MARKETING AUTHENTICITY IN 3RD-WORLD COUNTRIES

The process by which travel agents market Third World tourism is exami ned. It is argued that travel literature seeks to portray indigenous p eoples as authentic, in order to cater to certain images within Wester n consciousness about how the Other is imagined to be. Authenticity is constructed in multifaceted ways according to the type of tourist con suming the image. Although images of the Other marketed in travel lite rature have been constructed and reconstructed over centuries of conta ct between the West and Third World, the impact of touristic discourse upon the Western imagination has an independent political significanc e.