Contradiction Bristol

A little over a week ago this blog asked the rhetorical question "is there not a contradiction in Bristol's image as an international luxury shopping destination and its Green Capital aspirations?". It seems that the question was noticed by our ever positive tourism bosses because just 8 days later a new piece of visit-bristol PR guff wends its way across the web, proudly touting Bristol as "a contradiction of consumerism and environmentalism".



You can't win, can you. You deliver what you naively think is the killer blow, pointing out the admittedly obvious contradiction between Bristol's parallel promotion of consumerism and environmentalism, and what do they do? They don't see problems, merely opportunities, and it seems that I did no more than supply them with Bristol's USP in the global tourism market place - we are to be promoted as a 'contradiction'.

In the amoral world of PR and marketing anything goes if it delivers the bottom line, in this case tourist Euros. Cuba has long been successfully promoted as a land of contradictions so why not Bristol? It taps into a fundamental of human nature - we all want to have our cake and eat it. A living contradiction offers the cake both ways while relieving the recipient of the moral dilemma - just blame it on your host's contradictory nature.



Fly over to Bristol, indulge in some luxury shopping (now the £ is so cheap), balance it with a bit of green gesturing, preferably by hiring a bike to pootle around Harbourside, popping into various trendy bars and cafes en route, and then put the perversity of it all down to Bristol's quaintly contradictory nature. Guilt-free self indulgence - just what the modern world craves (and not just the modern world - from the days of pilgrimages and crusades, tourism has always been tied up with assuaging our sense of guilt about our own contradictions).

A few more contradictory gems from the same PR puffery

• "Transport is eco-friendly with the bicycle a popular choice..."
• "Bristol Airport is fast expanding, flying to more than 70 destinations.."
• "Bristol is becoming one of Europe's darlings and the mot du jour for 2009."

So it seems that contradiction is Bristol's mot du jour for 2009.

Greenwash Works

You have to hand it to those orchestrating the Greenwashing of Bristol, it's certainly good for tourism. Bristol has just been named as one of the world's Top Ten cities to visit by leading travel guide publisher DK Eyewitness Travel. DK is part of the Penguin Group which is in turn part of the Pearson publishing empire. The DK press release says of Bristol -

Dita Von Teese recently opened a new Harvey Nichols store alongside a Cinema de Lux and a wealth of luxury apartments at Cabot Circus - a long awaited boost to the Broadmead shopping district. Not long after, Bristol’s robust eco-appeal got stronger as it was named the ‘most sustainable city in Britain’. Luxury consumerism and environmental sustainability look set to coexist in 2009.


















Needless to say visitbristol.co.uk and destination bristol are cockahoop at the news, rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of all those tourists flying in from around the world and spending their now so much more valuable Euros, Dollars and Renminbi in our earnestly green themed restaurants and hotels. And with our traditional economic base fast going down the pan, the rest of us had better get on board too, if we want a share in the spoils.

But is there not a contradiction in Bristol's image as an international luxury shopping destination and its Green Capital aspirations? Is the inevitable growth in international flights necessary to feed the tourist economy difficult to reconcile with the need to cut our carbon footprint? Is it green to travel thousands of miles to indulge in a supposedly sustainable week-end of pottering around Bristol on a bicycle consuming locally sourced produce?

I'm sure you can guess my answer to those disingenuous questions so I won't bore you with it. But I'm genuinely curious to know the response of the likes of Alastair Sawday, Chair of the secretive Green Capital Momentum Group (a sub-group of the Bristol Partnership), who has long combined promoting international tourism with green pretensions. How do these people expect us to buy into this nonsense? Or perhaps they have some other strategy for dealing with those who insist on pointing out that the emperor has no clothes?