Feminization and sexualization as an urban marketing strategy.

The case of the city of Medellin.

Abstract

After Colombia entered the world tourism circuits, the example of the city of Medellín has become a paradigmatic case of changes in the image and idea of ​​the city through urban marketing. In this context, this study has focused on the use of the female image as an element to attract tourists and export the urban product. The main objective was to study the use of the female image as an advertising resource in the promotion of the city of Medellín. At the methodological level, the qualitative angle of the affective politics of the image and its influence on the construction of urban imaginaries was used. For this, a corpus of speeches, images and data collected through field work and virtual search in social networks, forums, digital newspapers or web pages associated with tourism was prepared and examined. The results obtained reveal the existence of two basic strategies in the urban marketing of Medellín: feminization and urban sexualization. Both have had an important social cost with consequences in the situation of vulnerability and urban violence of the women of the city.