In recent days, it appears that tourism in Goa seems to have received great beating. Some influencers in the social media had begun raising the alarm bells for some time. Their predictions seemed to have become real as we entered the pick of tourism season. Once again, the social media got flooded with bad news that Goa is deserted by the tourists. Soon, Goa as empty, Go Goa Gone became the tag lines of these social media influencers. Our Government told us that there is nothing wrong with Goa. This position was also contested in the social media and was slammed as living on a denial mode. Given the situation, it is important that we do a reality check. It may be whistle that is calling us to ask: Are we killing the hen that laid golden eggs? Is the order of things that governed our tourism changing? Do the lack of tourists and the social media rants produce each other as some of us may think? Does the situation point to a deeper rot that has been building up for some time? Are we unsuspectingly found wanting at several levels of our tourism industry? Given the grammar of the utterances of the discourse in the social media, we cannot show Nelsons eye to the situation that we find ourselves. The situation being complex, it is difficult to lay bare what exactly are the issues that are eating the tourism in Goa.
May be Michel Foucault provides us an insight into our ailing condition. His discussion on gaze can assist us. The gaze of the tourists seem to have shifted from Goa. Tourists arrives with a gaze that is formed and nurtured by the apparatus of the tourism industry. Ever since the publication of John Urry’s book, the Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Society , we have deciphered the power of eye and the eye of power at work in tourism industry. The eye of produces the gaze (power of eye) of the tourist through several communicative strategies. A tourist is primarily a homo docilis and is bound by an oculo-centric out-look. This oculo-centric outlook is produced and nurtured by the eye of power ( Governments and tourism industry). The eye of power thus, produces the power of the eye of a tourist. It produces the desire to see. The power of the eye wishes to have the eye of power. Jacques Lacan, French psychoanalyst, teaches that human desire is scopic ( wanting to see, wanting to have the eye of power ). Tourists, thus become homo oculus, who travel to see places and experience leisure. This tourist’s gaze has objectifying power and often museumizes the local people in tourism destinations. The domestication of the vision or the production of the gaze of the tourist is disciplinary practice in Foucauldian sense . We can locate the disciplining of the eye within the context of the disciplining of the body in a carceral Society.
Tourism in Goa also developed within the power of the eye. It is produced through narratives, opinions, traditions and leisure practices for the tourist in Goa. There is a political economy to this uniquely Goan touristic experience. These experiences are produced through aggregate ways of seeing , encountering, understanding and experiencing things in Goa. The practices that produce touristic experiences in Goa have social, economic, political, cultural , historical and visual ramifications. These experiences involve consumption of goods and services that produce uniquely Goan flavour in the pleasure experiences of the tourists. It seems that Goa in no longer a favourite tourist destination in recent days. Hence, from Foucauldian position, it appears that there is a shift in the gaze(s) of the tourist when it comes to Goa. To some extend the negative discourse about tourism in Goa in the social media may be responsible to create the current condition. The scopic regimes that ruled our tourism seem to be not working. This is why, it important that we realize that we have to conduct a profound introspection about the kind of tourism practices that we have employed to produce tourism in Goa . This needs to include, the kinds of busines-lines, costs of travel into Goa and in Goa, prices of stay, food and drink and entertainment, safety, law and order and overall architecture of peace and harmony in our society. The fact that Goa is put on fast tract sale seems to manifest that we are fast destroying the natural beauty of Goa and are thus cutting the branch of tourism that we ourselves are sitting on. Thus, Goa seems to have become hostile and not a good host of tourism.
The Government and those that have high stakes in tourism, therefore, have to look at the ongoing performative practices of tourism and its governance and access what is ailing tourism in Goa. They have the challenge to take a position of a magisterial gaze ( eye of power , the eye of authority and responsibility) and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Tourism, visa-vis other destinations that compete for space in the tourism market. This investigation is urgent and necessary otherwise the assault on tourism in Goa might go beyond remedy. As the tourists choose other destinations in place of Goa, it is important that we find strength to unearth the blots that seem to have come to mark tourism in Goa. We have to do a history of the present in Foucauldian sense. This history of the present strives to unearth the conditions from the past that has led to the emergence of the present. The sudden exit of tourists in Goa is not the end of the road for tourism in Goa. Tourism in Goa still has a hope. We can revive and reinvigorate it once again. To do this, we have to challenge to integrate good, moral and sustainable touristic practices and work to produce wholesome and fulfilling touristic experiences. This analysis needs to include the cost of tourist experiences in Goa and factor in how similar experiences fair in other tourist destinations. Our infrastructure, travel ease, law and order also requires to be reviewed. Our tourism cannot be allowed to be infected by error(isms). If error(isms) continue to infect our tourism, it might soon become t(errorism) to the tourists give a death blow to tourism in Goa.
