Commodification

Tourism a culprit in commodifying cultures and traditions?

Tourism is definitely a culprit. However, the fault is not entirely its alone to blame.

The stakeholders involved in tourism would be government, locals, and tourists. Tourism may play a part in commodifying cultures and tradition because in a poll done behind the motivators for tourism, cultural travel is slowly becoming one of the rapidly increasing trends. However, most of these tourists do not want to delve in too deep into the culture and traditions of the place. They are only there to partake in the process. As such, the government would, in a bid to draw this particular group of tourists, try to sell the country by commodifying the culture and traditions through museums and historical buildings. The cultures and traditions would, hence, be sanitized into standardized packages and be commercialized. This shows that government places a part in the commodifying of cultures and traditions in India.

The locals can do their part to prevent the commodification of their own cultures and traditions. However, they partake in the act as well. 'Henna' a tradition practiced by female Indians are used to attract the tourist dollar as well; tourists pay to have their hand drawn by Indian henna specialist.

There are many factors that attribute to the commodification of culture and traditions of India. To single out a (leading) factor and pin the blame onto it is misleading as the factors are all inter-link together. Therefore, I conclude that tourism is a culprit in commodifying cultures and traditions to a certain extent.