Naples: 45 Minutes to Capri; don’t miss the boat.
October 17, 2008
I had a fleeting moment of empathy for the Roman PR whiz (IHT’s vocab choice) Claudio Velardi who was retained to solve Napoli’s image problem.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/16/arts/kimmelman.php
Having survived four interminable years in Napoli, I am qualified to offer my 2 euro cents worth of advice to Mr. Velardi as to how to chisel away at Naples’ reputation as purgatory on earth. There is really no need to spend a lot of advertising dollars in order to attract more tourists’ rubles, dollars and even euro to bella Napoli. Guajol’ basta che la gente si comporta con un po’ di gentilezza.
So, more specifically:
In ïnformation points, such as the train station at Mergellina, you could in theory, actually retain individuals to work there who speak English, and, this is important, who put down the phone to Mamma when tourists enter the station asking for assistance. Additionally, it doesn’t hurt to educate these service providers a little about Campania’s glories, rather than just having them thrust brochures at tourists — with an ecco fatto attitude. Once, I entered this same information point, and asked about agriturismi in the area, in italiano and received a we don’t have a brochure on that as a reply (and she went back to conversation on cell).
A second bit of consiglio to Mr. Velardi would be to run an internal educational/advertising campaign in Naples similar to what China did prior to the Beijing games, explaining to itscivilians that the civil behaviour is a wonderful thing — single file in lines (yes, even you senior citizens), no fingers in noses in public, smokers should do their best not to burn others passing on the sidewalk. And, for the napoletani men, I would add this special educational message: blonde, foreign women do not, contrary to napoletani belief, do not like to be followed by random men propositioning them with vulgarities sotto voce. One should not assume that a foreign woman is either a prostitute, or in need of a job as your badante. Sometimes, we blondes are simply doctors, lawyers, and yes, even advertising executives.
Then, this is my last item of free advice (you can contact me for my consulting rates at info@americangirlinitaly.com): Naples merchants/restauranteers etc. should be apprised that we foreigners learned how to count at the scuola materna . Ergo, we know how to make change–even in euro. Thus, stop doing that slow-count when you make change, thinking we do not know how much change you should give us post-purchase. That little trick is getting very old, and time is money.
Filed under: Art & culture
