CEPHALONIA.....EL DORADO LOST?

Hello everyone, or γεια σας ( hello in Greek)

Today I'm going to talk about the case of Cephalonia, Cephalonia is a Greek island in the west side of the Greek peninsula, is part of the regional unit of the Ionian Islands ( Corfu, Ithaca, Lefkada, Zakynthos and Cephalonia).

In Cephalonia lives  around 3600 people (this figure increases considerably during the summer months) the capital is Argostoli and if you want to know some more information about the island visit the website www.kefallonia.gov.gr (the only problem is the language, because it is in Greek, but the option to translate into English is possible thanks to Google)

Well, living geography descriptions for another websites or Wikipedia, I will start talking a little bit about the history of Cephalonia  for help you to understand the situation of this island:

After the falls of the Byzantine Empire, will be part of the Venetian Republic, then after 1684  the island experiment a period  under Ottoman control until 1797 when a French expedition capture the island , then Ottoman again, Russian, British .....until 1864 when is transferred to the  new Kingdom of Greece.

The important era for us will be during the Second World War when the island falls into Italian control ( Axes countries: Germany, Italy ( Europe) and Japan) until September 1943 when the Allies sing the armistice with Italy, but the Germans push the Italian to keep fighting on his side, they refused fighting against the Germans, this decision will cost the live to almost all the Italian soldiers ( due to this the German tropes executed 9000 Italian soldiers).

On 1992, the British writer Louis de Bernieres went to the island for 2 weeks holidays, instead lay under the sun and enjoy the Mediterranean live he spent the 2 weeks searching information about the history of the island for his book " CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN" , a love story between Captain Corelli ( Italian soldier)  and Pelagia that took place during the Italian occupation of the island during the Second World War  ( base on a true story, not absent of controversy).

Due the success of the book, on 2000 the Hollywood's industry decided to produce a film based on the novel, starring Nicolas Cage as Corelli and Penelope Cruz as Pelagia, this action created controversy because since the first moment the novel's author decided not to support the movie or have any interest with the movie due to the distortion with the novel.

As I said, the movie filming started on May 2000 and end on September 2000 and was entire filmed in Cephalonia, in the village of Sami ( most of the movie).

The filming was host by the local as a chance for develop the tourism in the island, and as a free marketing way for the promotion of the island all around the world.....well, as I like to say...."and they all lived happily ever after" ... but unfortunately it wasn't like that at all.

The movie didn't suppose any opportunity for the island, a part of a huge flow of tourist from the summer of 2000 to 2004.The forecast that predicted a massive tourist flows to the island and a change in the tourism policy ,from a local and small scale tourism ( Italians , British and Greeks) to a mass tourism (like one in the Spanish Islands ) didn't happen .

Most of the local habitants asked then self what was wrong, why the island was losing tourists instead increase the amount of the then, the answer is very simple and it could be found in one of the next points:

·        First, the tourism offices didn't do anything to promote this island, most of the promotion was made by the British tour operators, exploiting the popularity of the novel in the United Kingdom. But also it didn't work due to the disappointment of the pilgrims.

·        For me one of the major problems was the bad critics that the movie received and the consequence failure

·        Most of the movie's decoration was destroyed after the filming ended, due to this, most of the tourist didn't found any link with the movie, but the keep asking then self: where was the old Venetian style in the buildings??....the question is simple...it was destroyed on  1953 due to the Cephalonia's earthquake. In recent years, local governments studied the option to rebuilt again all the movie decoration, but this option was dismissed.

·         Other interesting, the faith in the movie made local open business around the movie......being all of the unsuccessful . Today we there is just two business in relation with the movie

*in my opinion the only business successful from this movie was the owner of the apartment where some people says that Penelope and Nicolas had their affair ( I don't know if is true or not)......she still renting for a high price this property for this simple rumor.

Ending this post, just to say that this movie supposed  a really short economic impact of 4 years for this island and the small population living here, in my opinion, after 13 years nothing has change in the island and I think I'm convince to says that this movie only brought false expectations for this small island in the east of Greece. Because on this days almost no one of the tourists are influence by the movie CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN

PS:I leave you some pictures of Cephalonia, and a big advice....VISIT CEPHALONIA, ITS A BEAUTIFUL ISLAND....BUT DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME VISITING ANY MOVIE ATTRACTION!!

REFERENCE: Simon Hudson and J. R. Brent Ritchie (2005) "Tourism and destination marketing: The case of Captain Corelli's Mandolin" , Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta,

Canada