Before we come to the conclusions on whether the Town Museum project was or not relevant to Mértola on the whole, it is time to display some figures that can more clearly illustrate the depth of impact and acceleration of the project development.

First of all, if we consider a demographic analysis, it is quite clear that population decrease as been the major trend on this region of the country, and in Mértola’s council this impact was more strongly felt due to the sudden closing of S. Domingos, in 1965. But, if we look deeper, and to a smaller scale, we can see that the impacts of the project are in a sense visible in the growth of the town population, an inversion of the negative values, felt around the end of the 70’s, and that is probably a consequences of the increase of economic activities at the head of the council. Of course, the situation described is not merely a direct consequence of the cultural project. The social and economic evolution that the political changes caused by the new democratic system born in April of 1974 originated are, of course, a factor of major importance. But there is a clear capacity, mostly in the 80’s, to fixate some population in the town, and if the graphic would also display the amount of new habitation build in the last thirty years, it would illustrate a big rise in the last 12/13 years, up until now. The new jobs and hopes that the development of the cultural project brought in, are certainly the demonstration of its positive influence in the local development.

These results can be seen when we analyse the evolution of commercial establishments in the town since the 1920’s. The data presented is the result of an independent research, made by the team charged by the municipality to structure the application conditions to the PROCOM, a European Union funded financial support project for services and trade activities. The bad conditions already felt in S. Domingos mining settlement are already seen in the decrease felt in Mértola, obviously the main commercial carrefour of the council, then followed by a stable period but where the commercial houses and businesses were no more than 5 ! Then, suddenly in the 80’s, a huge growth of 300%, and still rising, keeping a positive movement of another 50% increase in the last decade of the century. This growth includes electrical appliances stores, furniture, autoshops, clothes, supermarkets, gadget stores, etc., and of course, lodging and restaurants.

In this field of the local economic activities the situation is even more impressive: only in the 60’s the first places where a meal could be served came to life, and in 1974, of those, only one was in the category of what we now call a restaurant. After 20 years this number is already close to 15 ! A quite clear example of the same trend referred in the previous chart: of course the cultural project was not the single responsible, but yes it helped a lot.

This influence is notorious when we have a look to the Tourism Office figures, referring to the number of visitors coming to Mértola. It should be said that, until 4/5 years ago, the data retrieval was not coherent. This prevents us going back much in the years, in terms of statistical analysis. Some times the data we have just gives us a kind of rough image. But even like that, we clearly see the big impact and influence of the Town Museum concept in local development.

The number of visitors registered at the Tourism Office since 1994 (more or less the time of the first more consistent register) never came bellow 7000 a year. The difference of the years 94 / 95 for the following ones is due to the fact that this was the time of the last new museums opening.. It should be said that this figure in fact is the minimum of visitors, once the Tourism Office is not in fact visited by all the people coming to Mértola. The CAM as kept a parallel counting at the Islamic Ceramic Exhibition (that locally as been functioning as the Islamic Nucleus, still to be opened), one of our major attraction, and so we can presume in fact that everybody goes there. For the last three years, it presents a consistent number of around 17.000 visitors, so around twice the number of people that goes to Tourism Office. This is easily explained by the fact that the Tourism Office is mostly responsible for the guided visits and schools guidance. But a lot of Mértola’s visitors just wonder around on their own, and do not go there; however, they always go to ceramic exhibition, and this is surely the figure that we have to take in consideration to evaluate the global influence of the cultural project.

Also, this is a number to be taken into consideration when we think that for the last years no effort was done, on our behalf, to attract more visitors, due to the fact that the new spaces are not finished, and even two of those that already were available where closed for redesign, so they would all look as belonging to the same museographic period.

In the first decade, only once space existed where local heritage could be displayed, and in fact in the old exhibit at Misericórdia Church there was a bit of everything, Christian art, Islamic ceramics, roman artefacts, XV century paintings, etc..
In sense, we can say the museums were a direct conclusion of the archaeological stages of the scientific research promoted by the CAM. Some even urgent situations required the constitution of new nucleus, as it was the case with the Roman House and with the Paleochristian Church ruins, that required the immediate protection, which, under our philosophy of intervention meant to house them in a museum space.

It is evident the impact that the combined financement between the National Tourism Fund and the Municipality will have on Mértola’s development for the next years. If we compare the impacts that existed during the “installation phase” of this museum town, it is clear that when they will all be open for visitors the influence of this cultural investment will demonstrate all its power in strategic terms. The concern then will be to regulate the visitors fluxes, avoiding the instrumentalisation of local culture and heritage at any cost. The imposition of a Chart of Quality, which is in preparation, to all the local investors, the effort on local population sensibilisation to the value of their resources and to need of their preservation, based on autenthecity and quality, have to receive, on behalf of those responsible for the project development, the best of our attention.

The visibility of this project is notorious, so negative impacts, due to a miscalculation of local capacity to manage and give quality attention to all those coming, have to be anticipated and, if possible, kept under control or avoided. In Portugal, close to the media and of some high-educated sectors, Mértola is an obligatory quotation. To this, the fact that scientific research generated many international links, many of those transformed in common scientific and diffusion projects assure a large number of channels through which we can attract audiences. In the statistics that we keep referring to the origin of visitors, both the number of portuguese and of foreigners tend to go along not showing much difference one from the other. Only the fact that most portuguese prefer to spent their holidays in the Summer explains that during August there are more national than foreign visitors,

The graphic referring to the year of 1998 (and it should be enhanced that it was the year of the EXPO 98, the international culture and tourism exhibit in Lisbon), clearly demonstrates this fact. Portuguese holidays (in December) and Carnival holidays (in February), combined, evidently, with proximity, explain the other two periods where the difference can be found between these two groups. A small enquiry done to the visitors allows us to also keep a record of visitor’s origin, and so we know that although spanish and then european in general, are the biggest groups, already the five continents have been represented in a visit to Mértola. This is not only pleasing in the fact itself, but also, as a management tool, allows to know the kind of audiences that we already have, where, in case of need, we can find new ones, etc..

Conclusions

After all that was already exposed, there is not much more to be said as conclusion. A question perhaps: if we think back to the objectives the two visionaries of this project had back in 1978, where are we now ? Have we arrived to their objectives ? Are we successful ?

Certainly, it is my belief that we have reached a positive result. Sometimes, local people, and particularly young people, question the fact that the benefits do not reach everybody individually. But this, I think, is normal; surely, it would not be possible to have generated such social and economical revolution that all problems would be solved. The question is to know in what stage of local development Mértola would be without this project. At least not as well as it is now, so this is already a positive conclusion. Of course, other sector have also its influence, and they also - in general – gave a good contribution for the changing of life stiles, economic capacity, social development. In common, we share perhaps the desire to help establish a stable economic structure, related with local heritage, with a cultural tourism approach, with a sustainable use of local resources.

The cultural sector, along with others existing (mainly in the primary sector, agriculture, cattle breading, sportive hunting, commerce and tourism services, in general) can originate a new economic and social platform for the days to come. Not only in the town but to all the council were we have already started to develop some extensions of this strategy, using the locomotive that the town museums represent, so that, in the next decade, some smaller localities and dispersed heritage resources can be integrated and benefit of the impacts of this local development strategy.

The project founders looked at its historical heritage as a possibility for a new development strategy, and that its public presentation, as a museum, could attract tourism audiences, and with this, to generate new economic impacts that could help local activities and population. Their dream is becoming real.

Rui Mateus
Researcher, Campo Arqueológico de Mértola (CAM)
email: epbjc.mt@mail.telepac.pt