Himalayan hill stations from the British Raj to Indian tourism

National tourism in developing countries and especially its links with colonial tourism has been quite largely ignored by researchers, except for the pionner works of Mohamed Berriane on Morocco and Nathalie Raymond on Latin America. Recently, several works about domestic tourism have been published, mainly by Chinese and South Asian researchers, but their approach is more economic than geographic or historic. However, colonization was an important part of the spread of tourism outside Europe during the 19th century, especially during the British Raj, when many hill stations were built in the Himalayas and the Western Ghats. The main reason for ignoring this phenomenon is probably the general discredit attributed to tourism, which is generally viewed as a futile activity for rich people, especially when enjoyed in developing countries. While French research has no tradition of colonial and post-colonial studies in spite of its colonial history, English, American and Indian scientific literature has produced some important works on the hill stations of the British Raj in India. However it has generally analysed them from a colonial and post-colonial point of view as a spatial and symbolic manifestation of British imperialism. (Go to page 30 of the journal)