THE POLITICS of TOURISM in ASIA the POLITICS of TOURISM in ASIA Linda K
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THE POLITICS OF TOURISM IN ASIA THE POLITICS OF TOURISM IN ASIA Linda K. Richter 2018 Open Access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Licensed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 In- ternational (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits readers to freely download and share the work in print or electronic format for non-commercial purposes, so long as credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require per- mission from the publisher. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The Cre- ative Commons license described above does not apply to any material that is separately copyrighted. Open Access ISBNs: 9780824880163 (PDF) 9780824880170 (EPUB) This version created: 17 May, 2019 Please visit www.hawaiiopen.org for more Open Access works from University of Hawai‘i Press. © 1989 University of Hawaii Press All rights reserved Contents Acknowledgments vi Abbreviations Used in Text viii 1. The Politics of Tourism: An Overview 1 2. About Face: The Political Evolution of Chinese Tourism Policy 25 3. The Philippines: The Politicization of Tourism 57 4. Thailand: Where Tourism and Politics Make Strange Bedfellows 92 5. Indian Tourism: Pluralist Policies in a Federal System 115 6. Creating Tourist “Meccas” in Praetorian States: Case Studies of Pakistan and Bangladesh 153 Pakistan 153 Bangladesh 171 7. Sri Lanka and the Maldives: Islands in Transition 178 Sri Lanka 178 The Maldives 186 8. Nepal and Bhutan: Two Approaches to Shangri-La 190 Nepal 190 Bhutan 199 9. Exploring Alternative Strategies for Tourism Development: Is There a Better Way? 203 Notes 239 Bibliography 273 Books, Monographs, and Yearbooks 273 Articles 284 iv Contents Official Publications 302 Videorecordings 305 Speeches and Professional Papers 305 Selected Interviews 306 About the Author 310 v Acknowledgments Authoring a book is rather like having a baby, in that it needs the cooperation of others, involves a certain amount of anxiety and discomfort, and rarely leaves one in the same mental or physical shape that they were in before. Unlike producing a baby, the gestation period is longer, the cooperation needed more sustained and varied, and the end result a bit anticlimatic. In any event, I want to thank all those who made this book possible. Over 250 people were interviewed in the course of de- veloping the book. Their generous gifts of time, files, letters, suggestions, and in some cases meals and housing were deeply appreciated. I am especially indebted to the many scholars, public officials, and tourist-industry leaders in the Philippines and Pakistan, where I spent the most time. Even during martial law, in both countries, I was treated with unfailing courtesy and assistance from all whom I sought out for information. Funding was also critical. The initial work on Philippine tourism was supported by a Fulbright Grant. I was also a Vis- iting Research Associate of the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration. In Pakistan, I was under the auspices of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies. Travel to and support while in Thailand was provided in part by the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism and Kansas State University. My “home base” at KSU has also contributed to the project in terms of clerical support and a Summer Research Grant. The absolutely critical financial, clerical, and psycho- logical support, however, came from the Alumni Office of the East-West Center in Honolulu. From September 1984 until Feb- ruary 1985, I was the recipient of their Alumni-in-Residence Fellowship. Beyond funds and clerical help, the luxury of time and the human and library resources provided by the East-West Center enabled this book to go forward. The East-West Center Institute of Culture and Communication (ICC) provided office vi Acknowledgments space and many friends and researchers like Elizabeth Buck, Meheroo Jussanwalla, and Gregory Triffonovitch with whom to share ideas and test assumptions about my work. At ICC and at the University of Hawaii Tourism Industry Management School, I also appreciated opportunities to present my research in progress. Peter Holden, Ron O’Grady, and Kosong Srisang of the Ecu- menical Coalition on Third World Tourism and Virginia Hadsell of the Center for Responsible Tourism have been major sources of inspiration and information. Special thanks go to Gordon Ring, Alumni Director, and June Saito of the Alumni Office, who facilitated research contacts and clerical support in the early stages of the book. Mary McCall, Dora Gerlaugh, Barbara Warren, and Angela Pearl deserve much credit for typing the manuscript during its several drafts. Yang Ning and Steve Jack have been super sleuths in compiling the bibliographical entries and in tracking down obscure citations. Iris Wiley, Damaris Kirchhofer, and Eileen D’Araujo of the University of Hawaii Press and Linda Gregonis also deserve my heartfelt appreciation for their encouragement, suggestions, and thorough attention to details that a tired author would just as soon ignore. Finally, I want to thank my husband, Bill Richter, for his love and encouragement coupled with an unswerving ability to dis- cover split infinitives, ferret out non sequiturs, and demand that the book’s argument answer his disarming but persistent query of “so what?” Any errors or omissions that remain in this study are my re- sponsibility and are despite the great effort and help of so many. Tourism policy can be a vehicle for sound development strategies and the promotion of positive cross-cultural rela- tionships. My association in the course of preparing this book with so many fine people interested in and committed to better tourism policies makes me quite optimistic that most political needs of policymakers and the public interest in thoughtful tourism development can be reconciled. vii Abbreviations Used in Text ADB Asian Development Bank AIT Asian Institute of Tourism ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASTA American Society of Travel Agents BPC Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation BTTI Board of Travel and Tourist Industry CAAC China’s national airway CITS China International Travel Service CTS China Travel Service CYTS China Youth Travel Service DAR Department of Agrarian Reform (Philippines) DOT Department of Tourism (India) DOT Department of Tourism (Philippines) DPB Development Bank of the Philippines ECTWT Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism GATT General Administration for Travel and Tourism (China) GOI Government of India GSIS Government Service Insurance System IA Indian Airlines ILO International Labour Organisation ITDC Indian Tourism Development Corporation NTA National Tourism Administration (China) OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development viii Abbreviations Used in Text PACOM Pacific and Asian Congress of Municipalities PAL Philippine Airlines PATA Pacific Area Travel Association PIA Pakistan International Airlines PICC Philippine International Convention Center PRC People’s Republic of China PSL Pakistan Services Limited PTA Philippine Tourism Authority PTDC Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation R&R rest and recreation RNAC Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation ROC Republic of China TAT Tourism Authority of Thailand TDC Tourism Development Corporation TEN Tourism Ecumenical Network TNC transnational corporations TOP Tourism Organization of the Philippines TOT Tourism Organization of Thailand UNDP United Nations Development Project WTO World Tourism Organization ix THE POLITICS OF TOURISM IN ASIA x 1 The Politics of Tourism: An Overview ’88 Olympics in South Korea Threatened by Political Turmoil Soviet Missile Shoots Down Korean Civilian Airliner U.S.-China Relations Thaw After 30 Year Freeze WHAT do these headlines have in common? All were incidents with serious international implications in which tourism was either a significant element or a major political response. Tourism? It is very hard for many to believe that tourism is associated with anything more weighty than picking the right traveler’s check (“don’t leave home without them!”) or selecting a destination at once “in,” low season, with a recently devalued currency, and with clean water or cold beer. Yet as one investi- gates these events it is clear that tourism is involved. The shooting down of the unarmed Korean airliner, for ex- ample, was a global outrage condemned by public opinion. It also revealed quite clearly the impotence of military arms as a response to such action. Retaliatory strikes, an embargo, tariff barriers, or a cut in diplomatic relations might have been op- tions if the aggressor had been Fiji, but they were out of the question as a response to a superpower. In fact, when the rhetoric subsided, the only action taken was a short-term re- fusal by most Western nations to permit their airlines to fly to the Soviet Union or allow Aeroflot landings on their soil. The U.S. ban on the airlines was already in place having dated back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. U.S. response to the in- vasion included denying landing rights to Aeroflot airlines, boy- cotting the Moscow Olympics, and establishing an unpopular grain embargo. Cancellations of numerous tours and exchanges to the USSR followed both Soviet actions. In 1984, political motives led the Soviet Union and most of Eastern Europe to boycott the Los Angeles Olympics. 1 Chapter 1 The earliest public exchanges between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) signalling improved relations came with the invitation to an American table tennis team to visit the PRC to play the Chinese team. Limited tours and exchanges have expanded and contracted according to the political relationship. The U.S. relations with the government in the Republic of China (ROC) continue to be a sore point. Tourist flows in general can be seen as a crude but reliable barometer of international relations among tourist-generating and tourist- receiving countries. The politics of international tourism are not only fought at the national level, however.