Yesterday (07/07/07) was supposedly a highly special and magical day, as consequence of numerologic properties of the number 7. Have you noticed how there is seven colors in the rainbow, seven notes in the musical scale, seven dwarfs in show white, seven deadly sins, seven chakras, and seven wonders of the world? Yeah, I often wonder about that myself; however the present post will only focus the last item in the previous list: the seven wonders of the world, or rather the *new* seven wonders of the world.

The problem with the “old world wonders” is that (…) only one of them was still in existence (the Gizé piramids), which makes up for a tourism deficit it would seem: How can people visit something that no longer exists? What is the point of marvelling over humanity’s proudest achievements that no longer stand still? With that in mind (quite possibly, I say), the swiss-based corporation called New Open World Corporation (NOWC) figured it was about time to elect some new world wonders that people can actually visit.

First and foremost, there is something that needs to be settled, in order to assure there’s no mistake here: this is all about hype and marketing, courtersy of a swiss business man called Bernerd Weber; as such the results of the world-scale voting which was announced yesterday in Lisbon (Portugal) are hardly an indicator of the widepread opinion, since online voters apparently had more influence in the voting process; in a press release from the Unesco, from about two weeks about one can read thus : “There is no comparison between Mr Weber’s mediatised campaign and the scientific and educational work resulting from the inscription of sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The list of the 7 New Wonders of the World will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the internet and not the entire world. This initiative cannot, in any significant and sustainable manner, contribute to the preservation of sites elected by this public.”

In all circumstances, and once we get past the fact there are hundreds of wonders in the world which could have easily made it to the top 7, if only god’s dice had rolled differently; truth of the matter is that the list of the new seven wonders of the world still provides a solid reference of the hottest monuments in the world, and I’ll wager that the chosen sites will earn massive amount of turism, in the years to follow. Personally, I did get curious about one or two of the new world wonders, and I must admit that I wasn’t even aware of the existence of all this monuments. If you’re interested in learning more about the new wonders, as well as the election mechanism that was adopted, click here. If you ever visit one of the world’s new wonders, why not send us a picture and some info?

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