| The first book town was pioneered in 1961 by an entrepreneur
named Richard Booth in Hay- on-Wye, a small market town on the border
of England and Wales. The concept, as innovated by Booth over several
years, consisted of buying up stocks of defunct or under-utilised property
in a declining rural town, and turning them into bookshops. The town became
a "town of books", a concept which then created a unique destination identity.
This concept which makes large amounts of second-hand and antiquarian
books available to everyone, is one of the most successful new tourism
developments, and offers an exemplary model of sustainable rural development
and tourism. Originally Hay was conceived as a specialist retail development,
rather than a tourism development. But by 1995 the "town of books" was
generating a million tourists a year, up to a third of them thought to
be international, and had made the name of a tiny border town of 1500
inhabitants world famous for more than two decades. The results of a study
from Professor A. Seaton of Strathclyde University in Scotland (UK) suggests
that Hay has been one of the most successful new British tourism developments
since the war, outperforming comparable towns elsewhere and making a major
contribution to tourist numbers in Wales, particularly those from overseas.
The study further suggests that book towns offer exemplary models of sustainable
rural tourism for several reasons. In the last five years there has been
a striking expansion of book towns worldwide. In 1990 there were four
(Hay on Wye in Wales, Redu in Belgium and Becherel and Montolieu in France).
There are now thirteen book towns either in development or under consideration
in Europe, Asia and America. The book towns, all being small rural towns,
have a large number of book shops and a large number of visitors.
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Book town
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Hay-on-Wye (UK)
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Redu (B)
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Bredevoort (NL)
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Fjaerland (N)
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Montolieu (F)
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Number of book shops
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34
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24 |
22
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12
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12
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Number of visitors 1996
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700.000
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300.000
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100.000
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opened mid 1996
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100.000
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Hay-on-Wye in Wales was founded in 1960, Redu in Belgium
in 1984, Montolieu in France in 1989, Bredevoort in the Netherlands
in 1992 and Fjaerland in Norway in 1996.
Hay-on-Wye, Wales UK
Hay is a small, historic market town in Wales with
a population of 1500. It is set among the Black Mountains of the Welsh
Marches on the River Wye, which was celebrated in the late 18th century
as one of the three great picturesque regions in Britain, the other
two being Scotland and the Lake District. Hay has steep streets, an
elegant town hall, a ruined castle and gabled cottages. In 1964 the
Council for British Archaeology designated Hay a town of particular
historic quality. Despite its charm and quietness Hay, as a small border
town on the rural periphery of both England and Wales, was never a place
that attracted many visitors. For much of the nineteenth century it
was a workaday agricultural town and, like many others, began to decline
in the twentieth century. Between the wars it was most often seen as
a brief stopping spot along a chain of Wye destinations rather than
a principal attraction. Other towns in the Wye Valley such as Rhayader,
Builth Wells and Llandrindod were more popular. After the war Hay's
decline continued, and by the mid-1950s, it had a decreasing number
of shops, two cafes, and only two hotels. Its renaissance as a book
town began in 1961 through the efforts of a singular entrepreneur, called
Richard Booth. When he left Oxford, he inherited a small legacy and
noticing that the cinema in Hay (to which his parents had retired),
was up for sale, he decided to buy it and convert it into a bookshop.
Within a short period he was calling it the biggest second-hand book
shop in the world. The success of the shop allowed him to buy up more
property in Hay including a former fire station, an old warehouse, and
in the 1970s, the ancient castle of Hay - all of which he filled with
old books. By the late 1970s the biggest bookshop in Britain had become
the first book town, and Hay was said to contain over a million books.
The town quickly achieved national and international fame which was
partly due to the novelty of the book town concept, but equally to Booth's
flamboyant personality and the spectacular, highly publicised run-ins
he managed to engineer with government bureaucracies. On April 1st 1977
he declared "Home Rule for Hay" and appointed himself King. This started
as an off-the- cuff joke but was taken so seriously by local councillors
and the media, that Booth decided to develop the idea into a printed
manifesto, "Independence for Hay". The stunt achieved world- wide publicity.
For many years Hay was seen as an eccentric book town and nothing more,
but in the early 1990s, as similar ventures were started in France,
Belgium and the Netherlands, the Scottish Tourism Research Unit at the
University of Strathclyde, initiated a project, supported by Scottish
Enterprise, to investigate their economic effects in peripheral rural
areas. The first research report showed how the growth of Hay as a book
town had had an astonishing economic effect on its region, and to some
extent on Wales as a whole.
Redu, village du
livre, Belgium
 Redu
is a small historic village with a population of 450, in the Belgian
Ardennes, one hour from both Luxemburg and Brussels, two hours from
the Ruhr and the Netherlands, and three hours from Paris by the Autoroute
de L'Est. It is thus at 1-3 hours driving distance of a population of
20-30 million. It can claim to go back 1100 year to the days of Charlemagne.
In 1984 there was one shop in Redu. There are now more than 50. These
include: 24 bookshops, 5 galleries, 11 restaurants, a paper manufacturer
and a bookbinder. In Redu, like Hay, the development of book shops has
been accompanied or followed by the development of an ancillary retail
sector directly, or vaguely related, to books including two antique
shops and a number of galleries. The village has achieved massive coverage
and claims to be the most successful village in Belgium and the leading
tourist attraction in the Luxemburg/Ardennes region. Redu has developed
a programme of cultural events to support the book town's appeal and
complement its cultural character. One of the big annual events is the
Nuit du Livre, when the book town is open all night and a diverse programme
of entertainments are staged including jazz, rock and classical music.
There are also performance artists, puppeteers, circus artists etc.
and the restaurants, tea shops and galleries all stay open until the
early hours of the morning.
Montolieu, France
Montolieu is a beautiful, historic town of 850 inhabitants
(200 of whom are retired nuns) in the south of France. It has a history
dating back to when Charlemagne founded the Monastery of St Jean de
Mallast in A.D. 800. It has a 14th century church. It is located in
the Aude at the foot of the Montagne Noir and built on a rocky ridge
separating the gorges of two rivers in a typically Mediterranean village.
Its present site was chosen by Roger de Trenceval in 1146. In the 17th
century Louis XIV's minister, Colbert, established a Royal Manufactory
which exported high quality woollen cloth. It is within 20 kilometres
of Carcassone (France's third most visited tourist attraction). It is
also close to other heritage attractions including: an18th century paper
mill at Brouses, the 13th century abbey of Villelongue and the Cathare
castles of Lastouirs and Saissac. It has a diverse variety of tourist
features in its area including: lakes, rivers and streams (e.g.lakes
of Lampy, Cammazes, Laprade and Canal du Midi); walks, horse riding,
and horse- drawn caravan holidays; country inns; the caves of Limousis
famous for stalactites and stalagmites; 20 kms is Castelnaudry, a centre
for Blue Line Canal holidays.
It is close to large conurbations. One hour from Montolieu are Toulouse
(with a population of 1 million and the oldest photographic museum in
Europe), the Pyrenees, Narbonne and the sea. Two hours drive are Montpellier,
Spain, Perpignan and Albi (with its Toulouse-Lautrec Museum). Most important,
Montolieu is about 25 minutes from the prime Autoroute des Deux Mers
which effectively links the town along a motorway chain which stretches
north to Bordeaux and the Dordogne, east to Lyons, and north east to
Paris. Montolieu is a medieval town of singular beauty, surrounded by
fields of sunflowers, clear rivers and the cool forests of Southwestern
France. It is a place which, even before books arrived, was visited
for its beauty and history. Montolieu was founded as a book town on
the initiative of Monsieur Brabant (who died two years ago), a bookbinder
and curator of the Museum of Bookcraft . The town was primarily launched
through the involvement and participation of Richard Booth, the founder
of Hay-on- Wye, who bought two properties, one of which was opened as
the first book shop, and the other as the Café du Livre, which
is also the base for the International Inkwell, a hotel for writers
which hosts international literary groups in the summer.
Montolieu set out to establish, not just a town of
bookshops, but to create a broader cultural entity, themed to books,
which included retail and exhibition materials relating to a range of
writing and graphic arts. In publicity it calls itself "Village du livre
et des arts graphiques". Its mission is expressed in its publicity:
"Since 1990 as (the book town for Southern Europe) Montolieu aims at
gathering all aspects of writing and the graphic arts together in one
single place. Interest has been shown by shops dealing in old and rare
books, in second-hand books, by bookbinders, engravers and craftsmen
in all the graphic arts. A number of shops have already been opened
or are being prepared. Workshops, new shops and exhibitions are being
planned. At the same time, the project, "Memoire du Livre", aims at
making Montelieu a living Book Museum and an ultra-modern centre for
the restoration of manuscripts, books and documents and for the teaching
of these techniques.
Bredevoort, Nederlands
 A
Dutch town of 1600 inhabitants, Bredevoort is part of the Municipality
of Aalten and is located in the part of East Guelderland known as "De
Achterhoek", about 5 km from the Dutch- German border. It is on the
main provincial road from Winterswijk to Aalten and is only 15-20 minutes
from a major motorway which gives it easy access to the conurbations
of West Holland (the Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam can be accessed
by car within 2-3 hours), Belgium, the German Ruhr areas and Cologne.
Bredevoort is the birthplace of Rembrandt's second wife, Hendrikje Stoffels.
A fortified garrison town, it was a bone of contention between the bishops
of Munster and the lords of Guelderland, who took turns in ruling the
town. Most of the buildings in the old part of the town date from the
17th century and have a highly picturesque appearance, including a small
windmill which dominates one part of the town. In 1988 the town celebrated
its 800th anniversary. One of Bredevoort's innovations was the production
of a corporate logo for the town which features a chainmailed crusader
standing guard over a book. It is used on all the book town's printed
artefacts- leaflets, wrapping bags and gift bags. The Book Town was
officially opened on August 27th 1993 by Dr. J.C. Terlouw, Royal Commisionar
of Guelderland, who is also a writer of children's books and patron
of the Bredevoort Booktown Foundation. Twelve booksellers were by then
established in 7 shops in Bredevoort. The launch included a large bookfair
at which 160 booksellers were represented, which attracted 12.000-15.000
people. The launch featured an events programme which included: a Reynard
the Fox exhibition, book valuations, and exhibitions of bookbinding
and literary etchings. There was also a poetry reading night on the
17th century moat, and evening lectures, theatre performances and literary
readings.
Fjaerland, Norway
Fjaerland in Norway is a six hours drive north of
Oslo and about five hours from Bergen. It is a small village of 300
inhabitants in the municipality of Balestrand, in the Sognefjorden region,
a spectacular area famous for its glaciers, fjords and magnificent clean
environment. The book town was established as a deliberate tourism venture
rather than a retail development. Fjaerland already had a major attraction,
the Norsk Bremuseum (The Glacier Experience Centre) which annually attracts
90,000 visitors, mainly day visitors. A Museum of Tourism is also planned
for Balestrand, the first in Norway. The book town was launched in June
1996 with considerable publicity and the participation of the Norwegian
Minister of Culture, Richard Booth of Hay-on-Wye, and Jostein Gaarder
the author of the best selling novel "Sophie's World" (who had spent
his honeymoon at the Hotel Mundal).
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