My (dubious and make-believe) idea of the ideal tourism
On one hand, I am more than aware about the negative impacts of tourism to places all over the world. In fact, if I do more research, I would not be surprised if the negative impacts are more severe than I realised.
On the other hand, I love money. NOT because I want the prestige of wealth, but because I want an easier life; I don’t see anything immoral or shallow about loving money for pragmatic reasons.
I want to have more money and I definitely want my hometown and home country to have more money. I want them to have as many sources of incomes as possible, to diversify the economic sectors as much possible.
But, I also have to ensure those sources of income do not bite our asses in the future and I am certain you agree tourism has caused havocs in many places.
Oh, and I have my own fantasies about how my ideal hometown looks like. I have made a blogpost about it. For you non-existing readers, keep in mind that my idea of ideal tourism involves that kind of human settlements, hence the word “make-believe” in the title; it doesn’t have any existing cities in mind.
Now, about my proposal: let’s build a resort.
I know, I know. Resorts are nothing new. I am not pretending to be innovative here. But, I do think how they are utilised can make a difference.
I do believe they should be completely isolated from the nearest cities. Not only they are physically separated from them, they are also easily accessible from the nearest international ports of entry (airports, seaports, land border); tourists don’t have to set foot in any of the cities (obviously, there are also 24/7 mass rail transits for the resorts’ employees to commute with).
While they don’t have to be as big as Disneyland Orlando, they have to be big enough to contain all of the facilities and amenities that would satisfy the tourists: hotels of varying stars, amusement parks of different themes, restaurants that offer a wide range of cuisines (including ones that adhere to specific dietary restrictions), convenience stores, cinemas showcasing 3D films and/or the latest blockbusters, water parks, stages that can host internationally-renown musicals and musicians, spas, shopping streets, places of worship, emergency medical facilities, convention centers, exhibitions, botanical gardens, you name it (well, except zoos and the likes).
Of course, some of the restaurants have to specialise in local cuisines (albeit made palatable for the non-adventurous tourists), the signages have to feature both the foreign AND the local language(s), some of the buildings must have local architectural styles, the cinemas must offer local films (subtitled, not dubbed) and the business transactions must use the local currency. The tourists have to be reminded that they are in X country.
If they have all the things they need within such enclosed spaces, many wouldn’t have the desire to leave the resorts and visit the nearby cities.
For me, that’s important because not only the cities wouldn’t have overtourism risk, it would also filter out the less desirable tourists.
The uglier tourists would feel very comfortable staying within the tourist traps and would have no desire to explore the world beyond. The more thoughtful and curious tourists would crave authenticity and would never feel satisfied in those comfortable zones. When they are outside their bubbles, the former are far more likely to be disrespectful than the latter. Some may even argue the latter are not tourists, they are travelers; they are ones who truly explore the world.
Assuming it is not feasible to have the resorts separated from the cities, I would still put physical boundaries. But, instead of building a wall and force Malaysia to pay for it, I prefer to build botanical gardens and museums which attract both the tourists and the locals. They are not jarring to look at while still separating the resorts and cities from each other.
The profits need to go directly to the public services, particularly education, healthcare and social work. Not only they are very prone to underfunding and budget cuts, I also believe skills, knowledge, physical and mental health and social cohesion are the core foundations of strong nation-building.
Basically, the resorts are sovereign wealth funds.
Of course, initially, I thought this whole thing was a good idea. But, like anything else, nothing is fool-proof after you think more about them.
The most obvious is the sovereign wealth funds aspect. It will only work if the country has Nordic and Singapore-level of corruption. If it is any other countries, especially my home country Indonesia, I am more than certain the people will have a harder time receiving the promised money and well-funded public services.
But, there are even bigger potential problems. For instance, what happens if the tourism stops permanently? How can we deal with the abandoned structures and job losses?
While this may just be Dunning-Kruger on my part, I think the former is easier to solve. The resorts can be converted into actual urban developments, where local citizens can live and work.
Obviously, this requires proper planning in advance . Not only the resorts have to be designed like actual walkable and transit-oriented urban developments, they also have to be very close to the cities.
If they are completely separated from the cities, would people live willingly move there? Or would they end up like those Chinese ghost towns?
I am even less sure about the job losses. My Dunning-Kruger mind believes this wouldn’t be a big problem if the cities greatly outsize the resorts, ensuring tourism comprises only a tiny fraction of the cities’ economies, and we invest in generous workers’ compensations. But then, I keep being reminded that life is more complex than it seems.
Oh and speaking about that, my categorisation of tourists is also problematic.
In my mind, it is reasonable to assume people with zero interest in authentic cultural experiences would make uglier tourists as they would react negatively in unfamiliar situations. But, while my mind says one thing, my experiences say otherwise.
Humans are very unpredictable and we are definitely way too complex to describe and categorise simply. Online, I have interacted with people with extremist and culty tendencies (Jihadist-wannabes, MAGA Americans)…. and even they are way more complex than I expected (once I remember to see them as my fellow human beings, obviously).
I have zero experiences with tourists visiting my hometown (as it is not a major tourist destination) and I don’t work in the hospitality industry. So, how can I be certain my taxonomy of tourists is accurate? How can I be certain those cultural authenticity-seeking people would not behave in an ugly manner?
And how can I be certain those unsophisticated and incurious tourists would not “escape” the resorts and start swarming the cities?
But, despite the possible drawbacks (that I can think of), I still prefer my idea of mass tourism, if one wants to make a fortune out of it.
At least, my idea calls for a strict barrier between spaces for tourists and spaces for residents. While it won’t be 100% effective, the separation would certainly mitigate the negative impacts of overtourism on the residents’ daily lives.
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