Claiming the Right to Say No-30 Nov 09-EQUATIONS - Equitable ...

Tourism in Goa: A Narrative Construction of Hosts and Visitors
‘McDonaldization of Travel’. This homogenization of experiences prevents
all possibilities of expansion of experience of the tourist. But this insight
that illumines tourism as homogenizing and destroying local particularities
remains away from the consciousness of the local. Faced with the new
values inscribed in the narrative of tourism that influences the self-creation
of the locals and most of them greet tourism as normal and natural process
of being human in their native places. We in Goa have naively accepted
the narrative of tourism and fallen prey to the process of self-creation that
has significant marks of tourist culture. As a result, our self-representation
(identity) is configured and constructed by the values emerging from tourist
activities. Many studies across the globe study the systematic conversion
of the world, and places and people in it, into something that can be
aesthetically consumed-often through visual means. The conversion of
the world into exhibition and locals as exhibits as well as their active
collaborators is not studied alternatively in Goa. The museumizing of Goans
for the panoptic gaze of the tourists who are ready to consume our worlds
needs to be checked. The fact that some of us have become willing
participants in the process of commodification of our culture, our coast
and our communities is highly regrettable. In this context, we are
challenged to understand how the narrative of Goa as a holiday destination
is explored as a symbolic capital by the organizers, visitors and the hosts
because it influences the self-creation of the above stake holders. The
commodification of Goa has become a vital part of travel Capitalism.
Indeed, the relationship between nature, culture, identity and economy is
complexly interwoven. That is why tourism organizes on the construction
of the perception of nature and the native and narratives become the chief
communication tools for this construction.
Shaping Our Response
The narrative construction of Goa is not static but is vibrantly dynamic.
Goa as a place to play is itself a place in play; made and remade by the
visitors, organizers and the host-community. Tourism in Goa also has
evolved as we find that Goa is put into play as a site that offers play.
Empirical evidence points out that the tourist arrivals in our State are
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