Orientalism and Traveling

In my French class, we viewed a short travel video featuring mostly older, white, Americans traveling through Morocco on a "cultural excursion". Although the video is supposed to highlight the "mysterious and wondrous culture of Northern Africa" the video was nearly entirely through the American travelers perspective. The clips often focused on the bewildered and delighted faces of the tourist as they make their way through bazaars, hikes through the desert on camels, visits with nomadic people, and clear night skies. All the scenes were accompanied by faraway chants making the whole country seem mysterious and faraway from western culture.
The video was created by a travel company that took their wealthy clients on these "cultural exchanges". The company made the conscious choice to make Morocco seem like an adventure-filled vacation location full of intoxicating mysteries and curiosities perfect for any risk-taking, wealthy American for the sake of making money. The myth of orientalism is used for financial gain of travel companies looking to benefit from these preconceived notions of life in non-western countries. Traveling is supposed to create connections among people of different cultures, not reinforce stereotypes created over the past hundreds of years through the colonialist mind-set.