When Celebration Becomes Currency: Festivals and the Future of Tourism in South Asia

Abstract

S. K. Bose* and Deepak Bansal

Gone are the days when festivals in South Asia belonged exclusively to the string of faith, folklore and familial intimacy. Those festivals were not designed for spectacle, nor calibrated for consumption. They were lived, not staged; inherited, not marketed. A grandmother lighting oil lamps on the threshold of her home during Diwali was not performing for an audience. A fisherman in coastal Sri Lanka offering flowers at a Buddhist shrine during Vesak was not curating an experience for foreign visitors. These were private acts of devotion, woven so deeply into the fabric of daily life that separating them from the people who practised them would have been unthinkable. Today, however, as the global tourism industry increasingly pivots toward what scholars call the ‘experience economy,’ these very festivals have been thrust into a new role-that of economic engines, cultural ambassadors, and strategic assets. This transformation invites both admiration and unease. It compels us to ask whether the marriage of celebration and commerce is one of mutual enrichment or slow erosion. For policymakers and tourism boards, festivals are low-hanging fruit, pre-existing, deeply rooted cultural phenomena that can be leveraged to attract millions with relatively modest investment. For local communities, they are lifelines of identity and livelihood, the annual rhythms around which social and economic life is organised. But for critics, and their concerns deserve serious attention, the growing commodification of festivals raises an uncomfortable question: when celebration becomes currency, what happens to its soul? It is this question that demands honest engagement, not defensive posturing from either camp.

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