|
|
Abstract of Articles of TRR 27(1), 2002
|
| |
| Touristic
Encounters with the Exotic West: Blondes on the Screens
and Streets of India
(Dr. Petri Hottola ) |
| |
When the two worlds of pleasure and recreation
- tourism and media entertainment - meet one another in
the context of opening markets and advancing globalization
in India, a variety of responses are born in the everyday
of international host-tourist relations. Powerful images
guide and promote tourism, and play their unique roles
in the sensory and extrasensory constructions of lived
touristic spaces. In an interview sample of 80 Western
travellers collected in Rajasthan, India, 97 % of women
travellers complained about unwanted sexual advances.
They also told about the men who had been genuinely surprised
because of the negative response by the women involved.
As host perceptions of the Western visitors appeared to
be unrealistic, a further study on the information available
and its ‘glocalized’ interpretations was concluded.
This paper offers a brief look in the touristic construction
of Westernity in the present day Indian media, where the
dialogue of postcolonial collaboration and resistance
have produced an idealized and demeaned image of a Western
woman. On the other hand, the eroticisation of the Occident
in the media has made the tourists themselves a touristic
attraction and created conflicts between the hosts and
the visitors. This is one situation indicative of the
current stage of the globalization in the peripheral tourism
regions of the ‘South’.
|
| |
Previous |
|
|
| |
|
| |
©
Copyright Tourism Recreation Research & Tej Vir Singh |
|