Colombia cashes in on its signature genre

By Alex Dalenberg

April 21, 2013

Marketing slogans aren’t always high concept, but we give a tip of the hat to the nation of Columbia when it comes to its new tourism campaign, simply titled Magical Realism.

We’re big fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez here at the blog. Dad ranks Love in the Time of Cholera in his top three favorite books of all time. So, when your country boasts perhaps the greatest living writer on the planet, why not cash in on his signature genre?

According to the See Colombia travel blog, this new slogan is drastic departure from Colombia’s previous motto — The Only Risk is Wanting to Stay — which directly tackled security fears.

It’s not the first Marquez-inspired tourism promotion and almost every travel profile of Cartagena heavily focuses on its impact on Marquez’s fiction. The literary city also hosts the South American expansion of the United Kingdom’s Hay Festival of Literature and Arts.

Also, Magical Realism is a much better slogan than Love in the Time of Cholera or, for that matter, 100 Years of Solitude. I’ve posted one of the promotional videos below. The idea seems to me that the experience of visiting Colombia is, you know, magical in itself. Personally, I was kind of hoping for the tourists to turn into butterflies or the guides to have enormous wings, but no such luck.