In search of Vigata: rebranding Sicilian towns in a tourism perspective

This paper focuses on cineturism, exploring the linguistic and tourist dimensions related to the success of the Italian television series 'Montalbano', whose transmission on worldwide television has given rise to a re-branding operation (Kavaratzis and Hatch 2013) in Sicily. Thanks to the 'Montalbano effect' (Ponton and Asero 2015) , the south-east of Sicily is experiencing a significant increase in tourist flows. From a cineturism perspective, our paper explores the motivations behind these phenomena (Kim and Richardson 2003). Tourists are seeking the ‘luoghi di Montalbano’, the places they have seen in the shows, idealised by filters and other special techniques of presentation and filming. Specifically, in this context, the invented town called ‘Vigata’ represents a crucial site which encapsulates the symbolic appeal of the places associated with Camillieri’s characters. ‘Vigata’ is a name invented by Camillieri, which has now become – in the real world - a collection of various places involved in the tourist market, authentic destinations and important sources of revenue for the local economy. In a naming perspective, then, reality and fiction become inextricably blended. Through analysis of webpages relating to tourist offers, we analyse the verbal and multimodal construction of this idealised site, and its relation to the real towns and places – Modica, Ragusa, Scicli, Porto Empedocle, etc. which represent it in the TV series. The approach followed is interdisciplinary and aims to combine the study of the tourism phenomenon in a lingusitic perspective, using some of the techniques in Francesconi (2012). Montalbano and Vigata, two imaginary elements – the one, a person, the other a place – become two aspects of a unique brand, attracting viewers/tourists towards parts of Sicily traditionally associated with other attractions – Baroque architecture, folklore and eno-gastronomy. The Montalbano brand can therefore represent an effective market strategy that may foresee the beginning of a more complex re-branding of Sicily as a tourist destination away from past negative stereotypes.