I don’t care much either way about the plot of The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown’s recently announced follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, but I bet the travel industry does.
There’s no doubt that the success of The Da Vinci Code led to an upsurge in tourism to the cities and locations covered in the book. In Scotland, visits to Rosslyn Chapel—featured in the book—increased fivefold, Eurostar credited some of its success to the release of the film, and even the Louvre was giving Da Vinci Code audio tours. There was a video on the BBC website (sadly I can’t find it now), in which tourists were interviewed in front of various locations featured in Dan Brown’s novels. One enthusiast told the reporters that he had thought The Da Vinci Code a great book, and taken this holiday as a result of reading it, but that now he had seen inside the Louvre, well, the collected contents of the Louvre were almost as good as the book!
Other institutions were less happy about the extra attention from Brown’s fans. Westminster Abbey was a little annoyed, and printed debunking leaflets for the tourists, while Dan Brown fans were urged to stay away from a 2007 Da Vinci exhibition.
From my friends who work in the travel industry in Rome, I know that the last few years have seen a great many requests for Angels & Demons-themed tours of the city. In fact, most tour companies still offer these, and some even specialise in them, and will no doubt receive a boost from the imminent release of the film.
The Lost Symbol’s September publication date means that Dan Brown tourists will still be visiting the old haunts for this season, but when they start booking their holidays for 2010, there’s no doubt that whichever locations Robert Langdon visits in The Lost Symbol are going to receive a much-needed tourism boost.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
This is so funny! I am really curious to see what will happen. Maybe Dan Brown is secretly hired by various countries’ tourism board to write these books!
May 4th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
p.s. in the meantime, let’s see what the reaction to the Angels and Demons movie will be
May 4th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Hi Petu, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did! I wonder whether national tourist boards have ever experimented with product placement in movies? Or do they just do it by stealth, giving film companies tax breaks?
May 4th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I don’t know about tourism but Dan Brown has a deleterious effect on knowledge. Millions of people now believe silly things they shouldn’t.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Very true, Candy. I was working in a bookshop around the time that the DVC came out, and I had a lot of customers asking me for books that explained more about all of the true secrets that Dan Brown had uncovered. I tried to set each one straight, and then sell them a copy of Foucault’s Pendulum…
May 5th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Nice piece Rob, you’re quite right, there will be a tourism impact.
I can’t really find it in myself to blame Brown for people believing his books, he makes no claim to write anything other than fiction. If people choose to believe it, well, I don’t really understand actually how they can choose to believe it but I don’t really see it as his fault.
What a curious world these folk must inhabit though.
Clearly the trick is to lure Dan Brown into helping with urban regeneration, set his next book in Luton say or some depressed US former mining town…
May 5th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I agree on all counts, Max. I wish I could find that old video from the BBC – it was alarming (but entertaining) viewing.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Excellent genre-crossing post, Rob. Those of us who love books need to be reminded that they do influence people eve those who don’t read that often. I certainly think it is better to have people heading to the Louvre because of Dan Brown than it is heading to Hollywood for a holiday centred on seeing the studio lots at Universal — but that just underlines my personal distaste for film.
And we shouldn’t be too churlish about Brown’s influence. After all, those of us who do visit London find it quite interesting to look at all the people looking at all those blue plaques you Brits insist on putting up. And dovegreyreader certainly gets a good response to her periodic photo visits to the former houses of authors.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Thanks, Kevin!
You’re right that it’s good to have people inspired to visit the Louvre, and heartwarming when, despite low expectations, they find it almost as good as the book. It reminds me of the time I passed two young American lads who were looking up at the Colosseum. After a while, one of them said to the other:
“Yeah, but the Eiffel Tower is, like, so much taller.”
I wasn’t aware that you didn’t like film. Does that extend to the classics (whatever that means), or is it more to do with the state of modern cinema?
May 5th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Defintely more to do with modern cinema and the relentless hype around it (it is that hype around his books that bothers me most about Brown). I do like the “classics” but admit most of my visual entertainment comes from well-done television series like the Sopranos, The Wire and Big Love on the American front and a host of examples, most notably Foyle’s War from the UK (glad you are enjoying it, by the way).
And getting back to your original thoughts, Dublin certainly seems to have turned Bloomsday into an ongoing travel extravaganze — although in no way am I attempting to equate Brown with Joyce.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Well, maybe The Lost Symbol will turn out to be set in Dublin during Bloomsday – then, next year, the two sets of fans can, um… meet?
I’m entirely with you regarding films, television, etc.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I do confess that every time we go to London we make sure to visit the Museum Tavern across the street from the British Museum because that is where Marx had his pint each day after finishing his work in the Reading Room. Puts me right in the mix with the Brown-inspired holiday-makers. Quite like the notion of having The Lost Symbol set in Dublin — and I doubt very much that there would be very many “twofers” crossing over the festivals.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
I am reading Foucault’s Pendulum for the third time right now and it makes me laugh so much. Basically he’s making fun of the people who believe the DaVinci Code but doing it beforehand. Foucault is one of my all time favorite books.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
And mine! it’s wonderful, isn’t it?
May 5th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Every time I read it I love it more and find more to it. I can see how it would be difficult to film but it would be so much better than Dan Brown’s stuff. It is one of the few books I read with a dictionary in the other hand.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:04 am
I agree, Candy. It’s one of the books I revisit every few years. I’m also fond of Name of the Rose and Baudolino, though I think his other two weren’t quite up to his usual standard.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Another fan of Foucault. I read it twice in fairly quick succession (the first time to impress a girl…) but haven’t been near it in over 15 years. Must revisit soon. I love the edition I have, the old Picador paperback (from back when Picador was mainly a mop-up paperback publisher for all those literary houses who were too high-and-mighty to stoop to soft covers) with the pendulum swinging out at you.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The first Secker edition was really gorgeous – if ever there was a book to read in a big old dirty hardback, it’s that one. Actually, I need to reread to, though for the moment I might make do with the copy of Postscript to the Name of the Rose that I picked up on eBay a few weeks back.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
My copy is falling apart after only three readings so I’ve ordered a hard cover copy. Some books must be reread periodically.