12:59 PM |
Down side of package tourism stacks up for Pacific nations
Weighing up the cost for Pacific host nations that depend on tourism for their economy is a tough challenge. Where are the real benefits?
Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Dominique Fourie.
Travellers should become "more sophisticated" in their choice of holidays in Asia-Pacific countries, says veteran Pacific journalist Michael Field.
He believes tourists should actively engage with the local community instead of simply booking holiday packages and spending a week beside the pool at some internationally-owned resort.
The benefit of package holiday tourism to the host nation is minimal because a negligible proportion of the revenue generated from these holidays is reinvested back into the nation's economy.
Instead, the country is exploited, which can be devastating to its financial, social and environmental welfare.
"The issue with tourism, especially in the Third World, is the actual cost to the host nation against the benefits it may receive," says Field, speaking on TVNZ's Breakfast show to promote his latest book Swimming With Sharks.
The annual Pacific Islands Forum held in Vanuatu in August would have been the ideal stage to highlight this growing paradox of the Pacific's tourism industry. But it was not discussed.
According to the World Tourism Organisation, the tourism industry in the Asia-Pacific region grew 1.9 per cent in the past 12 months, with a forecasted growth of a further three percent in the coming year.
Numbers peaked
In Fiji alone, visitor numbers peaked in July 2010, with a 30 percent increase in figures as almost 60,000 tourists visited the island.
Tourism – worth more than NZD$350 million in Fiji alone – is one of the biggest industries in the Pacific region.
"Most of the holidays in Fiji are packaged and bought through airlines. Within the airlines it's known as 'leakage' – almost 90 percent of every dollar you spend on a package holiday to Fiji comes back to New Zealand or Australia," says Field.
Marie Pilkington, public relations manager for Flight Centre, says the islands are always incredibly popular with New Zealanders as holiday destinations, with the majority of holidaymakers choosing package holiday deals.
"You get the best deal when you buy a package. A lot of resorts also offer a package, which can often include meal plans so it gives a great deal," says Pilkington.
The South Pacific Tourism Organisation is an intergovernmental agency which promotes tourism in the Pacific.
When questioned about where the revenue from international travel is invested, spokesperson Ilisoni Vuidreketi said that some of the money goes into creating jobs for hotels and resorts.
It is also used to generate income for small scale tourism, create sub-tourism industries and a portion also goes to government as tax.
"The very nature of foreign owned tourism operation and tourism investments always allows leakages out of any economy, however, the employment opportunities created for the local population from these foreign investments are too important to ignore," says Vuidreketi.
'Indentured labour'
Employment is often cited by tourism organisations as being the most prominent and widespread benefit of the tourism industry to host nations.
Field disagrees, saying "for places like Fiji to be attractive, it is necessary that the workers are paid as little as possible. It is a kind of indentured labour."
Danielle and Ben Fentiman booked a package holiday to Rarotonga for their honeymoon in January this year. One single payment covered airfares, accommodation and some meals. After arriving at the resort, they had no reason to leave, as everything was provided for them.
"Everything was organised in the resort. If you wanted to do activities like fishing or four-wheel driving, you could organise it at the resort. But it's all really expensive," says Danielle Fentiman.
"We ended up getting so bored at the resort, so we hired scooters for a couple of days and just drove around exploring. We ended up in a totally different area of Rarotonga and there were hardly any tourists there, just old run-down shacks, and a small make-shift shop.
"We stopped to buy a couple of drinks – they were all out of date and ridiculously overpriced. The shop itself was buzzing with flies and the fruit had all gone rotten in the crates.
"I have no idea how they survive down that side of the island, there's just nothing to see besides the squalor."
The environmental effects of a booming tourism industry in the South Pacific are also widely documented, with many governments attempting to establish sustainability plans to ensure the income from the tourism industry is protected.
'Climatic impact'
The Ministry of Tourism in Fiji announced in 2008 that the United Nations World Tourism Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme were working with the ministry on a project to "reduce tourism's vulnerability from climatic impact".
That climatic impact refers to the damage to the coastlines by tourism-related activities, such as soil erosion, water quality degradation, coral reef damage and dredging damage.
Waste water from tourist resorts can also affect shorelines and marine environments, jeopardising the island's economic future.
A report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific entitled "Environmental impacts of coastal tourism development" says that in order to promote a tourism industry that relies on the environment , a "middle path between tourism growth and environmental conservation" needs to be followed – "with tradeoffs calling for careful choices detrimental to neither".
The report adds that "in Fiji, some resorts are built too close to the shoreline. Every major resort in Fiji has 'coastal process' problems."
The report is dated and little information is available regarding action taken after its publication.
The social impacts of the Pacific's tourism industry on host nations are most evident in small, local Pacific businesses.
Imported food
An Oxfam discussion paper on sustainable economic development in the Pacific from July this year says that "Pacific enterprises face significant challenges relative to larger international competitors."
Field says: "Most meals sold in hotels are made up of imported food and alcohol."
This has the potential to put local producers out of business, because they cannot compete with international suppliers.
Most products and services enjoyed by tourists in the resorts are owned by overseas operators, not by individuals in the local community – even though they may have the skill.
Instead, the only interaction a tourist has with a local person is usually when employed by the resort to oversee the selling of the product or service.
Field says the sadness of the Pacific region is that it is failing to help itself, and things like the Pacific Forum continue to fail it.
"I find the Pasifika a fascinating and engaging place of great hope and promise, and I just wish that the political leadership of the regions could become a little more sophisticated and give its people credit where credit is due."
Dominique Fourie is a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.
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