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Introduction
Tourism, one of the world’s largest industries, is an interrelated system of political,
economic and social actors. In an urban context, tourist cities are “sold like any other consumer
product” (Judd and Fainstein 1999: 4). Integral to selling a tourist city is the production of a
“marketable” city image, which typically involves the creation of a fantasy or escape from the
banalities of everyday life. Many things can spell marketing success for a tourist city, such as
“place luck” in the case of historical cities, hosting international events such as the Olympics,
building theme parks, in the case of Disneyland or constructing “tourist bubbles” in the case of
indoor malls (Judd 2003; Holcomb 1999; Kotler, Haider and Rein 1993). At the same time,
certain “undesirable” and/or “dangerous” elements—such as crime, urban decay, marginalized
social groups—can make it difficult to sell this fantasy image (Judd 2003; Holcomb 1999).
Copacabana, in Rio de Janeiro, inspires images of a fantasy vacation. Known as the host
of lavish New Year’s Eve celebrations, the birthplace of bossa nova
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and the location of the most
famous strip of beach in the world, the Copacabana neighborhood receives hundreds of
thousands of visitors each year. The city of Rio de Janeiro received 629, 507 international
visitors in 2003 (Anuário Estastítico da Embratur 2004: 104). Of these, approximately 75
percent were permanent residents of Europe (316, 909) and North America (164, 631) combined
(ibid.). In many ways the image of Copacabana is analogous to the vacationer’s generic tropical
island fantasy. In Consuming the Caribbean, Mimi Sheller describes this fantasy island as bound
up in Western notions of an “earthly paradise”—replete with an “iconic island, nature, landscape,
and the tropical tourist gaze” (2003:36). This iconic tropical island is timeless and placeless,
framed by palm trees, outlined with pristine beaches and inhabited by “primitive” and “exotic”
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Known at first as “samba-canção”—a musical genre that adopts elements of jazz and samba made
nationally and internationally famous by young musicians in Copacabana in the 1950s and 1960s.
Convention