ʻCatalonia Movie Walksʼ: the first tourist guide of Catalonia to discover locations in which films were shot
The presentation of the book Catalonia Movie Walks (also edited in Catalan, Catalunya de pel·lícula) took place on 3 July at Palau Robert. The book is written by Eugeni Osácar, lecturer at the University School of Hotel Management and Tourism (CETT-UB), and published by Diëresis and the Catalan Tourist Board. It describes 300 locations selected by great film makers to shoot their movies. The guide offers different trails to visit several sets located around Catalonia. The book is a traditional tourist guide, but it provides a different perspective.
The presentation of the book Catalonia Movie Walks (also edited in Catalan, Catalunya de pel·lícula) took place on 3 July at Palau Robert. The book is written by Eugeni Osácar, lecturer at the University School of Hotel Management and Tourism (CETT-UB), and published by Diëresis and the Catalan Tourist Board. It describes 300 locations selected by great film makers to shoot their movies. The guide offers different trails to visit several sets located around Catalonia. The book is a traditional tourist guide, but it provides a different perspective.
It suggests thematic routes to travel around Catalonia: from the Pyrenees to the Costa Brava; Barcelona and Catalunya Central; from Lleida to Costa Daurada and Terres de lʼEbre. These routes visit sets of several films: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Black Bread, Perfume, REC, Soldiers of Salamina and The Bourne Identity, among many others.
It is a useful guide. The book offers different contents: 11 maps, which can be seen also on smartphones and tablets by means of the QR codes included in the book; 150 spectacular photographs, together with some little known facts of historical interest, and some sections focused on films and film genres. It also includes some extra information about cinema and tourist descriptions.
Catalonia Movie Walks is the first cinema tourist book that illustrates and describes the relationship between territory and the seventh art. The guide shows the close relationship that Catalonia has with cinema and proves that there are many cinema professionals who hold a relationship with Catalonia. Bookʼs promoters are keen to reach an international audience, and to demonstrate, in an original way, how places visited by tourists are linked to their interests and hobbies. The great experience that the publishing house Diëresis had with the book Barcelona Movie Walks —sold in the United States, United Kingdom and several European countries— proves that there is much interest in tourist contents related to different hobbies, for example cinema.
The Barcelona - Catalunya Film Commission (BCFC), a service co-managed by the Barcelona City Council and the Government of Catalonia, collaborated in the publication. It provided the author with some images of screenings which constitute one of the greatest attractions of the book.
Eugeni Osácar (Barcelona, 1963) gives lessons at the University School of Hotel Management and Tourism (CETT-University of Barcelona) and directs the Masterʼs Degree in Tourism Management Innovation of the UB. He is expert in marketing, heritage and cultural tourism; he specialized in the field of tourism and cinema. He has led projects on cinema tourism, for example Barcelona Movie Walks (2008), the first initiative of cultural tourism based on cinema. In 2012, he published several online guides for smartphones and tablets about cinema tourism in cities such as Barcelona, Paris, London, Roma and Venice.