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.
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