Bhutan - Has tourism commodify culture & traditions?

As tourism continues to become a dominant force in today’s economy, it can hardly be seen as a surprise when countries go to extreme measures to market themselves as a “touristy” destination. They will tend to select their nation’s most ‘unique factor’ and promote it extensively; such that when a foreigner think of that particular country, it will naturally associate the country with the ‘unique factor’. An extremely good example in my opinion is the city of Paris. When people think of Paris, the first thing that comes into their mind is the Eiffel Tower. Such a trend is what we term as commodification.

Eiffel Tower :

In the case of Bhutan, their unique culture and tradition is the country’s proudest heritage. Hence, is it safe to say that in the process of tapping into the tourist market, Bhutan has allowed itself to fall into the “tourism-trap”, choosing to market their culture and tradition like other commodities?

Till date, my answer is no. Through research, I have discovered that Bhutan is a country buried deep in religious belief. Every aspect of their life revolves around the Buddhism faith. An example would be the way they celebrate their festival, the Tshechu. Although they are willing to showcase this traditional religious celebration to foreign visitors, they would not resort to staging a performance just to allow their country be known for this particular event. However, as mentioned, the key word here is till date. I believe that by allowing tourists to participate in certain rituals will have a negative long-term effect. This is because I feel rituals serve a certain traditional purpose; they were not devised to function as a spectacle for tourists. In the long-run, I have the tentative opinion that once more tourists are participating in the ritual, the Tsechun will become tourist entertainment and the objects associated with this festival such as the masks seen below will turn into souvenirs. Hence, they lose their cultural value and become mere capital goods.

Moving on, another evidence to prove that Bhutan is not commodifying their culture and tradition currently is that they view it as their most proud of and valuable asset. Tourism has been an important mechanism for publicizing the country’s culture and traditions to the outside world, and interactions with tourists have contributed to a sense of national identity, making Bhutanese proud of their country’s unique culture and environment. Hence, to ask them to commodify and market their culture and environment extensively as a simple commodity would be akin to commodification of the Bhutanese way of life. In my opinion, I believe that this will not go down well with the people and they will never accept this even if it means better economic growth through tourism.

As a conclusion, I feel that no country can escape the fate of commodification if they want to venture into tourist market. It is a strong and inevitable marketing tool that will eventually consume Bhutan’s culture and tradition. Although the Government and people are taking a strong stand towards preservation instead of commodification currently, they will eventually succumb to the power of globalisation and realise the need to improve in order to sustain their economy. Hence, they will come to a point in time whereby they start to open their doors to the high demand for heritage tourism and in the process, commodifying their once rich and unique culture.