The wages of luxury: Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda resort as iconic brand and political symbol (1960–1975)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The 1960s in Italy saw an explosion in mass tourism but also the development of contested forms of luxury tourism. This article deals with the building of one of the most iconic luxury resorts of the era, the Costa Smeralda on the island of Sardinia, and with the political controversies it raised. Within a few years, the resort put Sardinia on the map of world tourism, drawing the attention of conservationists, who chose it as a symbol of environmental and cultural degradation. In the early 1970s the Aga Kahn, the resort’s main promoter, sued some of the conservationists for defamation. The resulting trials, which the Aga Kahn won, became a venue in which the myths of the developers and those of the conservationists clashed in front of witnesses and judges. The trial’s records revealed the compromises and negotiations on which luxury tourism is founded, but such demythologisation benefited the developers, at least in the short run. The Costa Smeralda remained an iconic brand and a contested symbol, but above all it spurred a transition from large-scale manufacturing to tourism as Sardinia’s main economic vocation.