https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i1.026
HYPERREALITY AND TOURISM IN GOA: A POSTMODERN ANALYSIS
DAISY MAZEL COELHO
Independent Researcher
Abstract: According to the insights that the study provides, post-structural hyperreality is aligned with Goan tourism, representing how the constructs, actions, and experiences foster texturing a simulated version of the state that very often seems more real than its lived experience. Following Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality and MacCannell’s theory of staged authenticity, it will be shown how colonial travel narratives, countercultural hippie musings, and cinematic and digital media have jointly constructed an image of Goa: an idyllic land of leisure, liberation, and pleasure. In employing an interpretative qualitative approach, the inquiry studies film, travelogues, and social media portrayals to find a way down the memory lane of Goa’s hyperreal identity. This concept describes the feedback loop between tourist expectations, local adaptation, and media simulation-which in turn mediates tourist behaviour and Goan cultural expression. While these representations shatter Goan self-identity, tourism in Goa becomes increasingly an economy of signs-similar to those in late capitalism-where the experience and culture become consumable images. Ultimately, Goa serves as an exemplary postmodern site where representation precedes or completely replaces reality, thus allowing for the human portrayal of global tourism as a mediated experience, symbolic consumption, and capitalist spectacle.
Keywords: Hyperreality, Goa Tourism, Staged Authenticity, Media Representation, Postmodern Identity, Symbolic Consumption, Capitalist Spectacle
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