Illusion and reality in Tahiti's tourist cocoons

摘要

This paper explores the idea of tourist 'cocoons' - carefully managed spaces of illusion - in Tahiti/French Polynesia. Using the concept of heterotopia, I focus on resort hotels, where 90% of tourists stay. In Tahiti, these include 'natural' landscapes (white-sand beaches, turquoise lagoons, and colorful fish darting through tropical coral), hotel architecture (with its neo-Polynesian structures and overwater bungalows), and hotel employees (with island-style clothing, crowns of leaves on their heads, and smiles on their faces). These cocoon-like environments are settings of total control. They are highly effective strategies for coping with the disjuncture between the larger reality of Tahiti (with its pesky mosquitoes, ordinary buildings, and everyday Tahitians) and the Tahiti of tourists' imaginations. These fanciful cocoon-like heterotopias are far from static; they are constantly being spun in never-ending webs to provide the recognizable place markers of 'Tahiti' that communicate exactly what tourists expect.