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Tourism in Southeast Asaia
ARTICLES, SPEECHES AND OTHER READING
CAVEMAN'S MEDIA
TOURISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
John "Caveman" Gray
Book Review "Tourism in Southeast Asia"
Edited by Kaye Chon., Haworth Hospitality Press, 2000
An academic text on tourism in Southeast Asia is long
overdue. Despite, or perhaps because of, the region's financial shocks,
tourism drives the region's awaited economic recovery and symbolizes the
hope of a better tomorrow. "Amazing Thailand" leads the way in tourism
promotion but behind the scenes, Thailand's rise in arrival counts comes at
the expense of quality arrivals, a disaster for many upscale properties and
operators. The lesson offered by Thailand's loss of the high-end niche
should not be lost on ASEAN tourism planners. (New resorts are being built
in Phuket, but they stand on their own on remote sites that cloister their
guests on-property similar to the Club Med concept, a sad travel trend that
further isolates the visitor from the culture. Unfortunately, as the
development manager of one of these properties told the reviewer, the
"fortress resort" is necessary if Thai properties expect sustainable
Five-Star clientele.)
Kaye Chon, a leading tourism authority on the region, is the logical editor
for this book. Despite some ivory tower flaws, most arguments are timely,
relevant, and display careful thought. The mix of topics from Ecotourism,
through resort site selection and disaster media management, to national
marketing campaigns makes a good, albeit bumpy, read. The collection opens
on the high road with Dowling's "Ecotourism in Southeast Asia: A Golden
Opportunity for Local Communities". As usual, Dowling is eloquent, well
organized, and detailed. "Golden Opportunity" is a "must" read for
Ecotourism planners.
Unfortunately, Ross omits "Labor of Love" from his otherwise brilliant
definition of Ecotourism. Many pioneer operators in this niche market
consider "Labor of Love" Ecotourism's defining factor. When "Ecotourism"
spawns from Labor of Love, factors that academics are so keen to define
usually fall into place automatically. "Labor of Love" may be difficult to
quantify, but the omission of this cornerstone concept cracks open the door
for sleazy opportunists to jump on the Ecotourism bandwagon, creating a
definition so broad it renders the term "Ecotourism" virtually meaningless.
Today, many original "Ecotourism" operators hate the word. Many adventurous
travelers avoid companies that proclaim themselves "Ecotourism", knowing
that the chest-thumpers are rarely sincere and rarely understand or practice
true "Ecotourism".
This factor is reflected in "Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Development
in Southeast Asia", an argument that's little more than a self-serving
apology for including timesharing within the Ecotourism arena. After
Dowling's read, this contribution is the ultimate roller-coaster drop,
hitting the reader with a notion so questionable that it brings the one to
full stop with the force of 10Gs.
Many "Ecotourism" pioneers believe there is a need for strong site controls
at Ecotourism locations. (We agree with Dr. Leaky, who claims "Ecotourism"
is too irresponsible for many locations.) The attempt to position a
time-sharing project at Malaysia's Mulu caves as an "Ecotourism" product
ironically proves their point. Seeking a broad-based reaction to the notion
of time-share condominiums as "Ecotourism", this reviewer shared the chapter
in question with a number of academics, operators, and adventure travelers
over a period of several months. The most generous response was that the
notion was "beyond the limits of reason". Many refused to read beyond the
opening paragraphs, dismissing the very thought as "ridiculous" (or
unprintable). This chapter only proves that mainstream academia is far from
understanding the goals and values of true "Ecotourism" pioneers, who
consider "Ecotourism" a meaningless marketing hype ever since mass tourism
marketers and developers hijacked the word in the early 1990's while
attempting to stick an environmental moniker on large-scale developments and
mass tourism products.
Back to reality, Timothy's "Tourism Planning in Southeast Asia" is a
detailed and insightful look at regional economic co-operation. His notion
of "growth triangles" seems to have high potential, although none have yet
created an impact. (Growth Triangles are special Economic Zones created when
three intersecting countries developed standardized Economic Development
incentives.) Timothy rightfully concludes, "few cooperative efforts have
succeeded", but Dallan goes on to analyze the failures and points to avenues
for success.
The next chapter, "Vulnerability and the Tourism Industry in Southeast
Asia", by Nankervi is a brilliant work that analyzes factors affecting
tourism stability. Regional residents who vividly remember Nankervi's two
scenarios (Currency devaluation and high-profile airplane disasters) and
live with ASEAN's fragmented travel infrastructure will have high respect
for this work
Nimmonratana's "Impacts of Tourism on a Local Community: A Case Study of
Chiang Mai" is so well done the only criticism might be the essay's
straightforwardness. All Thailand residents will laugh at Nimmontana's
depiction of arrogant local officials and planners who rarely solicit
community input. The methodology of Nimmontana's community survey (right
down to age groups) is excellent, and the author does not avoid the facts.
As locals already know, community dissatisfaction with tourism is obvious,
and increases the longer the respondent lived in Chiang Mai. As with
Timothy, it is nice to see strategies for solutions. This chapter is highly
recommended for any planner or academic considering a community survey on
tourism impact. Survey design and methodology are excellent.
Jantarat and Williams "Preconditions for Successful Collaborative Tourism
Marketing: The Critical Role of the Convener" dissects the formative stages
of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) "Amazing Thailand" campaign. As
often happens in Thailand, things look great on paper. "Preconditions"
emphasizes industry input as Amazing Thailand stakeholders, but despite
wide-ranging connections in the Thai travel industry, the reviewer failed to
locate any industry executives involved in the "collaborative effort". Early
in the TAT initiative, the TAT Governor verbally requested the reviewer, to
"provide input" but there was never any formal follow-up.
Rising arrival counts make for positive headlines, but these come at the
expense of Thailand's top-end market. The Kingdom is so overrun with low-end
group tours that top quality hotels and service providers frequently
struggle to stay afloat. Downward spirals are difficult to reverse, making
Amazing Thailand's long-term outlook bleak. Hopefully, the current Governor
and his team are highly talented, but it remains to be seen if anybody is
equal to the challenge of creating a balanced tourism plant in the
post-Amazing Thailand era. The task will not be easy.
Wading through the necessary boilerplate terminology outlining the Asian
financial crisis in Prideaux and Witt's "An Analysis of Tourism Flows
Between Australia and ASEAN countries", one has to wait for identification
of the basic causes - corruption, cronyism, lack of accountability, and
short-term thinking. Eventually, Prideaux and Witt present a fascinating
analysis of the inter-relationship between two tourism markets as they ride
the roller coaster of ASEAN economics.
If resort planners will only heed the findings in Wong's "Coastal Tourism in
Southeast Asia: Research from an Environmental Perspective", activists would
have few complaints and academics would have little to analyze. Wong
politely explains that most resorts are built in a haphazard and
not-so-environmental way that limit community benefits and lead to
downstream maintenance costs. Proper site selection is often the result of
pure luck or financing. Sites often come down to questions such as, "Where
is the beachfront that our connection says he owns?" The haphazard course of
site selection raises the awkward question even academics avoid: "How were
the indigenous landowners tricked out of their lands by the
businessmen/politicians who end up with the deeds?" Investigators must live
in local communities for years to understand how locals are divested from
their aboriginal lands. In large resort destinations, almost every
beachfront resort has its dirty secret history.
The book closes on a strong note with Mok and Lam's "Vietnam's Tourism
Industry: Its Potentials and Challenges". This insightful overview of
Vietnam's tourism effort is so focused and straightforward it brings tragi-comic
tears to informed readers as they analyze both the tremendous potential and
tremendous failure of Vietnam's tourism. Unfortunately, tourism reflects
Vietnam's national frustrations, which deny meaningful economic development
in this vibrant land of vast potential. Capitalism is creeping into Vietnam,
but old ways die hard, and under Communism, marketing and competition take a
back seat to consuming what you are told to consume.
Vietnam has enough destination development problems without the highly
visible and disgusting cruelty to animals that sends visitors home talking
about horrifying torture instead of Vietnam's positive points. Post-trip
accounts of the prolific eating of dog (and the brutality in their handling
before slaughter); and hauling live struggling hog-tied pigs upside down on
the backs motorbikes does not increase visitor counts. Especially in travel,
word-of-mouth is the most important destination promotion - and when friends
and co-workers hear these stories over a cup of coffee, they select another
country for their next holiday. Only sickos enjoy watching dogs and pigs
being tortured on their vacation.
Despite the timesharing chapter fiasco, Tourism in Southeast Asia is
interesting and informative, and should become standard reading for all
academics and planners with interests in the ASEAN region. Dowling's chapter
alone is worth the price of admission. |
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