"Our Bula Spirit Awaits You!" (When Borders Reopen): Indigenous Wellbeing and Romanticised Inequality in Post-COVID Tourism Campaigns

Meeting ID: 937 9210 4939

Passcode: 800615

Much recent commentary posits Covid-19 as an opportunity to reset the global economy and reimagine a more equitable tourism industry. This paper questions such optimism through analysis of place-based advertising for Fiji. Prior to 2020, Tourism Fiji invoked the neoliberal language of ‘wellbeing’ to repackage colonial tropes of the ‘happy native’ and Pacific Islands timelessness. Since borders closed, these stereotypes have been repurposed, with Fijians framed as naturally good-humoured amid economic crisis, and ‘happy’ to wait for Western tourists to return. We argue that commodifying Indigenous wellbeing and ‘resilience’ in this way works to justify and further entrench global inequalities.