Storytelling as a Tool for Safeguarding and Marketing The Intangible Cultural Heritage (Ich): The Case of Nubia City, Egypt

REHAB EL GAMIL

Tourism Studies Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Alexandria University, Egypt

ABSTRACT

Over the past decades, the intangible cultural heritage has been alarmed by an increasing number of challenges such as globalization, modernization, economic booms and finally changes in life styles and cultural contexts. As a result, many forms of intangible cultural heritage are being lost. So, there is an urgent need to safeguard it and ensure its sustainability, as it is considered an important component of tourist attractions in many destinations.

Recently,  storytelling  has  gained  much  attention  as  an  innovative  means  of  competitive destination  marketing,  as  stories  can  give  emphasis  to  the  unique  aspects  of  a  place  or  a destination that cannot be replicated. Therefore, this paper focuses on exploring how storytelling can be used as a new tool for documenting, safeguarding and marketing the intangible cultural heritage, especially in local communities.

Accordingly, the study is structured as follows; first, it presents the theoretical background; followed by the methodology section. A qualitative approach is employed in this research, based on adapting semi-structured interviews with the local community inNubia city in 2016. The interviews aim to identify the threats that face the ICH in Nubia as a local community. Then the study applies a modified theoretical model to illustrate how the storytelling can be used as a tool for safeguarding and marketing Nubian ICH. Results show the potential of stories and skillful storytelling practices as an innovative tool for documenting, safeguarding and marketing ICH through events.  Finally,  the  study  ends  with  some  implications  for  the  government,  local

authorities and tourism managers and marketers to take them into consideration.

Keyword: Intangible cultural heritage, Safeguarding, Marketing, Storytelling, Nubia City.

INTRODUCTION

Local communities are considered as the creators of Intangible Cultural heritage as it always related to their setting, their history, and their existence in a specific context .In this respect, ICH gives the local community the feeling of belonging and shapes a part of their identity. So, ICH is  considered  as  "a  living  form  of  heritage"  which  is  interpreted  by  local  community  and transmitted from generation to generation  (UNESCO, 2003c).Intangible cultural heritage has great values, UNESCO has mentioned that ICH has two values firstly, social value which gives communities the feeling of belonging and a sense of identity, secondly, economic value which results from the consumption of its products and its role as a tourist attraction especially for local communities (UNESCO, 2003b).

Furthermore, the ICH has been alarmed by an increasing number of challenges such as globalization, modernization, economic booms and finally changes in life styles. In this context, preserving and documenting intangible cultural heritage became increasingly important and necessary for the sake of sustainability. Efforts to preserve ICH within a community context face many challenges. There is a need to create a balance between collecting, documenting and archiving ICH, and the ability of communities to interpret, use, reshape and share this heritage .But in fact, the local communities are still sharing and passing on their ICH informally by word of mouth (Jarvis,

2012). On the other hand, there is an obvious shortage of literature especially concerning the threats faced by the communities for documenting and preserving their ICH in the globalizing world (Mackinnon, 2012).

Since 1990's storytelling has got a wide attention in several fields; management sociology, and marketing. Therefore, many researchers started to explore the role of storytelling in a different context (Akgün et al., 2015). Indeed, storytelling has vital roles for an organization as well as tourism destinations.

In the context of travel and tourism industry storytelling has various positive impacts as the stories are considered as an essential component of the memorable travel experiences e.g. stories about the local cultures and traditions, stories from tourists themselves and stories from native guides about the mysteries of some places (Choi, 2016).Although of this importance but till now the power of storytelling is undervalued in tourism and destination marketing.

This paper focuses on the Egyptian Nubia, the area of southern Egypt extending from the town of Aswan, approximately 560 miles south of Cairo, to the border of Sudan. (Abdel Meguid,

2008). Nubia city is famous for its distinctive culture either tangible or intangible and its unique people. Gradually, Nubian culture became a very important attraction for many visitors, but unfortunately, Nubians were forced to leave their homelands as they have been threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. This shift in place has negative impacts on Nubian intangible heritage. It caused many loses and changes in their traditional practices customs and their economies, which has strong connections to their historical lands. (Elcheikh, 2013).

In this respect, the research questions can be summarized as follows:

1.   To what extent storytelling can represent a medium and long term solution for safeguarding the Nubian ICH and, re-present and market it as a new tourist attraction?

2.   How appropriate storytelling for making travelers excited about experiencing all destination offers?

These questions will be answered based on a qualitative approach.

The paper aims to identify Nubian ICH and stories worthwhile to be told, within a destination. Then the paper highlights the threats that facing the Nubian ICH. Moreover, the objective of this paper is to examine storytelling in detail and how storytelling is used as an innovative marketing tool. Consequently, this paper applies a modified theoretical model to explain the potential of using and applying storytelling in safeguarding and marketing Nubian ICH.

The study is divided into three main sections.  The first one is concerned with the theoretical background of the topic. In the  second one, the methodology, results ,and discussion are presented, and finally, the third section highlights the conclusions and recommendations of the study.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)

In last decades, the term “cultural heritage” has become different in its content. So it doesn't include just physical elements such as monuments and objects but it also includes intangible elements such as customs, traditions or living expressions which are transmitted from ancestors to descendants (UNESCO, 2003a).

In the 2003 UNESCO convention, which was about safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, it defined (ICH) as “The practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage"(UNESCO,2003b,p.2) .

Intangible cultural heritage takes many forms. Article 2.2 of UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) defines intangible cultural heritage as it takes five forms (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Intangible cultural heritage forms

Source: Researcher adopted from UNESCO, 2003d; UNWTO, 2013

UNESCO is playing a vital role in order to safeguard ICH. Since 1952 UNESCO efforts have begun and they are continuous till now. The role of ICH has increased after realizing that many traditions and customs in several local communities all around the world were lost and disappeared especially in the globalization era (Bakar et al., 2014) .Moreover, The UNESCO convention of safeguarding ICH and its international decree was a fundamental step and many countries signed it, others have not yet; but since then the protection of ICH became extremely important and many researchers and practitioners gave more attention to this topic.)Mackinnon, 2012)

It's very important to preserve and document all forms of ICH, especially for developing countries which are famous for their richness and diversity of ICH that give them a unique identity particularly among tourist destinations .In this context, sustainability should be a vital principle in safeguarding and documenting ICH to make it accessible to present and future generations. (Pereraand and Chandra, 2014).

Furthermore, The UNESCO convention of 2003 mentioned to the role of indigenous communities and groups in transmitting, safeguarding, maintenance and recreation of ICH, without their support and help nobody can decide the value of this heritage (Cominelli and Greffe, 2012). Thus, UNESCO (2003) confirmed the importance of protecting the practitioners of the ICH as it's so difficult to transmit it without those practitioners.  So, safeguarding ICH not requires just attention towards the heritage itself but also the craftsmen and artists (Bakar et al., 2014).

Nowadays,  documenting  ICH  is  becoming  simple  and  easy  due  to  the  technological revolution and multimedia development, so professionals can use digital tools to capture voices or videos of daily life rituals. The digital tools for example, tablets, digital cameras and smart phones became effective tools for recording. On the other hand, community members can make  an inventory and make it available online. (Perera and Chandra, 2014; Jarvis, 2012)

Storytelling and Tourism

Since 1990's storytelling has gained much more attention in different sciences and fields,

education, psychology, sociology, management and marketing. (Akgün et al., 2015).Storytelling can be defined in many ways, many researchers put different definitions for storytelling in general and in tourism in particular. Storytelling is defined as to “share knowledge or experience through a story and episode to deliver a complicated idea, concept, and casual relation” (Lee and Shin,

2015, p.281). It has been defined as “a narrative about a character overcoming some obstacle to achieve some important goal” (Haven, 2007, p.100). Jim Signorelli explains that he has found over eighty two definitions of the word storytelling; he mentioned that "it's hard to give the exact definition of the word because people have a slightly different understanding of the word". (Signorelli 2014, p.28) .The attractive story can draw the attention of the audiences by immersion and they can become a part of it through participation (Ferraro, 2016).

Storytelling as a communication tool has different forms depending on the context, so it doesn't take an oral form only, but it can be in a printed one like a novel and in screen forms such as a movie or a video (Lee and Shin, 2015).In other words, it is a tool for transmitting and interpreting experiences in a way that attracts those you are sharing the story with. As well as, an evolutionary mechanism that helped keep our ancestors alive. Additionally ,storytelling has been defined in the context of marketing  as  a  tool  of  stimulating  consumer  loyalty  through  emotional connection or entertainment (Choi,2016).

Stories have an impressive role in live; they inspire people and creating the human and emotional connection. Stories can transfer the values, the history and the culture to the future generations. They can, further, be utilized to introduce a new topic or a complicated idea and sharing it with different types of audiences (Mossberg, 2008;Geneske and Hattaway, 2014).

On the other hand, there is an international trend in the "experience industry". This trend depends  on  creating a  story related  to  the  business  as  a whole  or a  part  of  it.  This  may be appropriate for a single product, an organization or a destination. Thus, it was clearly shown that there are several types of stories for example, advertising stories; stories about organizations or products, or destinations such as branding stories; consumer stories and traditional stories which include folktale, legend, and myth (Mossberg, 2008; Miller ,2011).

Furthermore, storytelling in tourism industry was examined from different points of views, firstly, storytelling which related to tourism destination; Chronis mentioned that "the story can transform places into attractive tourism destinations" (Chronis, 2012, p. 445).   Therefore, storytelling may offer unique competitive advantages and a tool to create storyscapes in tourism destinations. Moreover, it can create memorable and authentic tourist experiences which concentrated on stimulate visitor's senses such as seeing, smelling, hearing and tasting. In addition, it may create conditions for cooperation among destination stakeholders (Jensen and Prebensen,

2015).

Storytelling can also be used for tourism destination development, Mossberg, Therkelse, Huijbens, Björk and Olssen (2010) developed a theoretical model which shows that stories can form essential elements of destination marketing and development (Lund, 2012). There are many cases which depend on storytelling for developing destinations e.g. organizing events based on stories and

2016).

Secondly, the storytelling of tourists; nowadays a lot of attention has been given to the storytelling of tourist. Many tourists  became  storytellers  about  the  destinations  they  had  visited  and  the experiences they had lived. Customers started to share their stories and experiences in different forms of travel blogs such as videos, photos, and texts about their travel experiences through social media. Popular websites like Booking.com, Trivago and Trip Advisor started to use storytelling in the form of consumer reviews these reviews can be considered as word of mouth recommendations and always have their influences on perceptions and reputation (Ferraro, 2016; Lund, 2012)

As a rsult of the technological revolution, digital storytelling became a new form of narratives which depends on multimedia technologies but in a simple way. Digital stories are small scaled, they last between two and five minutes (Alcantud et al., 2014) .They are taking various forms such as simple text, virtual and real Guides/storytellers, audio narration, movies and interactive forms (Lee and Shin, 2015).

This kind of stories should consist of some essential elements which are: actors ;place; time ; the objective  of  the  story  ;  sensory  elements  :  smells,  flavors,  colors  ,  sounds,  emotions  of  all participants ;  objects such as clothing; narrator's point of view (who is telling the story? ; narrator's tone of voice, attitude, style ;quality of the images , video and other multimedia elements; finally, the stories should be short, simple ,unique and clear with easy language (Alcantud et al., 2014 ; Albom ,2016)

Travel, tourism and adventure are the main concerns of digital stories. They can be in several forms such as, stories about cultural events, a personal experience in travel, places, a restaurant, a heritage site and other different forms. Thus, it can be said that digital stories can facilitate the relation between outsiders and local community; they can create a better cross-cultural understanding (Alcantud et al., 2014). Furthermore, many virtual cultural heritage sites depend on digital storytelling which often represents stories about event and characters related to these sites (Lee and Shin, 2015).

Storytelling as a Tool for Safeguarding and Marketing the Intangible Cultural heritage

In recent years, many researchers and academics recognized the significant role of storytelling in marketing and branding either for a product, a service or a destination.

According to its vital role, many researchers mentioned to the necessity of using storytelling as a marketing approach (Akgün et al., 2015). Storytelling is a significant component of modern marketing that can improve the product or service when used effectively (Ferraro, 2016). Furthermore, storytelling can put the information in a new form to be memorable, meaningful and understandable. It is an effective technique to shape brands and to create an emotional investment in a product or service (Aaker and Smith, 2011;  Akgüna et al., 2015) Otherwise, storytelling does not only create an emotional response; it also gives the brand a personality. Baker (2012 claims that storytelling  is  the  new  tool  of  branding  because  the  consumer  becomes  more  attached  and connected to various digital platforms. Additionally, storytelling, can be channeled through several communication tools (i.e. stories, social media, videos and films, reviews and word of mouth) that have a vital role in a content marketing strategy which gives life to brands and driving market changes (Fog et al.,2005; Akgüna et al., 2015;  Ferraro, 2016).

On the other hand, using stories in branding creates a strong connection which can build a long lasting customer – brand relationship. In other words, stories have the ability to engage people and communicate a message and this is a very important tool for the marketer (Ferraro, 2016).

As well as, the importance of storytelling as a branding notion, the attention of storytelling has been increased as its vital role in tourism marketing.

As mentioned in tourism literature, storytelling has two significant functions, firstly, it can create a unique competitive advantage for the destination secondly, it can give the tourist a memorable experience (Mossberg, 2008). In addition, utilizing storytelling approach particularly in tourism has created the ripple effect through social networking technologies (Akgüna et al., 2015).

Preserving and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage has faced many challenges and problems. Accordingly, there is a necessity to balance between collecting, documenting and archiving ICH and the ability of local communities and tradition bearers to use, reshape, share and transmit it. Since several years ago, intangible heritage had been shared within communities at an informal level, passed on by word of mouth .In fact; it summarizes many meanings and concepts of identity, history and culture (Jarvis, 2012).

Therefore, stories have a powerful effect as they can turn the intangible attractions in destinations into tangible tourist experience creators. Nowadays, tourists behaviors have been changed, they are always looking for secret and myths stories to feel immersed within the local culture of the tourism destination. As a result, it becomes very important for any tourism destination to have attractive, positive stories and effective storytelling channels (Yavuz et al., 2016).

Accordingly, developments particularly in place branding clarify that the storytelling and ICH can play an important role for destinations, they can represent a value added which enables the creation of a sense of place and identity for both residents and tourists (Mitsche,2013). Additionally, storytelling can provide many different ways of seeing the same attractions in several contexts and it can shed light on the hidden and intangible meanings to attract new tourists. In this perspective, effective interpretation through storytelling has an important role in safeguarding and marketing ICH( Figure 2); it should involve the people who use spaces, local communities, tourists and stakeholders (PÎNZARU,2012; Mitsche, et.al,2013)

Figure 2: Storytelling as a tool for marketing ICH

Source: Researcher

METHODOLOGY

Qualitative analysis is considered as a suitable way in order to understand life styles, stories, people's behaviors, and changes in social life (Yavuz et al., 2016). Thus, a qualitative approach was employed in this research, based on adapting semi-structured interviews to achieve the study objectives and to answer the research questions. The qualitative method was used primarily to gain detailed information from the interviewees. Besides, open-ended questions were used as the nature of open- ended questions enables the interviewees to give answers that are most important to them ( Ferraro,2016) .25 semi- structured interviews were conducted in Nubia city, especially the Nubian village of Gharb Soheil as this area wasn't affected directly by the construction of High Dam in the1960s. It still remains an authentic Nubian community has its own intangible cultural heritage and it was recently chosen by many travel agencies as an important part within package tours to southern Egypt.

The interviews were carried out by the researcher and trained postgraduate students from January 2016 until October 2016 in Nubia city and in the Nubian club in Alexandria. They were conducted with the local community, as well, as native tour guides and officials in Aswan Governorate. Initially, all interviews were transcribed into written material in order to start the thematic analysis. The researcher used thematic coding as a tool for analyzing and interpreting the interviews.

The interviews revolved around four main themes; Firstly, the Nubian ICH as a tourist attraction. Secondly, the challenges and risks that threaten the Nubian ICH.Thirdly, the projects and initiatives that interested in documenting and safeguarding Nubian intangible cultural heritage. Finally, the proposed stories represented the Nubian ICH through storytelling. These stories showed the most important characters, places and objects in Nubia. Moreover, they clarified the meanings and experiences which are transmitted to visitors by Nubia stories. The data reflected other sub-themes under each main theme. Next section will display briefly all these themes.

The Nubia City

Nubia was the region extending from the south of  Aswan in  Egypt  till Dongola in the

Northern Sudan .Historically, Nubians - who had lived there for thousands of years-, have long been considered a distinct population especially in their physical features and their culture (Elcheikh,

2013).In the past, the region was famous for its natural resources and moderate weather, these characteristics motivated many people to stay there. Additionally, distinctive early settled cultures flourished in this region (El Aali , 2003).

In Nubia, there are more than fifty Nubian villages, each village marked by their own history. Nubians are speaking two different languages Kenzi and Fadicca and they couldn't understand each other. As a result of the forced displacement that Nubians faced since the early twentieth century due to the construction of dams near Aswan, very few Nubian villages still exist in their original locations .The original villages that do still exist are located near Aswan city and West Aswan(Robinson,2004&Nicholas, 2017).