Cesar Manrique, Lanzarote’s brand image

Abstract

Starting the 1960’s, the artist Cesar Manrique launched, with the support of the local government, a territorial project in the island of Lanzarote geared at promoting quality tourism based on the island’s landscape and culture. For the artist, the projectrepresented the permanent communication between art and nature. With intelligence, courage and audacity, he succeeded in developing his paradigm thanks to his tenacity and the support of the public administration.This article analyses the work of Cesar Manrique in order to understand how his ideas and interventions have created the brand image of Lanzarote, and how the artist and his vision have become a territorial benchmark as well as a tourist attraction. Lanzarote was for manyyears considered to be unattractive for most tourists, not only aesthetically but also because of the island’s economic circumstances. However, at present it has a completely different reality, having become an example of the balance between sustainability andtourism capacity, which are two major challenges currently faced by most cities and countries around the world. In just a few decades the development of Lanzarote has been remarkable, and its success is directly linked to the local artist Cesar Manrique, who actively participated in said development starting in the 1960’s.