Over the last few years culture came to be considered as a sector of social and economic life and an element of increased importance regarding development strategy. The complexity of the raised issues and the importance of the phenomenon became solid with the appearance of the concept of cultural policies. The problems were eerily debated by several intergovernmental conferences (Stockholm, Vienna), with particular stressing on institutional, administrative and financial aspects of cultural policies. Noting that the laissez faire is no longer capable of solving multiple contemporary problems, the conferences tried to establish the role of the state in determining and realizing cultural development objectives, promotion and organization of cultural development trough state help, developing research on cultural policies and international cultural cooperation, UNESCO’s role in the cultural policies field.
The UNESCO functions were taken over by the World Trade Organization. The spreading of electronic products, the large amounts of money which are due to copyrights, determined big producers to pass on from issuing rules for these problems to a far more specialized organism on commercial issues.
The decrease in equipment and message support prices have made them worldwide accessible to countries which have known demographic explosions over the last few decades.
At a first glance, it would appear that we have given too much attention to these general issues, but it must be clear that the correct solving of problems illustrated so far is essential in any culture and art commerce analysis, in setting a real strategy, moreover given the fact that research is relatively poor and heterogeneous, which obliges to further studying of the problematic of contemporary culture.
Furthermore, culture intervenes as an element of the tourist product in tourism, but as a determinative one: no one goes on a holiday for the hotels or restaurants; motivation is different and always – explicitly or not – is directly linked to cultural ingredients.
We only wished to establish some guidelines, in order to allow for both the showing of today’s and tomorrows economic mutations, but also to further tackle the tourism phenomenon. 1.5.7 Particularities due to the object of art and cultural trading.
A first particularity is given by the fact of the specific aspect regarding this kind of commerce. Classical trading uses goods, products. Cultural and art commerce uses ideas. While goods are relatively amorphous, immobile, and satisfy a strict need, with no other implications, ideas are mobile and may have an unexpected effect in areas which are usually far from the field of the idea itself. They have quality traits which give them a higher penetration power and a higher inductive capacity for their effects. Selling and buying ideas, wisdom is far more difficult than selling merchandise. Of course, ideas are materialized as well, on a material support, but nobody buys a statue for the clay from which it is made, rather for the idea it brings to life. This specific object involves a series of particularities, first of all, is the fact that international idea traffic is far different from goods traffic. It has other laws, its own laws, it has specific issues. In order to trade art and culture one must obey the laws of such traffic and to overcome barriers and obstacles which specifically apply to this traffic54.
Secondly, even if the idea has been successfully transferred, another issue is present, regarding the specific nature of required value. “Cultural merchandise” does not realize itself as a potential value in use, which makes its way to the buyer, but satisfies the need trough the materialized required value within the consumer’s mind. Meaning, the consumer buys a book’s ideas, but consumes the materialized ideas within his mind after reading the book, and in doing so, satisfying the need for derivative ideas. The distinction is very important, because there are several cases in which, for example, an excellent book is exported, from all points of view regarding artistic and idealistic realizations, but it is a fiasco due to the fact that it is not appreciated by its reader, for one reason or another. This particularity makes international cultural and art trading difficult and complex. The same goes for tourism, because in a 20 tourist group that climbs the Acropolis, each has its own “experience”, although all are witness to the same “epiphany”.
Thirdly, when the cultural product is only a part of a more complex one (the tourist product – for example) it is very hard to establish its importance and influence on the purchaser of the final product. This is even more obvious as in tourism; the tourist does not buy a tangible product, but sensations he hopes to experience, and finally, memories which remain. Another “materialization” of value in use takes place, a process in which cultural elements are determined right after those destined to satisfying basic needs: food, transportation, resting. We therefore witness a double transfiguration. Moreover, a cultural experience in the technical process is usually a collective one, involving both travel participants but also locals and are further validated by general public opinion, regarding the respective moment or objects.
- Obstacles and barriers regarding cultural and art trading
In cultural and art trading, many more and increasingly powerful barriers are present, than in other trading forms. By nature, we classify them as: cultural, political, economical, mentioning that all of them are present in specific literature and among the barriers of international tourism. A. Cultural barriers and obstacles: they mainly have an objective and natural character. Among the most important we note:
54 a few problems regarding the circulation of ideas are being treated in the paragraph regarding obstacles and barriers in the international trading of art and culture
a) Certain cultural differences. Among different national cultures and groups of individuals, we find many differenced tied with historical conditions of development of the respective cultures, different ways of thinking and different ways of forming their members. Sometimes these differences, which are the promoting factor of cultural exchanges, may stop their realization. Let us just consider the export capabilities of some products of Christian culture into Muslim environments. We must not only consider religion differences; they may operate in any field, for example pollution is blamed in countries that have reached a level where they perceive it as poisoning and which have the necessary means to combat it. Any business man knows that cultural differences must be taken into account when negotiating, but also national differences and the ones that derive from the different cultural environment of the partners. And it is exactly the job of the tourist entrepreneur to avoid and foresee such tensions.
b) Culture level barriers and obstacles: we will note analphabetism here, the flagella that holds back a significant part of mankind from the well doing of books. As another example, the lack of musical culture makes the sharing of classical music difficult.
c) Linguistic barriers: at this time, a number of important languages are being spoken, meaning redoubtable barriers in the path of art and cultural trading. Although it is admitted that over ¾ of the world population speaks 12 main languages, 25% Chinese, 11% English, 8.9 % Russian, 6.25 % Spanish, 3.75 % German, 3.75% Japanese 3.75% , Arabian 3%, Bengalese 2.7%, French 2.7%, Portuguese 2.5%. Italian 2.1%, the rest of languages 22.7%55, this still does not solve the issue because most languages are based in several distinct areas of the globe (Chinese, Russian, German, Japanese, Italian), and those placed on the rest of the globe are relatively poor (English, Spanish, French).
B. Political barriers. Since an early stage the state insured a monopoly of selling and sometimes producing import and export. Officially, today the political censorship has been suppressed. There are however thousands of means with which cultural exchanges can be controlled, raising unsurpassable barriers. Still, in this field we note a slow evolution towards liberalization, evolution linked with tensions and contradictions of the modern world.
C. Economic barriers. We may classify them into four categories:
a) Laws and monetary restrictions regarding currency, which are applied to both imports and the cease of copyright issues, which are strongly questioned today by the great producers of “neo- culture” in order to charge copyrights from the markets of countries which are not developed from this point of view. As an example: the American – Chinese conflict regarding the copyright of information technology products which had blocked commercial relations between the two states for a long period of time.
b) Postal tariffs: they are basically common for all types of cultural materials c) Duane regulations, licenses or at-value taxes
d) Different taxes, non-tariff barriers, etc.
e) A high cost of education in certain institutions which leads to the excluding of certain social categories or students from certain countries.
1.5.8 " The multiplying effect" of cultural products
Aside from these particularities given by the intrinsic value of the object, there are also others, given by “the nature and the multiplying effect”. What can we make of this: the ideas from a book for example, may have extraordinary effects in fields which differ from that of the idealistic area of the book, or even culture itself. There are three main areas where this effect takes place: political, economic and cultural.
55 calculated after UN statistics 2001
Any cultural export (and tourism is the means for “internal culture export”, by moving the buyer to the “production” location) has implications in all three fields, but there are culture objects which have effects especially on one or another domain. We are talking about the latter.
a) Effects in the political domain
Abraham Lincoln said about Harriet Beecher Stone which wrote the novel “Uncle Tom’s Shack” that she is the woman which unleashed the Secession War in the USA. It is obviously an overstatement, but it is also true that the book had a major influence on political events at that time. Siegfried Kramer proved in his book, “From Caligare to Hitler” (Berlin 1966), that the movies of the late 20s in Germany prefigured Nazism and have exercised an influence as such. One may argue that these examples are from a national domain. It is true, but it is extremely difficult to show that this influence clearly exists, sometimes even as aggression, so the intergovernmental conference in Venice came to condemn imperialist manifestations in culture. Although we may not state concrete cases, if we are to observe the American programs for economic expansion and their cultural programs we should notice that cultural programs have always preceded the economic ones and that there is an obvious parallel between the two forms of programs. Furthermore, due to the fact that war propaganda was forbidden by the U.N. Charta, especially during the Cold War there has been an outbreak of “patriotic” films, basically, masked propaganda. If for an exporter it is relatively easy to determine which are the products that have effects in the political area, because he produces and exports them exactly for this purpose, for an importer it is rather difficult, and mostly impossible, due to the fact that there are contradictory effects which may result due to export. Still, facts show that every country has an apparatus of ideological critic in order to countermand unwanted effects (even in countries which have recently adopted democracy, where, predictably, such a system is excluded), as there are organisms particularly designed to carry on such exports and to foresee their development, or such imports, and adopt prohibition. At any rate, this effect is present and must be taken into account, although it is rarer in cultural trading, being usually located in cultural exchanges, this “public relations” activity for each country, especially considering the fact that, in spite of the negative effect, there is also the positive effect, which is more important, to make known the culture and life of a country to the outside world, to contribute to the maintenance and development of relationships between countries which create the transfer.
The effects in the political field are discretely taken into account in the tourist activity. What a tourist “sees” with his eyes (although modeled by the guide, by the attitude of the local populace – more or less free to express itself – by the way of presenting cultural products, etc.) is very hardly combated, and makes a fierce predicator out of the tourist.
b) Effects in the economic domain
We shall not pause on the emission, on the current export of economic theories, although it has an important part, are thoroughly used (see also the multitude of economic theories emitted by Americans or those regarding transition in former communist states). We will search for other examples. We do not believe to be mistaking when saying that the export of beat and pop music brought more profit to large producers of musical instruments and electronic devices, rather than exporters of music per se, although we do not have sufficient data. Other such examples may be given, because cultural export with such purpose is numerous due to the great value of the cultural effect in the economic domain. It is sufficient to remind of the Internet “culture”.
c) Effects in the cultural domain
These effects could be compared to long term investments, because, by causing certain cultural reactions, they provoke reactions in other sectors. Of all the effects, these are the hardest to analyze, because the effects are double contradictory, having a random effect on culture, which in turn produces effects which are hard to determine. Still, especially implicitly, are the most often met, so accusations of imperialism become more and more frequent and often real.
We state again that we have debated these issues because there is an express wish to create them, the exporting process being thus made in such a way to obtain such effects. From this point of view, we may consider two trends in the international art and culture trading:
- The per se commerce whose purpose is to cash in on the value of the export, effects in other areas being random and of no interest to the exporter.
- A tendency commerce, in which the value of the export itself is not as important as the effects which it may induce. This form of commerce has many advantages for the exporter because it realizes two concomitant goals: cashing the value of the exports and free promotion of certain interests, in terms of high efficiency. The distinction is needed because, when talking about one situation or another, the realization and whole process of exporting involves different issues, both for the importer and exporter.
In tourism, when talking about the “internal export”, we observe both tendencies. 1.5.9 Cultural support: what the future holds
We shall now point out a very important domain, which has serious repercussions on art and culture trading and implicitly tourism. We are talking about cultural support. This concept plays a major role in distribution. Its modifications under the influence of the current technological process are extremely fast, they lead to powerful modifications and changes in commerce. It is enough to think of the implications of the invention of printing or television or Internet on commerce. It is of the utmost importance to study and approximate future mutations in this field in order to adapt quickly and efficiently to new situations. Without a close study there is the risk of reacting too late and to become reliant on those who already promoted new means. As they have used clay, stone or word, societies thought it trough one way or another. The human societies have thought differently according to what they use as cultural support: speech, clay, stone, tools, paints, wood, and paper. For millennia poor progress has been recorded in the using of many such materials. Industrial development brought forth major changes. It enlarged the array of materials being used, it transformed techniques. The printing phenomenon was the most spectacular. The modern age brought forth a revolutionizing of communication trough the apparition of cinematography, the disk, the radio, television, long range data transfers, Internet. Electronic means have changed the basis of the communications system, by addressing two senses at the same time, and imposed new means of expression, a new way of thinking. Tourism on the other hand, reacts on all senses of thought and feeling.
It is worth recapitulating the main moments of the evolution of the cultural support and their implications. In order to constitute mankind’s memory, we have used either hieroglyphs, either other symbolic signs; they were for the initiated and their translation required a priest or translator. The Phoenicians, continued by the Greeks, will invent the alphabet, easy to use by a large number of people, on a cheap, but resistant support, but rather hard to multiply; it challenged only one sense: the sense of sight, furthermore, cognitive processes were channeled towards decomposing into pieces, in events and recomposing it mentally. It is not printing itself, rather the rotating printing device that will really bring forth a new leap: newspapers in millions of issues, at insignificant prices. Information was distributed immediately, thanks to the telegraph and the telephone, to the masses. Novelties were talked upon at the same time, thus enabling the “global village”. This also allowed for the manipulation of readers. The radio addresses a new sense: hearing. Around the Second World War, the entire USA will pass a night of horror, due to a radio phonic play entitled “alien invasion”. Quo erat demonstrandum in terms of manipulation was tested by the elites. Furthermore, the radio will not imply that the mind requires any more laborious processes of separating and rebuilding reality by phonemes. Television and movies will combine two powerful senses and will have a major impact on the spectator. 3D (the three- dimensional system) will enlarge the perspective of the receiver of the message, but also the means of its “manufacturer”. Today’s educated man does not receive symbols anymore, rather an
artificial reality, meant to communicate not only by addressing the mind, but also the soul (senses, feelings). Today’s university youth has a different mental structure, a different way of perceiving reality. It is true that this reality is still “virtual”, if not for tourism, which enables participation and