Shooting Bollywood in Italy: Bachna Ae Haseeno, a Case Study. The Impact of Foreign Locations on Indian Tourist Destinations

Foreign countries have increasingly been appearing as offering ideal backdrops for popular Hindi films. In particular, since Yash Chopra introduced Switzerland to Bollywood in the mid-1980s, directors and producers of the Hindi film industry have been intensely attracted to paradisiacal natural landscapes, charming old towns and historical sites, which Europe can offer. Foreign locations are meant to represent consumerism, recreation, leisure and travel for India’s emerging upper-middle class, represented in these films. Thanks to the popularity of Hindi cinema among the Indians in India and in the diaspora, these films offer an extraordinary way to promote tourist destinations. With outbound travel from India growing tremendously over the past few years, many countries are trying to attract Indian film productions with financial incentives and additional film funds. The shooting of two main sequences from Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008) in Italy will be examined as a case study in the paper. The analysis proposes to investigate both the artistic and the economic motivations behind the location choices.