goal to design retrievable events, engrossing individual consumers: "An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event. Commodities are fungible, goods tangible, services intangible, and experiences memorable". (Pine and Gilmore 1999, p. 98). And the customer/ traveler pays for this experience to engage in "a series of memorable events that a company stages - as in a theatrical play – to engage him in a personal way" (Pine and Gilmore 1999, p. 2).
Destinations like companies need now to script experiences for their audience that "dazzle their senses", "engage them personally", "touch their hearts" and "stimulate their minds" (Schmitt 1999) and concurrently let them be self- indulgent in their 'fantasies, feelings and fun' (Holbrook and Hirschman 1982).
This destination marketing approach which is anchored on the experiential diversification is embraced by Nanos Fireworks.
FIREWORKS PERFORMANCES AS DESTINATION MANAGEMENT TOOLS
ARMATA, Spetses island- MIAOULIA, Hydra island
1920 and Pavlos Nanos' grandfather, Demetrios Bouboulis, great grandson of the legendary Bouboulina, will call in Spetses an Italian to teach him the art of fireworks so as to represent the sinking of the Turkish flagship in the island; the so-called feast of "Armata". In the same way Miaoulia event in Hydra will be established by the family. So, Pavlos' grandfather brings the very first fireworks in Greece and builds the first fireworks plant in Galatsi that with the lapse of years evolved into the today's internationally recognized fireworks company "Nanos Fireworks".
Seven times internationally awarded (first place in the World Fireworks Championship the consecutive years 2014 – 2016 in the Czech Republic, Belgium and Cincinnati respectively and first place in China and Germany four times), Pavlos Nanos is one of the most recognized directors and producers of pyrotechnic shows and special effects (SFX) universally (he has participated in major events such as Special Olympics 2011, TomorrowLand, Lollaooza , Robbie Williams, Roger Waters, Tiesto, JLo concerts, Eurovision 2006, major constituent factor in the fireworks opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games 2004 etc), makes the best fireworks in the world and is the first globally in pyromusical shows, the latest innovation of the pyrotechnic technology where the firework choreography, in every second of the explosion, is spatiotemporally defined and utterly synchronized to each musical phoneme. At the same time he is one of the very few directors who do not use virtual simulation software for the design of the shows.
Armata is all about a celebration through which Pavlos' great grandfather, grandfather, father, and now he and his brother highlight the fireworks as a vehicle of cultural tourism. An experience and a medium, namely, that experientially stimulates the knowledge and produces culture while depicting the history and keeping it alive: Through an astonishing pyro spectacle, a memorable way, the traveler learns history, immerses himself in the destination and becomes part of it in an indelible way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiMKrlBmGVk
As Pavlos Nanos asserts: "A hidden aspect of the fireworks is that their story is intricately tied to the culture; from their use in ancient China to expel evil spirits, for evoking religious devoutness in Christian Rome to their application in theatrical performances and cultural events nowadays. The success of Armata relies both on its objectives and its means. It promotes the national spirit, reproduces a major historical event, advertises the island and entertains the guests. So, it serves cognitive, economic and psychological purposes at the same time. And it achieves them since each person involved gives all his forces for the organization of this special ceremony, without obstacles and restrictions. One of these people is me and with my own resources I contribute to this important for my home country event. Some years now Armata has been the most beautiful fireworks show that can be seen in our country; many people characterize it equal to the fireworks show ceremonies of the Olympic Games."
LAKE BRNO, Czech Republic
Ignis Brunensis 2014. It is about 10 o' clock in Czech Republic. Early summer, June 2014 in the beautiful lake of Brno. Through a magical fireworks theatrical performance, Pavlos will engage an audience of 150,000 viewers in the Czech customs and culture: fireworks will paint in the sky a traditional couple dance, the national flag and other major notions and landmarks of the Czech civilization and tourism.
Thinking echo:
The crux, the "raison d'être" in the hospitality/ tourism business and the destination management is the construction of lasting memories through experiences. That the experience is the operational language of the tourism and hospitality product is well evinced also in Oh et al.'s (2007, p. 120) articulation that "everything tourists go through at a destination is an experience, be it behavioral or perceptual, cognitive or emotional, expressed or implied."
In this new marketing and economic ecosystem, the experiential ecosystem, where destinations are positioned as experiences, fireworks, as Nanos Fireworks exemplify, seem to assume a gorgeous as well as important role.
Learning outcome:
Destination management tries to reinvent nowadays the wheel of the hospitality consumption experiential realm. In this vein, Nanos Fireworks recognizes and leverages the attention of pyrotechnic stories as an innovative memorable and engaging experience generator to lodge a destination in the traveler's memory and, most fundamentally, his heart.
Besides, people come to destinations to live a story, to immerse in a myth.
Pine and Gilmore (2011, p. 37) posit that "whole new genres of tourism arise; witness film industry, culinary tourism, medical tourism, disaster tourism, climate change tourism, even "PhD tourism" (Context Travel of Philadelphia assigns doctorate experts to travel with tourists to various European cities)".
Shall we propose, in the vein of this thought, the coin of the "fireworks tourism"?
For more information about fireworks and special effects (SFX) as destination experiences:
http://www.nanosfireworks.gr
http://www.fireworks.gr
