From marvelous city to Olympic city: the image of Rio de Janeiro as tourist destination

Abstract

Rio de Janeiro, known as “The Marvelous City”, was recently brought into the spotlight as a consequence of the Olympic Games when a new image of the city as “The Olympic City” was globally publicized. To reflect on the transformation of Rio de Janeiro’s image, from “Marvelous City” to “Olympic City”, this article resorts to Social Sciences, especially to sociologist John Urry’s works among other authors from the Tourism and Mobilities field. Such theoretical repertoire is fundamental to approach the concepts of “tourist gaze” and tourist destination analysed on the first part of the article. It also served as basis for the comparative analysis of the tourism industry advertising posters of the 1910s and 1970s and the scenes from the Opening ceremony for Rio 2016 Olympic Game.