Unlocking the Garden of Eden: a postcolonial reading of tourists’ and locals’ image of Seychelles

There is a growing interest in destinations’ image and, in particular, how Third World countries and their hosts are represented in tourist brochures.

It has been argued that brochures influence tourists’ decisions by appealing to their presuppositions, beliefs and expectations using well-crafted wordings evoking paradise, exoticism and the surreal. Theoretical frameworks drawn from the social sciences have been used to explain and understand destinations’ image formation in Third World countries. However, none of them have examined, in-depth, the Indian Ocean, thus making the region under-studied, and in particular the islands of Seychelles. Moreover, the formation of the image of a destination is consistently represented through tourist brochures and media, thus neglecting the lived experience of tourists and locals alike.

The literature review reveals that messages from brochures have been met with controversy, especially due to stereotyping and misrepresentation, which lead to a discrepancy between the advertised image and reality. Such representations gave rise to debates on tourism, localism, postcolonialism and authenticity. The main objective of this research is to understand how the image of Seychelles is represented by tourists and locals and how it is interpreted.

Using photo-elicitation, combined with in-depth interviews, this paper seeks to understand, from a phenomenological standpoint, tourists’ and locals’ experience in Seychelles in terms of image representation. The study allows the respondents to take their own photographs, representing their views on what Seychelles is about in terms of image. By doing so, the researcher attempts to bridge the gap between the image that is constructed in tourist brochures and the actual lived experience of tourists and locals in Seychelles using a phenomenological approach.

By using postcolonial theory as one of the interpretation tools, the findings reveal that the image of Seychelles can be summarized as place, people and price. These 3Ps, are a combination of physical attributes of the place, the actors’ lived experience and the perceived image they have of themselves. I argue that the 3Ps could be a grid through which a tourist researcher may construct the image of a destination. The process has also led me to propose a further three steps that can contribute to an image formation. I name them: initial image, conflicted image and dominant image. I further draw the conclusion, using postcolonial theory, that locals use their voice as a resistance tool not only to refute the stereotypes but to construct their own self. By doing so, the locals demonstrate what I coin a self-authenticity.