CULTURAL TOURISM SPECIAL
CULTURAL TOURISM SPECIAL FEATURE 17 Yves Saint Laurent © Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent ITB BERLIN REFOCUSES CULTURAL TOURISM Following the success of the first UNWTO/UNESCO World Conference on Culture Tourism in 2015, which brought together ministers, leading experts and stakeholders to create a new framework for collaboration between tourism and culture, ITB Berlin is giving extra attention to cultural tourism in 2016. This year, Hall 16 is the new hall for culture that puts the cultural travel segment into greater focus. Yves Saint Laurent Museums to Open in 2017 The Culture Lounge is located in a rotunda designed to facilitate cross-cultural communication, while cultural travel suppliers can meet travel agencies, journalists, multipliers and customers in the Conference Lounge and Culture Café in Hall 16. Facilitating a multi-stakeholder approach to cultural tourism is set to increase competitiveness and employment opportunities, generate investment in cultural preservation, and offer immense possibilities for socio-economic development. Celebrating four decades of pioneering innovation in the fashion industry, two museums dedicated to French-Algerian design icon, Yves Saint Laurent, will open next year in Paris and Marrakesh. Sure to draw waves of cultural tourists, the museums have been established by the Foundation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, which is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the designer by displaying some of its collection of 5,000 haute couture garments, 15,000 accessories and more than 50,000 drawings and objects that bear witness to 40 years of Yves Saint Laurent’s creativity. This unparalleled collection is thanks to the fact that Yves Saint Laurent is the only designer of his generation who systematically archived his work. From original sketches to prototypes, warehouse records to retailing books, the collection is unique in scope, scale and range. The Parisian museum is set to occupy Yves Saint Laurent’s former couture house, on 5 Avenue Marceau, that has been home to the Foundation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent since 2004. The space that was once Saint Laurent’s studio will become a creative exchange for visitors keen to learn the intricacies of couture; while stage designer Nathalie Criniere and interior designer Jacques Granges will restore the exhibition space back to the style of the original couture house. Pierre Bergé, President of the Foundation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, says that visitors to the museum in Morocco and Paris can discover a place where Yves Saint Laurent was in his element. “When Yves Saint Laurent discovered Marrakech in 1966, he was so moved by the place that he decided to buy a house and regularly go back there. It feels perfectly natural, fifty years later, to build a museum dedicated to his oeuvre, which was so inspired by this country. As for Paris, who needs to specify that it is where Yves Saint Laurent created all his work and built his career?” As UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai said at the first World Conference on Culture Tourism: “It is up to us to work together to harness the sheer force of one billion tourists.” ITB BERLIN NEWS • Friday 11 th March 2016
