When American comedian and television host Conan O’Brien landed in Mumbai earlier this month to film an episode of his travel series 'Conan O’Brien Must Go', social media promptly lit up with images of the celebrity comedian enthusiastically embracing the Indian life: playing gully cricket in spotless whites, cracking jokes with locals, and joining a Bollywood dance troupe for a full-blown musical sequence. The photos are charming, humorous, and characteristic of O’Brien’s long-standing public persona: the self-deprecating American abroad; awkward but well-intentioned, eager to entertain.

But this amicable façade betrays something far more revealing: a recurring pattern in which Western White celebrities and travellers are applauded for their casual participation in the cultural practices of countries across the Global South. Whether it’s cosplaying in local clothes, trying their hand at traditional crafts, or performing regional dances, these fleeting gestures are framed as proof of openness, curiosity, and global goodwill rather than cultural appropriation. They circulate widely, often accompanied by glowing headlines and approving comments praising their “respect” for cultures not their own. At the same time Conan was welcomed in India and celebrated for his open participation in Indian cultural life, an Indian tourist was subjected to online trolling and racism for expressing his excitement during a visit to Argentina.

This dichotomy reveals an asymmetry that sits rather uncomfortably within the global history of colonialism. Westerners often step into other cultures with minimal consequence: experimenting freely, dipping in and out, adopting and discarding elements at will. Their participation is seen as endearing or admirable. But the opposite is rarely true. Non-white immigrants, travellers, and diasporic communities living in Western countries are rarely afforded the same freedom to 'blend in', try on different cultural expressions, or participate in the public life of their adopted homes without some form of judgment, scrutiny, or even outright hostility. The consequences for them can be social exclusion, discrimination, or accusations of being “cringe”. Conan isn’t the face of this phenomenon, nor is he a proponent of the underlying racism that perpetuates this culture of othering. But his India tour points to the stark differences that still exist, and the White privilege that Western tourists, immigrants, and expats continue to enjoy across the world.

These are not isolated contradictions. They are structural remnants of the colonial world, shaped by the historical memory of empire — by the entitlement once encoded into colonial rule that allowed Westerners to move freely through the world, extracting what they wished, while controlling the mobility and cultural expression of the colonised. Tourism today often preserves a softer version of this hierarchy. The Global South becomes a stage on which Western subjects can perform worldliness, spiritual curiosity, or humility. Local cultures become consumable experiences.

This does not mean that White travellers like O’Brien are acting with malicious intent. Often, they are genuinely enthusiastic, genuinely appreciative, genuinely trying. But intention is only one part of the equation. The bigger issue is the structure that allows some to participate without stakes, while others pay a price for even attempting to do so. As recent reports show, In 2023, European Union countries earned 130 million euros, or Rs 1,181 crore, from fees for rejected visa applications, with African and Asian nations bearing 90% of that cost. In 2024, there was a total financial loss of about ₹136 crore in non-refundable fees due to over 1.65 lakh rejected Schengen visa applications from India alone.

What would it mean, then, to imagine a more reciprocal form of tourism — one that moves beyond the extractive tendencies of the global travel industry? Reciprocity begins with recognition. It requires acknowledging that cultural participation is never neutral; it exists within histories of power. What feels light-hearted for one may feel loaded for another. It requires travellers to understand that stepping into someone else’s cultural space should come with humility and care — not because participation is inherently wrong, but because it matters how and why it’s done, and who gets to do it freely.

Reciprocity also means imagining the reverse: what would it look like if immigrants and travellers from the Global South were encouraged to participate openly and visibly in Western cultural practices — not as assimilation tests, but as natural expressions of life in motion? What would it look like if their attempts to connect were applauded with the same enthusiasm? If cultural curiosity and participation was allowed to move in both directions?

Tourism can be a powerful site of encounter. Done thoughtfully and equitably, it can nurture greater global understanding, solidarity, joy, and kinship. But when it reproduces old hierarchies — where Westerners perform local culture as spectacle and non-Westerners are pressured to perform Western culture as assimilation — it reinforces the very boundaries it claims to dissolve.

Conan’s India trip, in all its good humour, offers an opportunity to reflect on these uneven power dynamics. The images may be harmless fun, but the broader phenomenon they highlight is not. To move toward truly reciprocal tourism is to confront these asymmetries honestly — and to imagine a world in which cultural participation is not a privilege reserved for some, but a right shared by all.

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