08:34:00
M achu Picchu’s selection as one of the new Seven Wonders of the modern world has led according to the Regional Directorate of Foreign Trade and Tourism to a 20 percent increase in the number of tourists visiting the Imperial city of Cusco. Tourism Growth The citadel of Machu Picchu received an average of 1 300 tourists daily after being declared a new wonder. Said amount had not been registered for several years, which consolidates the Inca citadel as one of the tourism references in Peru.
Last year, about 900 thousand tourists visited Cusco, a 20 percent rise compared to 2006,» said the head of Cusco Dircetur, Jean Paul Benavente. He also highlighted that at the beginning of 2007, the tourist flow to Cusco was expected to rise by ten percent, but after Machu Picchu’s selection as a wonder of the world, it jumped by 20 percent. Domestic tourists accounted for eight percent of this number, while foreign visitors, mainly from the United States and European countries (France, Spain, Germany and England) represented the other 12 percent. Property Prices The entire city of Cusco cheered and celebrated when it was announced that Machu Picchu had been chosen as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. Since then, the city and its residents have been able to enjoy certain benefits, such as inMACHU PICCHU: MORE TOURISTS, HIGHER PRICES 19 H e r i tag e: The Ne w S e ven Wonders Ju ly, 2008 creased tourism and more investments in the area’s infrastructure.
However as a result the cost of property in Cusco city has doubled and in some cases even tripled. For example, a spacious 40-room house that belongs to Carmen Rosa del Solar has been valued at $2 million. A fair price says the proud owner, considering it is located on Márquez Street in the historic center of Cusco. Carmen Rosa has affirmed that it is the perfect place for companies wishing to build a hotel or a shopping center. She also explained that the square meter (10 square feet) at Cusco’s main square was valued at $4,000 per square meter. Starbucks Coming Another effect of the huge increase of Machu Picchu and Cusco’s popularity is the interest of international corporations.
Starbucks, the largest coffeehouse company in the world, has set its sights on a locale in Cusco. The coffee and coffeehouse chain is willing to pay any price for a spot near Cusco city’s main plaza.
The Seattle-based corporation is not the only U.S. company interested in investing in a place near one of the New 7 Wonders of the World; McDonald’s and KFC have affirmed that they too are going to invest in property near the Inca Citadel. Even though real estate prices in Cusco city increased, McDonald’s – the world’s largest chain of fast food restaurants, has already set aside the locale where Bohemia restaurant used to be. The company is negotiating the rental of the establishment with the owners, the Transporters Association of Cusco. An inauguration date for the KFC and the McDonald’s has not been announced yet but both locales are currently being remodeled.
08:31:00
A record number of tourists visited Petra last year with arrivals topping 580,000 and encouraging the industry to introduce a range of development schemes to sustain the flow. Official figures showed a 62 per cent increase in visitors last year, up from 360,000 in 2006, which generated $13.4 million in tourism receipts for the country. Suleiman Farajat, head of the Petra Archaeological Park (PAP), said the increase in arrivals reflected the importance of Petra as a key historical attraction and its popularity as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.
The increase is significant and we are working hard to ensure that the site continues to draw more visitors, with plans to improve tourist services and provisions,» said Farajat. The plan, which is being devised with the support of the Ministry of Tourism, includes introducing various changes to the site, according to the PAP official. Among the changes there are eight new trails which will take visitors on different tours through the ancient city.
Attracting tourists and giving them a quality experience of Petra as a whole requires developing services both within the park and outside it,» said Farajat. «Having more to see and do outside the park not only enhances the tourist experience, but subsequently encourages them to spend more time in Petra,he added. Farajat also said that a range of development schemes will be implemented by PAP and the Petra Region Authority throughout the course of this year. Welcoming the increase in visitors, head of the Petra Hotel Association (PHA) Fawwaz Hasanat said that while it was an important achievement for the industry, it was not enough. Although the site draws thousands of tourists every month, the majority come on one-day tours, which do little to impact the hospitality industry in Petra and inject the area with the life and business it needs. «As a tourist city, home to one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, Petra continues to be sorely underdeveloped as a tourist destination,» said Hasanat.
Development initiatives are slow and investments that can help boost Petra’s potential still lag behind,» he added. New efforts are a must to address the challenges facing Petra and its growing popularity worldwide, according to the PHA official. Hasanat said he has witnessed a growing number of Jordan battles Gulf visitor slump Jordan’s tourism revenues jumped 13% year on year in 2007 despite the country witnessing a decline in Arab and Gulf visitors who traditionally account for more than 50% of total visitors.
According to numbers released by Jordan’s central bank, tourism revenues, which comprise 10% of the kingdom’s GDP, jumped by 13.4% to nearly US $2.11 billion during the first 11 months of 2007, compared to approximately $1.86 billion for the same period in 2006
08:29:00
The Indian people all over the world were overjoyed when the Taj Mahal won its place in the list of the New Seven Wonders. The Indian government however was allegedly not as happy as the common man. Infrastructure requirements of the city of Agra – where the Taj Mahal is located – are far from satisfactory, and especially the numerous cases of robbed and assaulted foreign tourists also present a serious problem for the local tourism development. On average, 20,000 tourists visit the Taj Mahal every day. But comments written in the Visitors’ Book at the world famous monument reveal how shocked and concerned foreigners are about crime in this city.
Many say they will never return while others say it was a mistake to have come. Foreign visitors have been easy targets of unscrupulous cheats and touts masquerading as guides and friendly neighborhood faces. There are reports of more than dozen cases of rape, harassment, theft and cheating last year. The figures tell a grim story of how government agencies have been callously indifferent to the sordid tales of harassment, molestation, snatching and plain cheating that have brought a bad name to the city of the Taj which every tourist entering India wants to see.
The Government Railway Police station at Agra Cantonment is still investigating at least a dozen cases involving foreign tourists on trains coming to Agra or at the railway station. A survey by Shyam Vir Singh, a researcher, shows that most victims in 2007 were those who had problems with their English. «The Japanese, Koreans and even some south Indians find it hard to communicate in Hindi or in English and are often misunderstood. Being extra polite could mean acceptance of an offer to drink or spend time together,» Singh explains.
The romance of the Taj Mahal, the monument of eternal love of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal, lives on and despite all the problems and negatives, the number of tourists to Agra has continued to swell. According to the archeological department sources no sooner the Taj Mahal was included in the Seven Wonders, there was a hike in the number of tourists, both national and international.
Around 3.2 million tourists turned up to see the Taj in 2007 against 2,5 million in 2006 and 2,3 million in 2005. Out of the 3,2 million 2,5 million were domestic tourist and the rest were foreign visitors. The increasing numbers of tourists however start to cause serious problems with the available resources.
08:26:00
It is a cliché of course, but there are no unmixed blessings. This is one of these things where there isn’t any one right answer… everybody SHOULD see Chichén Itzá, but if everybody does, then… what happens? Fame is nothing new for Chichén Itzá. Since the 9th century AD, when it was the political and religious center of the Itzáes until today, it has been astonishing visitors from the Spanish soldiers commanded by Franscico de Montejo to today’s hordes of national and foreign tourists. Almost one year ago, the most emblematic building, the Pyramid of Kukulcán (also known as «El Castillo») became one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. However, the new found dream of glory for Chichén is not free from its headaches. Hoteliers and tourism promoters literally cheered when Chichén Itzá was officially named one of the New Wonders.
Hacienda Xcanatún near Mérida immediately began including a guided road trip to the archaeological site in its three-night Wonder Package. Ultra-elite Esencia south of Cancún quickly announced a private airplane tour complete with guide and picnic lunch. Similar deals and tours have popped up throughout the Yucatán Peninsula, where the interior is finally claiming its fair share of the tourist trade. Mexican officials said the recognition awarded to Chichen Itza offered an opportunity to boost Mexico’s tourism industry, which has fallen off in recent years because of hurricane damage in the Yucatan Peninsula, drug-related violence, and reports of unrest in Oaxaca and other popular tourist destinations. «This designation will allow us to promote Chichen Itza as a global destination,» said Francisco Lopez Mena, president of the Consejo de Promocion Turistica de Mexico.
Tourism brought $13 billion into Mexico last year and was the country’s third most important source of foreign income, after oil exports and money wired home from Mexicans living abroad. 80% of foreign tourists visiting Mexico were from the U.S. There is however a speculation that the officials will have to begin limiting the number of tourists allowed at the site, which was already overrun by day-trippers before this new seven wonders brouhaha began. Excessive and uncontrolled tourism, damage to existing structures, souvenir vendors, new infrastructure, conflict with local landowners, research at the mercy of budgetary whimsy, and growing economic inequality are the seven headaches suffered by the newest of the seven wonders, which was declared part of UNESCO’s list of heritage in 1988. Mass Tourism and Damage The first alarms about the dangers of mass tourism in the archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá were raised by archeologists Peter J.S. Schmidt and Agustín Rock, at the beginning of 1990s. Presently, Chichén Itzá receives over a million visitors a year, making it the second most visited archaeological zone in the country, after Teotihuacán. By including Chichén Itzá as one of the wonders, the tourism sector, having already invested more than a million dollars in promoting the site, hopes to double the number of visitors, which implies extending the infrastructure needed to handle the visitors.
This will bring a huge number of visitors,» Federica Sodi, of the INAH Yucatan affirms. «The plans call for handling the tourists in a controlled form, but the place is not designed to lodge huge amounts of visitors.» Until 2006, tourists could do a quick visit to the site, which included a chance to climb well-known structures like El Castillo and to be photographed seated on the sculpture of Chac Mool.
Damage to the building, not designed for continual visits, forced the INAH authorities to prevent access, just as the New Seven Wonders advertising was coming out on the Web, prominently featuring the pyramid during an event. «All archeological sites in the world are at risk,» complained zone archeologist Peter J.S. Schmidt. «Nothing is forever. It’s too bad we can’t cover El Castillo, as a preventative measure.»
08:24:00
Theresults of the world’s first-ever global vote to determine the New 7 Wonders of the World were announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, in the presence of 50,000 spectators. Now, after 7 years of campaigning, Bernard Weber, Founder and President of New7Wonders, shares his thoughts about what made this election so different and the results so special.
Who Voted the Most?
Bernard Weber’s analysis of what he discovered when he took a closer look at the 100 million votes from all countries of the world, is astonishing. Everybody who observed the project well was interested in what was the most numerous group of voters. The answer is simple: children and young people voted in great numbers. Bernard Weber explains: «Children up to a certain age do not have a strong national sense of pride, so they were our most objective voters, they voted for what they genuinely liked best. « Well-Connected and Full of Passion Another significant fact was the number of voters that came from the so-called developing societies, where the role of the interactive media (phone and Internet) is different from the one in the western world.
«It seems that people in developing societies use the Internet differently from us in the western, northern world of plenty. For them, it is the gateway to connect with the rest of the world. Our voting system proved to be well-balanced: Internet voting was the equalizing factor, while SMS and phone votes expressed the passion and strong feelings that people had for their favorite monument.» For Bernard Weber, the new list of 7 Wonders reflects quite accurately what economists predict as the upcoming economic and industrial regions in the world in the not-too-distant future:
China, India and South America. And another surprise: a huge number of votes poured in supporting the African candidate Timbuktu, in Mali. «Had the organizers started campaigning just a month earlier, Timbuktu would have had a serious chance to be elected as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World!» More people from Korea and Japan voted for the Eiffel Tower than did people from France.
Many children worldwide loved Neuschwanstein Castle, but the Germans didn’t. The United States, whose inhabitants voted very passionately and in truly huge numbers, did not vote for their Statue of Liberty.
08:22:00
On July 7, 2007, seven world-known sites were named the new Seven Wonders of the World, after a worldwide vote by telephone and Internet. They are the Chichen Itza’s El Castillo, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall of China, Petra in Jordan, Brazil’s statue of Christ the Redeemer, Peru’s Machu Picchu, and the Colosseum in Rome. The Pyramids of Giza received an honorary place on the list, as it is the last remaining monument of the original Seven Wonders of the World.
How It Started The idea to name the seven new wonders was the brainchild of Bernard Weber, a Swiss adventurer and entrepreneur. The original seven wonders, which were on a list invented in Greece more than 2,000 years ago, no longer exist, save for the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt. Weber decided the time had come to name a new seven. In 2001, Weber created the New Open World Foundation, which eventually generated a list of more than 100 possible candidates. The Foundation then created one of the world’s largest contest. Anyone with an access to a telephone or the Internet could vote for their favorite seven monuments. Originally, the plan was to have the contest end on Jan. 1, 2007, but someone got the bright idea to hold off until July 7: 7/7/07. Mexico: Promoting the World Wonder At first, some media complained that Mexico’s representatives were not taking the contest seriously enough. With a few months left to go in the contest, everything changed. The Coca-Cola Company’s Mexico division distributed millions of cans of soft drinks emblazoned with a slogan «Vota por Chichen Itza.» The government of Mexico and the Council of Tourist Promotion of Mexico (CPTM) put more than a half-million US dollars behind the campaign to make sure Chichen won. In addition, CPTM’s image campaign promoting Mexico, almost $40 million (Mexican) of advertising and collateral distribution H e r i tag e: The Ne w S e ven Wonders Ju ly, 2008 seen around the world, carried the slogan asking people to vote for Chichen Itza. Telmex, the Mexican telephone monopoly, distributed countless phone cards with the slogan. And Pemex, the national gasoline monopoly, put up thousands of posters at the pumps promoting El Castillo. Mexico was not unusual in its efforts. Other countries were also promoting their sites.
In Peru the government set up computer terminals in public plazas to encourage people to vote for the Inca city of Machu Picchu. In Chile President Michelle Bachelet called on his people to vote for the volcanic rock statues of Easter Island. In Brazil President Luiz Inácio da Silva used his weekly radio address to tell his people how to vote for Rio’s famous statue of Christ the Redeemer.
In China the state-run news agency alerted people to the on-going vote and the opportunity to choose the Great Wall. In India, there was a campaign to promote the vote for the Taj Mahal. In Jordan the royal family urged its subjects to vote for the rock city of Petra. Apparently the promotion efforts worked, for most of the above were named the new wonders. In Europe, the British newspaper The Sun tried to promote Stonehenge («Phonehenge,» they called it), but had to admit that Europe was lagging in its promotional efforts even though five of the finalists could be found there: the Acropolis in Athens, Greece; the Colosseum in Rome, Italy; the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France; and the Alhambra in Spain. Only the Colosseum was named – with almost no promotion. Reaction of UNESCO UNESCO, the United Nations watchdog over so-called World Heritage sites, publicly separated itself from the worldwide campaign to name the new seven wonders of the world. «UNESCO wishes to reaffirm that there is no link whatsoever between UNESCO’s World Heritage programme, which aims to protect world heritage, and the current campaign concerning ‘The New 7 Wonders of the World, ’» their statement said. UNESCO explained that its mandate is to identify and encourage preservation of sites of patrimony in the world.
Not so the New7Wonders campaign. «Acknowledging the sentimental or emblematic value of sites and inscribing them on a new list is not enough,» UNESCO wrote. «The list of the ‘7 New Wonders of the World’ will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the Internet and not the entire world.
08:14:00
On July 7, 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal, the results of the world’s first-ever global vote were announced, determining the Seven Wonders of the World. Choosing world wonders has been a rather “loose” process that began more than 2,200 years ago. In ancient Greece, several writers drew up lists boasting of architectural marvels. Known today as the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Greek’s lists were limited to beautiful monuments built in close proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. In other words, they were the seven wonders of their world.
The following list was generally agreed upon to encompass the ancient wonders: The Great Pyramid of Egypt The Hanging Gardens of Babylon The Statue of Zeus at Olympia The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus The Colossus of Rhodes The Lighthouse of Alexandria In the tradition of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, many other lists naming “wonders” have been proposed. There are lists of Natural Wonders, Engineering Wonders, Travel Wonders, and so on. Lists are published by such well-known groups as The United Nations and The American Society of Civil Engineers. These lists truly reflect a global perspective.
However, like the Ancient Greeks, the criteria for these lists are rather informal. Plus, there has not been agreement on the selections themselves. In 1999, an idea came to Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber. He began a global campaign to revisit the Seven Wonders. He started a foundation to promote cultural diversity by supporting, preserving, and restoring man-made monuments while bringing together the people of the world. The process of determining the new list of wonders was established by the New7Wonders foundation.
The organization collected more than 200 nominees from all over the world, from structures built by the first humans to modern monuments from the year 2000. The foundation posted the nominees on its web site and opened the vote to the public, narrowing the list to 77 candidates in 2006. Next, a panel of worldrenowned architects narrowed the list even further to 21 Wonders
