In the footsteps of Montalbano: branding tourist destinations in Sicily

This paper explores the linguistic/touristic dimension to the success of the popular Italian TV series ‘Montalbano’, also broadcast on the BBC, in re-branding Sicily as a desirable tourism destination for tourists (Kavaratzis and Hatch 2013). Thanks to the ‘Montalbano effect’, as well as the opening of Comiso airport and an influx of low-cost flights, the South-eastern area of Sicily, comprising the baroque towns of Ragusa, Modica, Donnalucata and Scicli, all featured in the shows, is enjoying an increase in tourist numbers, with corresponding positive effects on the local and regional economies. The study explores the concepts of genre (Solin 2011) and evaluative language (Martin and White 2005) in websites offering Montalbano tours in Sicily, in an interdisciplinary perspective, aiming to combine insights from Tourism and Linguistics. The language of two corpora, one consisting of sites offering traditional Sicilian tours, and another of sites devoted to Montalbano, is analysed from a generic perspective, following some of the analytical pathways outlined by Francesconi (2012). The study shows an emerging genre and genre hybridity that, it is suggested, are in response to market trends and may represent the beginnings of a re-branding of Sicily as a tourist destination, away from past negative stereotypes associating the island with organised crime.