Zsuzsa Deli-Gray (ed.)

Cases in Tourism Marketing III

Vienna – Coffeehouses and Nostalgia on Screen

Vienna was the final stop on Anna’s journey. As the train approached the city, the landscape felt strangely familiar – almost too familiar. The Danube, the domed palaces, the trams… for a moment, she wondered if she had somehow arrived back in Budapest. Then she remembered: in so many films, the two cities had doubled for each other. Red Sparrow, The Spy Who Dumped Me – Budapest often portrayed Vienna on screen. The films had blurred the two cityscapes in her mind, and now, standing in the real Vienna, she felt as if she were stepping into a dream she had already seen, though some details had faded. Crossing the illuminated courtyards of the MuseumsQuartier that evening, she stumbled upon an outdoor screening – the film Great Freedom was playing, depicting the claustrophobic beauty of Cold War Vienna. Anna sat down, wrapping her coat tighter against the cool night air. The images radiated a sombre grace, revealing yet another face of the city. The next day she watched Corsage at a small art cinema – a story of Empress Elisabeth, not glittering and idealised, but intimate and suffocating. In the afternoons she wandered the streets, discovering Vienna step by step. While strolling through the gardens of the Belvedere Palace, she recalled a scene from Before Sunrise – Jesse and Céline walking the same paths. She had not known where that scene had been filmed when she first saw it, but she had remembered every detail. Now she was retracing those cinematic footprints: a square, a bench, a café. These places were not just coordinates on a map; they were filmic imprints, fragments of someone else’s experience that had become her own.

At Café Sperl, she ordered a Melange and a slice of Sachertorte – entirely because of the film. Soft piano music floated through the air. An older man reading a book at the next table looked up. “Alone? Film lover?” he asked in German-accented English. Anna smiled. “Following Jesse and Céline’s path,” she replied. “Ah, Richard Linklater,” the man said warmly. “I remember that film. The coffee tasted different back then.” His name was Herr Kaufmann, a retired teacher who enjoyed chatting with foreign visitors. He told Anna that the Viennese coffeehouse was not simply a place, but a feeling – an experience, and an identity. “People don’t come just for the drink or the cake,” he said. “They come because this is where the city tells its stories. The films only make those stories stronger – sometimes by adding new meanings, sometimes by reviving old ones.” Anna listened and took notes, but mostly she watched – the mirrors, the walls, the rhythm of quiet conversation. “Travelling is sometimes living the moments that others have already lived before us,” she wrote. The fragments of cinematic memories – the glances, the sounds, the moods – had breathed life into Vienna long before she ever arrived. Now, sitting in the same space she had only known from film, imagination gave way to experience, and everything fell into place. On her last day, wandering through the stalls of the Naschmarkt, an elderly man offered her a pickled cucumber. Nearby, sausages sizzled, beer glasses clinked. She thought: the city she had seen on screen truly existed now. The tastes, the sounds, the light – all real. Yet without the films, Vienna would not have felt so alive, so full of meaning. It wasn’t the city that had changed it was Anna. Through film, food, and fleeting moments, she had come to see Vienna not just as a destination, but as her place – a city woven into her own memories.

That evening, walking near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, she noticed how the city transformed after dark. The illuminated streets echoed with many languages, each corner resembling another movie scene. She remembered how many films she had once thought took place in Vienna were actually shot in Budapest. “Maybe we’re not always searching for the real location,” she thought, “but for the image we first saw on screen.” Later, in a quiet Heuriger wine tavern, where soft music played and glasses of Grüner Veltliner shimmered in the candlelight, Anna sat alone at a wooden table. At the next table, an American couple was discussing how Red Sparrow had inspired them to visit Vienna. “Films plant seeds of desire within us,” Anna noted in her journal. As the taste of the wine deepened on her tongue, she realised that Vienna existed both as reality and illusion – a city where film and life merged almost imperceptibly.

By the time her train departed for Budapest, she understood that this journey had been more than a tour of culinary film locations – it had been a search for herself. The flavours, the stories, the films had quietly intertwined. The meeting of gastronomy and cinema was not simply a marketing tool; it was a cultural narrative, a shared memory, and a profoundly personal experience.

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 217 4

Marketing Turizmus

The publication of the third volume of Cases in Tourism Marketing is truly welcome news from both an educational and a professional perspective. Through real-world, timely, and thought-provoking cases, this collection helps readers – students and practitioners alike – gain a deeper understanding of the complex world of decision-making in tourism marketing. The case studies not only convey professional knowledge but also develop analytical skills, problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking. One of the volume’s key strengths is its focus on issues that define contemporary tourism, including the role of digitalization, artificial intelligence, destination branding, and stakeholder collaboration in tourism marketing. Long-awaited and highly relevant, this third volume is a worthy continuation of the previous collections and will undoubtedly serve as a valuable resource in higher education in tourism, while also being highly recommended to professionals who enjoy reflecting on challenges and opportunities beyond their own immediate field of expertise.

Tamara Ratz PhD

Director, Centre for International Relations, Kodolányi János University

Head of Tourism Department, Professor of Tourism

It is an honor for me to recommend this volume to everyone who wishes to understand tourism marketing not only in theory, but also through its real business and human dimensions. The worlds of tourism and hospitality have undergone fundamental changes in recent years, which makes case studies based on real market situations, decision-making dilemmas and current challenges especially valuable in supporting both learning and critical thinking. This book provides not only professional knowledge, but also encourages a complex mindset, creative problem-solving and the ability to think in connections — exactly the skills today’s tourism professionals need most. I wholeheartedly recommend this volume to students, educators and tourism professionals alike.

Judit Fodor (Liptai)

Group Director of Sales and Marketing, Danubius Hotels

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/deli-gray-cases-in-toursim-marketing-iii//

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