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How important is ‘authenticity’ in tourism?
Introduction

The purpose of this study record is to explore the theme of authenticity as expounded by different authors. The record will provide an overview of my reading during the course of the year, and will present an examination of the different approaches to the topic by the selected authors, and present these approaches in the wider context of writing on the importance of authenticity in tourism.

Daniel Boorstin (1964, 1985) The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. 2^nd ed. New York: Athenaeum

Boorstin writes about the demise of the traveller who seeks authentic experiences and the rise of mass tourism. For Boorstin, real travel belonged to a golden age that was now lost where whatever the traveller saw “was apt to be what really went on there”. Whereas contemporary travel was a pseudo-event made up of “specimens collected and embalmed especially for him, or attractions specifically staged for him” (1961:102).

Boorstin was adamant that the tourist no longer wanted authenticity, even going so far as to argue that a French singer singing in accented English was more appealing to the Anglophone tourist than the singer singing in her native language. Similarly, says Boorstin (1961: 106), the American visiting Japan is not looking for authentic Japanese culture but rather “what is Japenesey”. These contrived experiences had four characteristics, said Boorstin, they are not spontaneous or natural, they are designed to be reproduced, the relationship between the event and reality is ambiguous, and the contrived event becomes normal over time as it becomes perceived as being authentic.

The theme in Boorstin’s book is that mass tourism is an impediment to experiencing other cultures and that the masses do not want to experience authentic culture anyway, preferring the contrived to the authentic. In reading Boorstin, his scepticism comes through very clearly but also you are left with a lingering sense of the author’s arrogance. True authentic experiences could only be encountered in the golden age when none but the truly wealthy could afford to travel. For Boorstin, the opening of the leisure market to a wider range of social classes ruined the authenticity of the experience for the privileged and the educated and gave access to travel to people who couldn’t possibly understand the experience except at the most base and contrived level. Boorstin’s approach was taken forward by MacCannell who disputed that tourists wanted pseudo-events and it is McCannell’s work we shall consider next.

Dean MacCannell (1989) A new theory of the leisure class. 2^nd ed. University of California Press.

This book was first published in 1976 and appears to be cited widely in books and articles on authenticity in tourism. MacCannell writes from the perspective that progressiveness has failed people and people use tourism to give their lives greater sense and meaning, and in seeking sense and meaning in other cultures people are highlighting that they feel isolated and alienated in their own culture. Tourists’ disillusionment with the nature of work in industrial society drives them to travel and to travel further, as they try to penetrate the ‘back’ of life where truth and authenticity can be found.

This notion of life having a ‘front’, ‘back’ and ‘outside’came out of the work of Goffman (1959) who used the metaphor of the stage to examine the perceptions of the individual to the performance. The front stage is the official perspective, while the backstage is presented as being more honest as the individual has an awareness of the disputes and difficulties that are occurring. The outside represents segregation where the individual is unable to gain access to what is going on on stage. Authenticity in tourism, says MacCannell, comes from an awareness of what is going on behind the scenes where all is not sanitised for public consumption.

MacCannell highlights the falseness of the distinction between mass tourist, researcher, travel writer and authentic traveller and puts forward the view that the mass tourist is as much in search of authenticity as the researcher or travel writer. MacCannell notes “longstanding touristic attitude, a pronounced dislike, bordering on hatred, for other tourists, in a they are the tourists I am not equation” (1989: 602). MacCannell’s perspective particularly resonated with me as when travelling I have noticed people, including myself, wanting to distinguish themselves as separate from the masses, somehow being more distinguished or more credible as independent travellers rather than mass tourists. As well as noting the views of those who think that tourism will ultimately destroy itself^[1], I’m also starting to recognise the irony of my travelling to seek an authentic travel experience while at the same time willingly participating in the growth of tourism. However, while MacCannell’s perspective does resonate, I would suggest that MacCannell’s position is on one sense just as polarised as Boorstin’s. From Boorstin (1985), we get the perspective that all that tourists want is a superficial and contrived experience, whilst MacCannell proposes that all tourists are in pursuit of the real ‘back’ and authentic experience but are denied this by being presented with inauthenticity. In reality, it seems likely that the truth would be some where in between.

Erik Cohen (1995) Contemporary Tourism-Trends and Challenges: Sustainable Authenticity or Contrived Post-Modernity?, in Change in Tourism: People, Places, Processes, edited by Richard Butler and Douglas Pearce. London: Routledge.

Cohen has written extensively on authenticity in tourism across several decades and as well as challenging existing ideas, it is clear that he has enjoyed conducting fieldwork and written a substantial amount on tourism development in developing countries. Cohen notes that while tourism has hugely benefited the country in terms of economic development there are significant downsides including the growth of Thailand’s sex trade and related criminal activities. Cohen breaks Thailand’s tourism development down into four areas of change. The first is what he terms the massification of the industry which denotes the huge rise in the numbers of tourists entering the country. The second is the dispersion of tourism, from Bangkok and its environs across the country from Phuket in the south to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Tourism is continuing to spread in Thailand, with tourists venturing into the Golden Triangle in the north and into areas such as Krabi in the south. The third change identified by Cohen in that of heterogenisation, which is the process in which the nationalities of the tourists and the variety of attractions and amenities become more similar. Finally, says Cohen, there is regionalization at work. This can be seen by Thailand’s positioning of itself at the heart of an emerging regional tourism industry in Southeast Asia which includes Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

As the tourism industry in Thailand develops, the Thai government is trying to encourage international tourism – due to its greater revenue generating potential – but is also trying to encourage domestic tourism. The reason for this is that domestic tourism minimizes foreign exchange leakage from the economy. The growth in tourism leads to continuing expansion into new areas and the further diversification of tourist activities, including the development of both natural and ‘contrived’ activities. How these activities will balance out depends on dependent the Thai tourist economy depends on Europe, as Cohen notes that European tourists generally prefer contrived attractions such as shopping, theme parks and entertainment facilities. There will also be an increasing discrepancy between the tourist image of an idyllic location and the increasing pollution and urban development of Thailand’s beach towns. The increasing development of Thailand has led some to argue that there should be a greater focus on authentic tourism and ecotourism is particularly promoted by some writers (Bottrill and Pearce, 1995; Honey, 1998). Cohen, however, argues that ecotourism principles are applicable to any type of tourism and that stringent or exclusive definitions of ecotourism are unnecessarily restrictive.

From Cohen’s perspective, most tourists engage in mass tourist activities as well as alternative activities. The desire for authenticity can be measured by the tourist’s willingness to forgo comforts such as comfort itself, familiarity and convenience in order to achieve what they perceive is a more authentic experience. Mass tourism and authentic tourism are not alternatives but a spectrum or continuum where the search for authenticity can be observed and measured. The importance of Cohen’s work is in how it has continued to challenge and develop our understanding of authenticity. As we saw earlier, McCannell’s (1976) scholarship focused on the concepts of alienation and authenticity but Cohen took this further. Cohen broadened McCannell’s conceptions and applied them to tourists’ perceptions of authenticity.

Cohen has also developed the work of Boorstin^[2]. As has been noted, Boorstin was very pessimistic about authenticity and his approach remained that of a sceptic. For Cohen, however, the idea of a universal authenticity was questioned and challenged. Cohen comes to the conclusion that authenticity means different things to different people and therefore what appears authentic to one tourist (or host) will not appear authentic to another. Building on this, we can see that the importance of authenticity can also be determined to be socially constructed, and its importance variable depending on the perceptions of the person considering the issue. This appears similar to the theoretical perspectives of the social constructivists where meaning is seen to emerge and is constantly changing. This view appears to have gained some following in tourism research with writers including Dearden and Mitchell (1997) and Sharpley and Sharpley (1997) sharing this perspective.

Auliana Poon (1993) Tourism, Technology and Competitive Strategies. Oxford: CAB International.

Poon writes about alternative tourism and puts forward the view that alternative tourism is more exclusive than mass tourism and is diametrically opposed to mass tourism in terms of consumers, production, technology and management. Poon argues that mass tourism comprises rigidly packaged and inflexible holidays when deviation from the package is rejected because of the cost implications that deviation would incur. There is also a mass replication of identical rooms or apartments to allow the operators to reap the benefits of economies of scale, and there is mass (undifferentiated) marketing again with hotel and holiday branding for reasons of economies of scale. Finally, according to Poon, mass tourism features mass consumption with little regard for the cultures of the tourist destinations.

The alternative, according to Poon is a form of tourism that embraces flexibility and specialisation which provides a more personalised form of tourism. The alternative scenario also gives greater consideration to the tourist destination and actively considers culture and environment. The sustainability of alternative tourist destinations are therefore paramount under alternative tourism and attempts are made to pursue development in a culturally and environmentally sensitive and considered way. The motivation for tour companies to pursue alternative tourism can be seen in the potential it provides to differentiate itself in the marketplace. Mass tourism has saturated the market and to stand out to the consumer the travel companies must offer something different and authenticity is this difference.

Having considered the work of Boorstin and MacCannell, and also Cohen, it becomes more difficult to accept a further attempt to present authenticity as a pure and exclusive form. It is easy to see that the concept of authenticity is useful in an academic sense, as a key component in a model, or a concept in which to frame a debate, but more difficult to see its existence in a pure form. In addition to considering authenticity as the polar opposite of mass tourism, there is another perspective: that mass tourism has merely reinvented itself into a more socially acceptable form. Fernandes (1994: 4) points out, “the mainstream tourism industry has merely tried to invent a new legitimation for itself, the ‘sustainable’ use of the environment including the preservation of nature as an amenity for the already advantaged”.

John Urry (1990) The Tourist Gaze.London: Sage

Urry notes the rapid development of tourism and uses a metaphor of an omnivorous creature to highlight what he sees as tourists devouring the planet in their ‘consuming’ of destinations. Urry (1990:1) states that when we travel “we gaze” and “the gaze is socially constructed”. The gaze is not a single gaze regardless of nationality or social class, but emerges from who we are and goes on to shape us and well as that gazed upon.

Urry charts the development of the tourist industry in the UK and looks at the rise of mass tourism in Victorian Britain the development of the British coastal resorts, the mass tourism provided by holiday camps, and the introduction of a new flexibility from the 1960s onwards as people travelled to European destinations. Mass marketing provided representative images which gave tourists an understanding of the destinations available and these are duplicated in the destinations themselves and in place promotion.

Urry urges the development of the post-mass marketing tourist or what he calls that post-tourist who seeks to find authenticity and shirk the artificial and staged events offered by the tourism operators. This builds on Cohen’s work which argued that the local culture becomes a contrived commodity and, without people’s consent, operators take local culture and renders it meaningless.

Urry’s work has come under criticism with some arguing that he has over-stated the decline of mass tourism. Indeed, package holidays to Orlando and Phuket appear to have a great deal in common in terms of fun and pleasure seeking as the mass tourism in Blackpool of earlier generations. Urry’s ‘gaze’ has been criticised as being inadequate; Prentice (2001) puts forward the need to look at the subjective mental state felt by individuals while Ooi (2002) argues that the subjective nature of experience means that as well as being multi-faceted, “experiences are embodies in people” and can “only be expressed to and not felt by other people”.

Ning Wang (2000) Tourism and Modernity: A Sociological Analysis. Tourism Social Science Series. Oxford: Pergamon.

Having read perspectives from the objectivists Boorstin and MacCannell, and the social constructivist perspectives, it was interesting to see how Wang appeared to bring these perspectives together with a postmodernist perspective, based on the work of Baudrillard and others. Wang argues that authenticity should be broken down into authenticity of object and authenticity of experience. Authenticity of object refers to the authenticity of what is being observed, and this is further broken down into objective, constructive and post modern forms with the post modern form rejecting authenticity completely, while authenticity of experience refers to a person’s own personal experiences.

Wang puts forward the view that authenticity is not inherent and identified characteristics that can be attributed to the constructivist conceptions of authenticity, namely that there is no fixed origin of authenticity, that what we consider original and authentic can be contested, notions of authenticity are pluralistic, and that authenticity is often declared when something conforms to tourist expectations. Wang also put forward the idea that inauthentic experiences can become authentic over time. This process, which Wang terms ‘emergent authenticity’ was also put forward by Cohen and promotes the primacy of the tourist perception of the experience and, as Picard and Robinson remind us, “all events were once created” and that ranking authenticity is “highly questionable” (2006: 134).

Wang’s focus on a person’s own experiences is interesting as so much of the debate on the importance of authenticity has been about the authenticity of the objects being seen. Wang notes that tourists are “in search of their authentic selves with the aid of activities

or toured objects” (2000:360). This search for our authentic selves can be liberating, a desire for experiences that are outside of our daily lives, but can also be restricted by itineraries and other constraints. The importance of authenticity in tourism is, for Wang, a feeling or perceiving of authenticity rather than its fixed existence in cultural objects.

Conclusions

From this study record we can see that many writers have highlighted the importance of authenticity but there is inconsistency about what authenticity entails. For Boorstin, mass tourism ruined any chance of experiencing authenticity and authenticity that not something that the masses sought even if it were attainable. MacCannell considered that authenticity could be equally sought by the mass tourist or researcher but held that the tourism industry was denying the people an authentic experience. Cohen offered a perspective on authenticity that incorporated both the tourist and the host but offered the possibility that one party might consider an experience authentic while the other did not; Poon considered authenticity and mass tourism to be diametrically opposed, while Urry built on Cohen’s work and presented the view that culture had become such a contrived commodity that it had been rendered meaningless. Finally, Wang presented what is almost a capstone perspective, bringing in the earlier objective and constructivist perspectives to present a broader representation of the importance of authenticity as an existential experience.

References

Boorstin, DJ (1985) The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. 2^nd ed. New York: Atheneum

Bottrill, C and D Pearce (1995) Ecotourism: towards a key elements approach to operationalising the concept. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 3, 1, 45-54.

Cohen, E (1995) Contemporary Tourism-Trends and Challenges: Sustainable Authenticity or Contrived Post-Modernity?, in Change in Tourism: People, Places, Processes, ed. Richard Butler and Douglas Pearce. London: Routledge.

Dearden, P and B Mitchell (1997) Environmental Change and Challenge. Oxford University Press.

Fernandes, D (1994) The shaky ground of sustainable tourism. Quarterly Environmental Journal, 2, 4, October-December, 4-38.

Goffman, E (1959) Presentation of self in everyday life. Penguin Books.

Honey, M (1998) Where’s the eco in ecotourism? Connection to the Americas, 15, 2, March, 1-7.

MacCannell, D. (1999) The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. University of California Press

McKercher, B (1993) The unrecognized threat to tourism: can tourism survive sustainability. Tourism Management, 14, 4, 131-136.

Ooi, C-S (2002) Cultural Tourism and Tourism Cultures: The Business of Mediating Experiences in Copenhagen and Singapore. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.

Picard, D and M Robinson (2006) Festivals, Tourism and Social Change. Channel View Publications.

Poon, A (1993) Tourism, technology and competitive strategies. Oxford: CAB International.

Prentice, R (2001) Experiential Cultural Tourism. 2^nd ed. Edinburgh: Queen Margaret College

Sharpley, R and J Sharpley (1997) Sustainability and Consumption of Tourism, in MJ Stabler (ed) Tourism and Sustainability. Oxford: CAB International, 231-244.

Urry, J. (1990) The Tourist Gaze, London: Sage.

Wang, N (1999) Rethinking Authenticity in Tourism Experience. Annals of Tourism Research, 26, 2, 349-70.

Wang, N (2000) Tourism and Modernity: A Sociological Analysis. Tourism Social Science Series. Oxford: Pergamon.

Evaluate the Nature and Extent of Tourism Impacts at a Range of Tourist Destinations

The tourism and travel patterns of past decades, combined with the challenging market conditions, especially given the impacts that recent terrorist activity and natural disasters have had on the tourism market, have tended to result in short-term approaches from many organisations in travel and at destination resorts, where commercial activity has thus impacted negatively on natural or cultural environments. In historic terms, leisure travel is relatively new phenomenon, starting in the UK with the ‘Grand Tour’ journeys of the eighteenth century, when wealthy individuals chose to visit neighbouring lands to learn about politics, culture and art. By the nineteenth century, leisure travel within Britain increased, with the growing popularity and royal patronage of spa and seaside towns, and the corresponding availability of transport, which became faster and easier during the industrial revolution, with improved roads and the introduction of trains and rail travel. The wealthier and aspiring middle classes popularised travel destinations that developed into resorts offering entertainment and serviced accommodation. (Global Market Information Database, May 2005) However, this rapid growth of tourism has resulted in several unforeseen impacts on destinations, which have been observed to be either beneficial or detrimental to the locality.

The twentieth century inventions of the motor car and coach transport accelerated the popularity of domestic holidays, leading to the seaside holiday becoming firmly established as integral to British culture, with corresponding impacts on town such as Brighton and Blackpool, which have become strongly geared towards holidaymakers Sea travel improved and developed with the leisure traveller in mind, bringing ferry routes, luxury liners and vessels for hobbyists. The two World Wars also brought about the accelerated development of air transport, which resulted in a demand for civilian passenger planes, and thus fast overseas travel by plane opened up the world to international leisure journeys. As a result of this massive explosion in tourism, over the past three hundred years, tourism has brought prosperity to many regions of the world that would otherwise exist in abject poverty, such as the island of Bali, where living standards are considerably higher than the neighbouring islands in the Indonesian peninsula. (Friedheim, 1996) However, frequently tourism grew to suit human interests, particularly those of the tourists and businesses, and by no particular long-term plan with regards to sustainability at the local destinations. As a result, today the detrimental effects of global tourism are evident in the form of pollution, the erosion of local culture, the widening of the gap between rich and poor, a threat to survival for local economies and the spoiling of natural habitats and landscape. (Cooper et al, 2004)

Indeed, whilst Friedheim (1996) mentions the strong positive impact of the tourist trade in Indonesia’s Bali Island, with the island frequently being described primarily as a popular tourist destination, Friedheim also comments on tourism’s impact on the island’s economic and social conditions for those locals not actively engaged in the trade. He also comments on how traditional skills and employments are increasingly being suborned to appeal to the tourist masses and their money, and thus the island’s culture is being eroded. Similar comments are made on the developments related to the tourist trade in Eastern Europe, following on from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ‘Iron Curtain’, when the area’s potential as a tourist destination first began to be explored. However, in this case, there was widespread cooperation amongst the Eastern European countries for the promotion of the region’s tourist trade, and tourism generally had a positive impact on the area’s re-building efforts (Friedheim, 1996) due to its focus on the culture of the cities, rather than beach holidays. Lori (1998) takes a similar view, but focuses on the second annual Sustainable Tourism Conference of the Caribbean Tourism Organization in Trinidad, Spain. In the Caribbean, tourism had previously followed a quite unsustainable model; however the aim of the conference was to address this, based on the tourism strategy initiatives followed by the Dominican Republic: a model ecotourism destination in the Caribbean.

Although it is wise to aim for sustainable tourism wherever possible, to reduce the negative impacts on regions wherever possible, there are often factors that work against this desire. One of these is seasonality: an integral quality of the landscape which greatly affects, informs and interweaves with many tourism factors, such as the tourism-based economies of Greek island communities, currently almost entirely dependent upon summer holiday tourism for their survival. (Terkenli, 2005) The multiple facets and impacts of seasonality produced and inscribed by tourism on the landscape, and specifically on the landscape of northern Crete, can, as with many other impacts and destinations, be both problematic and beneficial. In the case of Crete, the three different stages of the tourism destination lifecycle model used by Terkenli (2005) are roughly represented by three different zones of tourism impact in the broader region of Hersonissos in northern Crete. Here, tourism-induced changes roughly attenuate with distance from the coast, acquiring distinctive geographical patterns that follow those of spatial tourist concentration, scale of development, and incorporation of tourism into Cretan society and space, thus giving the island a seasonal economy and demography, in common with many similar regions dependent on seasonal tourism.

However, there can be major negative impacts on regions with economies of this type or, indeed, any economy based on tourism. For example, in the months immediately following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, there was a strong trend in many regions towards staying closer to home, with tourists being deterred from long-haul travel for several reasons, including lower incomes, the fear of further terrorist attacks, and delays at airports due to higher security. This benefited domestic travel, as well as regional travel such as travel between European destinations, travel between the US and Canada, and travel within Asia, thus helping some tourist destinations in these countries. However, it had an adverse impact on destinations such as Florida, which relies heavily on tourists from Europe, and many destinations that relied heavily on tourism from the US were particularly badly affected by the fall-off in American tourists immediately after the attacks of 11 September 2001. These included destinations such as the Caribbean and Latin America, and within these regions, notably Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. (Global Market Information Database, Sep 2005) In response to this, Latin American and Caribbean governments launched marketing campaigns and other measures to encourage tourism in the region. In Mexico, for example, which depends on the US for 85% of its tourist arrivals, measures included the elimination of sales taxes on conventions, and an increase in the promotional budget of 50% through a new public-private consortium. The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) also launched an emergency joint marketing, promotion and public relations campaign at the end of 2001 to try and resurrect the failing tourism market which was pushing many of the region economies towards recession (Global Market Information Database, Sep 2005)

Indeed, increasingly governments and organisations across the world are realising that travel and tourism growth cannot be left to chance, as the potential impacts on regions, and also entire nations, are just too great. As a result, in 2003 over five hundred of the world’s most influential business leaders called on the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) to form a new vision and strategy for travel and tourism. This project combined the forces of stakeholders from public and private organisations, resulting in the formation of “Blueprint for New Tourism” campaigns to influence behaviour and to introduce new legislation and best practice for the industry in its quest to help governments recognise travel and tourism as a top priority, to balance economics with people’s needs, culture and environments and to share the pursuit of long-term growth and prosperity, underpinned by corporate social responsibility. Global Market Information Database (May 2005) Organisations are now required to evidence the measures they take towards social responsibility in their annual reports, and consumers too are becoming more aware of the impact that tourism and development can have on the world, through television documentaries and media coverage of issues such as global warming, endangered species and fair trade practices. To help consumers make informed choices on their travel destinations, consumer advisory services such as the Centre for Environmentally Responsible Tourism and ecotourism.org were established, offering advice on the best destinations and most sustainable tour operators. Indeed, as with many regulatory bodies around the world, for tour operators, such an endorsement provides a promotional opportunity and can further benefit nations: for example, the dreadful and much publicised effects of the Asian tsunami awoke the UK public to the need to give and support nations in peril. Popular destinations for back-packers were literally wiped off the map, and to support the regeneration of the tourist industry in the affected countries, volunteer holidays were offered, which helped provide useful skills and manpower to local populations, as well as helping tourists get closer to the local culture.

A final impact of tourism is its tendency to skew the geographic distribution of wealth in countries that have particular tourist attractions. Egypt is a good example of this, as it is now looking into the possibilities for diversifying its tourism opportunities throughout the country, with the main target for expanding the tourism sector in nature-based tourism. The coral reefs and rich marine life in South Sinai and the Red Sea coast have made these two areas among the premier scuba diving destinations in the world, with many beach resorts are now in operation and still hundreds to be constructed. However, previous tourism development in Egypt has resulted in a series of negative environmental impacts, both to the reefs and marine life, and to the other areas of the country which have suffered a lack of funding and investment due to not being in proximity to well known tourist destinations. The ambitious development plans to receive 16 million tourists across the country by 2017 will thus take into consideration sustainability and demographic concepts, with the government and developers having significant roles to play in adopting and implementing environmentally sound policies and practices to avoid the degradation of the natural heritage of Egypt for the sake of the current as well as future generations. (Shaalan, 2005)

In conclusion, tourism offers some of the most impoverished regions of the globe the chance to develop their infrastructure and quality of life in ways that would otherwise be impossible in the modern world. However, frequently these developments are allowed to proceed without thought to maintaining a balanced distribution of income amongst the local inhabitants, and preserving the very attractions which bring tourists to the area. As a result, tourism can often have significant, wide ranging negative impacts as well as positive ones, such as in the case of Bali. However, with the new sustainable tourism developments helping to reduce the negative impacts, and distribute the positive ones equally across the local populations, there is evidence that tourism can, and in future increasingly will, provide beneficial and sustainable long term impacts to the communities and destinations it affects.

References
Cooper, C. Fletcher, J. Fyall, A, Gilbert, D. and Wanhill, S. (2004). Tourism: Principles and Practice, 3rd Ed. Prentice Hall: London.
Friedheim, E. (1996) Holding on to paradise. Travel Agent; Vol. 284, Issue 1, p. 22.
Global Market Information Database (Sep 2005) The World Market for Travel and Tourism. Euromonitor International.
Global Market Information Database (May 2005) Travel and Tourism in the United Kingdom Euromonitor International.
Shaalan, I. M. (2005) Sustainable tourism development in the Red Sea of Egypt threats and opportunities. Journal of Cleaner Production; Vol. 13, Issue 2, p. 83.
Tenny, L. (1998) Second CTO conservation confab explores tourism’s impacts. Travel Weekly; Vol. 57, Issue 38, p. C9.
Terkenli, T. (2005) Human Activity in Landscape Seasonality: The Case of Tourism in Crete. Landscape Research; Vol. 30, Issue 2, p. 221.

Technological Convergence is becoming critical for the future. Discuss and illustrate implications for the tourism industry
Technological Convergence Overview

Convergence technologies are increasingly obliterating barriers of distance and time, providing anywhere, anytime communication and information sharing. The interactions that these technologies enable are incredibly varied, ranging from real-time one to one communications, to globally accessible electronic resources that reach mass audiences on demand. (Covell, 2000) These technologies also integrate all digital media types and indeed, one of the most powerful aspects of the digital convergence phenomenon is that these technologies can be used to combine interactions and media in so many different ways, thus producing innovative mechanisms, tools, and information resources.

Whilst advances in miniaturisation have yielded a massive advance in the range of multipurpose devices in the last two years, ranging from game consoles that can be used as photo viewers, to mobile phones that double as cameras and music players. At the same time, developments in high-speed communications are allowing providers of traditional services like cable TV, Internet and phone services to move beyond their realms to products like video on demand and music and video downloads, together with Internet access through endless different media. “As the lines between product offerings become blurred, a looming high-tech identity crisis is creating rivals out of companies that once considered themselves to be in separate industries.” (Young, 2006)

Telecommunications operators now believe that they can create value out of providing TV services, whilst cable TV companies are bundling Internet and mobile services, and phone handset makers are getting into music players and cameras. However, whilst traditional technology and telecommunications firms fight it out, Internet companies like Google, Microsoft MSN and Yahoo are building up powerful brand names to leverage in the future, both on and off the Web. Signs of convergence are on display the world over, spanning the semiconductor industry in Asia, where the hearts and memories of many devices are made, to cutting-edge telecoms development from Europe to the thriving U.S. Internet community experimenting with new products and services. (Young, 2006) As a result, customers’ expectations and demands have risen to include combined functionality and, where this functionality is included, reliability. (Buhalis, 2003) As a result, technological convergence is becoming increasingly more critical for businesses wishing to market new products and services, and to extend the life of old ones.

Within the tourism industry, technological convergence has had three main impacts: on sales, transport, and the provision of services.

Sales

Travel agents have found that their role has had to evolve, due to the changing technological dynamics of the travel industry. The travel retail sector has been adversely impacted since 2001 by technological convergence factors, chiefly the increase in the level of Internet and communications access. This has resulted in a rise in the number of consumers and businesses booking their travel arrangements directly, via the telephone or Internet; and as a result airlines and travel companies have reduced commission fees to travel agents in order to save costs, and also set up their own reservation systems via the Internet. Even before 11 September 2001, sales were being hurt by lower commission fees and trends towards direct booking, (Global Market Information Database, 2004) and now many operators in sectors such as airlines, hospitality and car rental have began to take advantage of the technology boom to make their sales direct to the consumer, bypassing travel agents.

Travel

Although technological convergence has not had substantial impacts on tourist’s choice of long distance travel, asides from facilitating the low cost airline boom, through Internet sales and eTickets, it has had some impacts on resort based travel. A good example of this is highlighted by Daigle and Zimmerman (2004) who studied the Acadia National Park Field Operational Test, where Intelligent Transportation Systems components were deployed to help visitors travel around Mount Desert island and in Acadia National Park Real-time travel information was collected and integrated with island Explorer buses and disseminated to visitors via an automated announcer that transmitted an audio message and displayed the next bus stop on an electronic sign within the bus. Also, electronic signs displayed real-time departure times of the next Island Explorer bus at bus stops, and visitors could also obtain real-time parking conditions at two popular destinations in the park, similar to the technology used by TFL in its London bus network.

Services

Finally, the trend towards individual booking of holidays by Internet, or dynamic packaging, is predicted to continue as more and more people become ‘Internet-savvy’, and seek more control over pricing and planning of both business and leisure travel. (Global Market Information Database, 2004) As a result, tour operators will respond to these trends by introducing more flexible holiday booking and selection services allowing, for example, clients to combine low-cost flights with premium hotels, and creating more targeted packages, such as those aimed at over-50s, sporting or activity holidays. Hotel groups and airlines will respond by improving their websites and services, and especially trying to match the fares offered by online agencies or offering extra services. Technology convergence in the travel and tourism industry will thus continue to improve in order to increase convenience, cut airport waiting times and encourage business travel. This will likely include automated check-in, and check-in via the Internet, the continuing development of high-speed Internet services in hotels and on aircraft, and satellite navigation services in cars.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the exception of online sales, technological convergence is yet to have as fundamental an impact on the tourism industry as it has had on the technology, media and telecommunications industries. However, as the Internet continues to grow, and converges with more varied technologies, the potential for innovative offering will increase and, as in the TMT sectors, these offerings will increasingly become the norm, thus making technological convergence even more critical for the future in yet another industry.

References:
Buhalis, D. (2003) eTourism: Information Technology for strategic tourism management. Pearson.
Covell, A. (2000) Digital Convergence: How the Merging of Computers, Communications, and Multimedia Is Transforming Our Lives. Aegis Publishing Group, Ltd.
Daigle, J. J. and Zimmerman, C A. (2004) The Convergence of Transportation, Information Technology, and Visitor Experience at Acadia National Park. Journal of Travel Research; Vol. 43, Issue 2, p. 151.
Global Market Information Database (2004) The World Market for Travel and Tourism. Euromonitor International.
Young, D. (2006) Reuters Summit – Technology convergence makes a comeback in 2006. Reuters Limited.

Before elaborating the relativity of Tourism and Environment, it is necessary to understand both terms individually. Relativity is to distinguish contrast and characterise between two different values for understanding their dependability upon each other.

Tourism: Tourism is now a phenomenon, not just a simple holiday activity. It also has to be considered that tourism and tourist are two different characteristics. Approaches differentiate accordingly and it can be defined according to both understandings:

‘It [tourism] is a human activity which encompasses human behaviour, use of resources, and interaction with other people, economies and environments.’ Bull, 1991:1 cited in Holden, A. (2008).

From mentioned definition tourism is mainly focused on natural or social aspects, where author has examined tourism on the basis of environmental characteristics. Another understanding could be from the perspective of a visitor or tourist, again I would like to mention a definition from Holden’s writing; where he used another author’s definition to differentiate from the previous point of view.

Tourism as: ‘an attitude to the world or a way of seeing the world, not necessarily what we find only at the end of a long and arduous journey’ Franklin, 2003:33 cited in Holden, A. (2008).

This definition is from the perspective of a tourist as a single entity and more individualistic. Here personal experience is more valuable for a consumer. Tourism is not a very old study for world but travel defiantly is. Tourism is more of gaining an exceptional experience than a regular living, while travel can consists of various reasons behind it.

But according to Hunter and Green (1995, pp: 1) “There is no universally accepted definition of tourism. This is not surprising, since what constitutes a ‘tourist’ and the ‘tourism industry’ are still matters of debate.”

Environment: In terms of tourism, Environment is always understood as a nature or atmosphere of a destination or a place which is used for tourism. Nature consists of mountains, water resources such as sea side, sea, rivers, waterfalls etc. Green environment includes plants, forests, parks, rainforests, safaris etc. when elaborated to wilderness it consists wild life, animals, forest species and so on. Socially; heritage sites or cultural uniqueness is also a part of an environment.

‘In environmental studies it has commonly been assumed that there exists a fundamental connection between a society’s management of natural resources and its perception of nature.’ Brunn and Kalland (1995:1) cited in Holden, A. (2008).

Environmental studies and explanations are vast and distributions of its characteristics are crucial. If we look at it from a different perspective it seems environment consists of whole world (living or non living beings) including humans, animals, plants and resources. From evolution humans are using environmental resources. When observed this use or loss, it is categorised as Environmental study. Resistance and Resilience are two distinctions in this study, where Resistance is tolerance of the site (while getting used and still being undisturbed) and Resilience is the ability to recover from the happened loss or change. Some sites have either qualities or some not. Hence due to its characteristics,

Hunter and Green (1995) stated that ‘environment can be subdivided into three components as the physical environment or a biotic environment which includes solar energy, soil, water and climate’.

Tourism and Environment are interdependent:

Tourism is based on the environment; Tourism has and will always devour the natural resources. Tourism is the main factor carrying out the natural environment in both positive and negative aspect. Even simplest form of tourism like visiting a zoo consumes environmental resources such as animals, birds or plants. Such a kind simple form of tourism also renders constructive as well as unconstructive effects. The negative effect cases might be the capturing animals from their natural habitat and keeping them in a zoo, whereas positive aspect can be that by capturing the animals they are getting protected against hunters and other environmental conditions that can be critical to them. In various other smaller or greater impressions tourism has both negative and positive effects, but more important is to understand the actual destruction or refurbishments causing from tourism towards environment.

It is understandable that human involvement with environment tend to use the resources, if it can’t help to make them grow at least they can be saved from future damages by use of intelligent human behaviour. Study of tourism environment is about understanding the cause and effect rule and to imply theories to protect the environmental loss due to mass tourism. It is also significant that Tourism should place along with the higher quality of environment and environment shall get benefit from it not the damage. No doubt every human action has its own pros and cons and fragility of nature resources must not be seriously harm by it. Tourism is without a doubt among the world’s highest profitable industries (whether on the cost of environment) and relationship between tourism and environment can get equilibrate if financial profits gets used for the conservation programs or environmental sustainability.

Impacts of Tourism on environment:

All activities consume resources and produce waste, possibly all these activities has a potential to spoil the environment, and in same context Tourism is no exception. Tourism has developed as a largest industry and any activity happens at a mass level definitely leaves it’s positive and negative impacts, such as tourism did in the past. Although not the case that every environmental problem is produced by tourism but still being a mass industry it affects on a wider platform.

Negative Impacts:

The harmful impact of tourism can destroy the natural environment when the negative impacts on the environment are sufficiently intensive and extensive. Such as damaging biodiversity of particular areas which includes holiday retreats, clearing of vegetation for constructing resorts and hotels or other tourism facilities, and also many rare species have been brought to the verge of disappearance due to non-tourism nuisance which are directly related to tourism. Habitat devastation brought by unrestrained and ill planned tourism is the prime cause of extinction of species which eventually destroy the natural balance, but destruction of biodiversity can have far reaching effects than this. Another negative impact is the depletion of natural resources like water, land and resources like food, energy or raw materials etc. which are already in short supply. Degradation of land resources like wood or plantations is another example of the negative impacts of tourism on the natural environment. Solid waste littering is more common in the case of trekking, rock climbing or hiking tourists. Tourism also pollutes the tourism sites with noise and air pollutions, problems are more compounded in countries or regions which lack or does not have the ability to effectively treat such forms of pollutants generated from tourism activities. Tourism development is more or less responsible for most of the harmful impacts that tourism has on the natural environment. The cutting down of forested areas, changing the landscape etc all have negative impacts on the ecological balance of the tourism destination, whereas levels of impact may vary from site to site, but the negative impacts of tourism on the environment cannot be ignored. The negative impacts are intensely visible in ecologically fragile environments.

Whether from generating a new site or a heritage site used for different prospective, somehow environment is getting a hard time by this. By pollution, numbers of persons using limited resources, behaviour of tourists while on holidays and so on are some of the causes which directly or indirectly affects environment. It may include both physical and cultural aspects. Unless managing at all level it is difficult to provide specific consideration to each resource and this is how this becomes a negative aspect towards tourism, environment has to pay such cost by loss to the natural settings to beaches, coral reefs or heritage sites.

Effluence caused by tourism main concerns faced by tourism trade today. The sewage waste from tourist resorts are drained into the rivers causing pollution in the river water and eventually to sea bed, it highly affects the marine life. Extreme use of natural resource that is fossil fuel to generate energy for tourist activity, the activities of overfishing, unnecessary use of ground water resources, are only few of problems which are created by tourism industry which in turn causes the reduction of the resource.

As tourism grows, it also give hands to increased littering, various forms of pollution e.g. noise, water, air. Sewage and waste got increased sometimes to uncontrollable levels. Alongside need for transportation gets high and number of vehicles produces numerous gases and noise in air. In areas where resources are limited, tourism develops a sense of competition, leading to all sorts of degradation. Such harmful impacts are majorly brought by poor management or lack of proper conservation mechanism in place.

Positive impacts:

However with all these harmful effects, the environment is also gaining the optimistic outcome of tourism. Tourism is moving towards a sustainable side by helping and preserving the natural resources for the future generation. Various nations and its conservative organisations are implementing strict plans for conserving their flora and fauna and protecting their natural resources.

We should not only see at the dark side of the moon if tourism has its costs, its pays back as well, as tourism grows it definitely encourage several other industries to rise side by side. Whenever a destination is selected to develop as a tourism destination government and planning sources put efforts for the regeneration of the place. It consists of revitalisation of an area or a site and beautifies the local environment. Thus this process brings new colours to the site. Any vital site when comes under tourism perspective, its natural resources gets special attention from the managing bodies, where as educated tourism developers knows the value of a natural resource and keeping this in mind they prevent any misuse or damage to it.

According to Swarbrooke (1999) the term sustainable tourism can be defined as the approach towards tourism in which more focus is shown in preservation of the natural resources in a way that they can be consumed by the present generation and can be preserved for the future generation as well.

Tourism can therefore no longer be seen as a harmful factor to environment. Economically, many areas in the world have benefitted from tourism and conservations are taking place on a higher level in many countries.

‘There is an urgent need to understand the relationships between tourists, tourism and the environment. Many new forms of tourist consumption revolve around environmental quality and the respect for nature. One more reason for the negative picture of tourism might be that it is difficult to disentangle the impact of tourism from other forms of economic activity in certain destination areas’. Shaw g., Williams A.M. (2002)

Numerous examples and case studies are available where tourism has proven a saviour to drowning economies, along with economical benefits; it is helpful in urbanisation of dead towns. Due to tourism many businesses develop and people get employed, on a social level tourism keeps all communities together and connected. Any tourist’s social involvement and habits are controlled by the behaviour in which s/he is coming from and an insight can be developed in order to gain positive response from tourists. Appropriate educational information system towards environment is rising as very useful tool.

How tourism can enhance environmental conservation-

If tourism destroys the environment with negative impacts, it also plays a very big role in the preservation of the natural environment of the destination areas. As tourism industry benefits from the tourism sites, it should be its morally responsible to take a pivotal role in the conservation of the natural setting from which it gets benefits. An appropriate and well managed tourism approach can reduce the pessimistic impact of tourism on the natural environment.

Appropriate use of earned revenue- Though the profits earned from the tourism conduct is the major contribution of the tourism trade to the efforts of preservation of the environment, educating the tourist is also an essential aspect in the effort of conservation of the natural environment. The revenue earned from various tourist activities brings in the wealth which enables organisations to focus on the conservational efforts. Without the money, conservation process is nothing. Though, concern must be taken to see that the managers of such destinations or sites are not tempted to enlarge the visitation upper limit as the money starts to flow, thinking that the money thus earned from tourist activities like entry fees will be enough to address the very issues caused by the increased visitation. If this persuasion is not overlooked, than the natural environment will suffer more thereby negating the effective use of money from tourism for the conservation of the environment. The conservationists who have the expertise and authority should make an effort to take control and focus on the maintenance of the environment.

Developing eco-tourism- Another most important method is to bring a change from the basic idea of mainstream conventional tourism. This can be achieved by propagating the initiative of sustainable tourism and eco-tourism which are far more environmental friendly and aims at nourishing both the external and the internal environment of the destination. Adopting the idea of such forms of tourism plays a significant role in the conservation of the natural environment. Fundamental principles of these forms are inclined towards reducing the ill effects of tourism on the environment without compromising the value of experience that the visitors can get from visiting the sites.

In further part of this essay I have mentioned and elaborated how this alternate tourism is developing these days.

Sound planning- Sound environmental management of tourism amenities like resorts and hotels can enhance the benefits to natural areas; requirement is careful planning of tourism development which is based on the environmental resources existing in the destination area. For example clearing of vast areas of vegetation or forest to build resorts, holiday retreats, etc and changing of the landscape to appear more appealing to the tourist. While doing this, the natural environment or to be precise the biodiversity or the ecology of the area is being affected. So care should be taken to see that tourism development causes least impact on the environment. This again can be done by creating eco friendly resorts or buildings which will have the least impact on the surroundings. Tourism also has the potential of raising awareness of the environmental problems among the people by bringing them into close contact with the surroundings. Tourism cannot be sustainable if the surroundings or the environment of the destination is not sustainable in itself.

Developing awareness among tourists- Conservationists should offer means by which people using the particular destination, both locals and tourists can be made aware of the importance of maintaining the environment. In fact they can encourage the people to contribute towards maintaining the environmental balance. Conscious effort to transform and develop the destination should be the aim of the environmentalists and the development projects, keeping in mind the positive possibility as well as the downfall of the environment with extreme tourism. A way in which tourism can contribute to the conservation process is by having an appropriate mechanism for the dealing with pollution and sewages generated from tourism activities. Various means can be used to minimise the impact of tourism on the environment. Appropriate interpretation can remove negative facts of the site and educate and inform the tourist on the diverse aspects related to the environment. This can lead to the visitor’s greater understanding of the environment and thus act in a more responsible manner and hence minimise the impact caused by them. Implementation of visitation limits, proper rules regulations and mentioning the environmental issues caused by tourism at its early stage can imply a big difference in the conservation of the natural environment.

Helping wildlife preservations- Tourism also plays a vital role in the preservation and protection of various species of endangered species which is a vital part of the natural environment. Nature loving tourists visit wildlife reserves and in doing so contribute to the conservation process. Tourism can play major role in the conservation process in various other ways. The tourism industry can also organise campaigns to raise awareness of the environmental issues affecting nature or wildlife and in doing so can also built up a good image which has been often criticised in the last few decades for the negative impacts it has caused to the wildlife destinations.

Alternate tourism is developing- A new breed of tourists is developing called eco-tourists and sustainability came in light in 80’s due to previously happened mass destruction in environmental resources. Sustainable Development concept came in attention from 1980’s and in March 1980, World Conservation Strategy (WCS) was prepared. IUCN, UNEP, WWF, FFO and UNESCO joined hands for world’s living resources. WCS was a conservation strategy where ecosystem degradation-destruction, deforestation, desertification, pollution, soil erosion and genetic diversity and extinction of species and many related issues were in discussion.

The relationship between economic development and the conservation and sustenance of natural resources is concept of sustainable development. Though these thoughts were already in air from many years at that time but WCS discussed many drastic changes happening to environment and WCS was proven as a bridge between prior thoughts and later actions. Another major outcome was establishment of WCED (World commission on environment and development) in 1983, Gro Harlem Brundtland (PM Norway) was appointed chairperson for this commission and in 1987 he publicised a report known as Brundtland Report (Our Common Future) in which ‘Sustainability’ were originally popularised-

Sustainable development is development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (According to WCED 1987:43) cited in Hall, C.M. and Lew, A.A. 1998

Certainly sustainability consists of strategy making, preservation of ecological processes, protection of heritage and biodiversity, futuristic focused productivity and balance between social behaviour and environment. Along with the global acceptance of International tourism, sustainability also got recognised as a key element towards long term beneficial policies along with saving limited resources. Destination areas have developed to accommodate all these travellers, and receiving them and catering their needs has also become part of a daily routine.

‘Development is a highly contested concept and since the Second World War debates over what it is, and how to achieve it, has gone through a number of phases. International tourism has been a global phenomenon from centuries, but that packaging of tourism for mass consumption dates back to the mid-19th century, when a specific service sector devoted to the mass consumption of travel emerged, roughly parallel to the development of mass production in the industrial sector’. Harrison, D. (ed.) (2001)

As people are not tends to be flexible when it comes to implementing rules and regulation, especially when visitors are on holidays, Author B Wheeller describes in his words. And what sort of touristic approach is needed is “Tourism at one with nature; non-consumption, non-exploitative, avoiding degradation and destruction of the ‘environment’, but rather tourism in harmony, in balance with nature” Wheeller, B. (1994)

Conclusion

Based upon the statements and codes-of-conduct developed by tourism stakeholders, that the environment has been placed on the outline as a major concern of how tourism is to be developed potentially.

Thus all these negative and positive effects of tourism on the environment, brings us to a conclusion that tourism can be treated in negative as well as positive aspect in regards to the environment. The negative impacts can be reduced by taking initiative towards conserving natural resources. There are various tools that can be used to protect the environment like collecting income in the form of taxes. All these examples however show us a positive picture about how the tourism industry and the environment are co-dependent to each other for their mutual existence. Though there are many negative aspects to tourism, we can still say that tourism has the tools to protect, preserve and enhance natural resources and the environment.

Therefore Tourism and natural environment can both co-exist and be mutually beneficial to each other if the tourism industry has the willingness to pull in full support to the conservation efforts of the natural environment. In doing so, it can help maintain the environment and also recover from the negative image that it has built up for itself during the last few decades. Proper and efficient planning and management accompanied by strict implantation, strict rules and regulations, proper interpretation, propagating the idea of sustainable consumption, well planned eco tourism and sustainable tourism and educating the tourist and making them aware of the impacts of their actions which may have negative impacts on the environment are some of the few ways in which tourism sector can contribute in the conservation process of the natural environment. There cannot be a limit to the extent tourism can contribute to the process and there cannot be an end to its contribution towards environmental conservation because as long as tourism exists, the negative impacts of tourist will be evident on the natural environment. There is no doubt accepting the fact that tourism brings in money. But even then, care must be taken to make sure that the economic growth brought by the tourism industry must contribute to the natural environment processes and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Academic References:

Brunn and Kalland (1995:1) cited in Holden, A. (2008) Environment and Tourism (2nd edition), Routledge)

Bull (1991:1) cited in Holden, A. (2008) Environment and Tourism (2nd edition), Routledge)

Franklin (2003:33) cited in Holden, A. (2008) Environment and Tourism (2nd edition), Routledge)

Hall, C.M. and Lew, A.A. 1998. The geography of sustainable tourism development: an introduction. Harlow: Longman.

Harrison, D. (ed.) (2001) Tourism and the Less Developed World: Issues and Case Studies. Wallingford: CABI. Ch. 1.

Holden, A. (2008) Environment and Tourism (2nd edition), Routledge.

Hunter, C. and Green, H. (1995) Tourism and the Environment: A sustainable relationship? Routledge, London.

Shaw G., Williams A.M. (2002) 2nd ed. Critical issues in tourism: a geographical perspective: Oxford.

Swarbrooke, J. (1999) Sustainable Tourism Management. CABI Publishing, Wallingford.

Wheeller, B. (1994) Egotourism, sustainable tourism and the environment: a symbiotic, symbolic or shambolic relationship? in A.V. Seaton et al., eds. Tourism: The State of the Art, Wiley, Chichester.

This paper seeks to identify and discuss the development of the tourism industry in Port Antonio, Jamaica. Information was gathered using various sources. A visit was made to Port Antonio in order to better understand how tourism was practiced in this resort area, both residents and visitors were interviewed to get a feel of what was going on in that area and internet sources were also used.

Tourism is the travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. (answers.com), it is the operation of vacations and visits to places of interest.

The tourism industry consists of business aspects such as accommodations, transportation and facilities for dining, shopping and entertainment to cater to a travellers’ experience. (Pileus Project)

History of Tourism in Port Antonio

In 1723, Portland was officially known and recognized as parish which was named after a former Governor of Jamaica. The existing port was to be called Port Antonio and was slated to become a naval stronghold. In 1729, the British built Fort George on a peninsula disjoining the twin west and east harbors known as the Ticthfield promontory. The fort was developed intended to protect in landers from attacks from the Spaniards and the Maroons. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

The Maroons signed a peace treaty with the British in 1739 which led to a new era in the development of Portland. The parish then became populated with settlers thus the cultivation of sugar begun. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

With the development of the banana industry, Portland’s fortunes improved in the late 19th century. The type of soil provided in Portland and addition to its heavy rainfall suited the cultivation of banana that provided any social class farmer to make of profit of this industry. Banana is a type or crop that grows rapidly and can be reaped in one year time. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

Lorenzo Dow Baker is the man who was single-handedly responsible for the exportation of banana in the 1870s. During this period Jamaica’s production of sugar was decreasing and in the blink of an eye, their protected market was finished. Therefore a new crop for export was needed and that was where Baker came in to play. (Pieces of the past, 2002) In 1688, a well-known botanist by the name of Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum jotted the existence of bananas in Jamaica. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

Baker inspired Jamaicans to cultivate banana with the challenge, “the first man who has ten acre of bananas will be rich!” His bananas were then sold for almost US$3 each in Boston. In 1879 Lorenzo Baker became the advocate for a new shipping company that allowed him to increase his transportation of bananas. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

Lorenzo Baker began using his steam engines to transport tourists and bananas which was the only mean of travelling to and from Jamaica to other countries in those times. As visits to Jamaica increased, in the 1900s Mr. Baker created the astonishing Titchfield Hotel located on Titchfield Hill that quickly became popularized with tourist thus causing Portland to become the place where Tourism first started in Jamaica. The hotel became recognized for its afternoon tea on the piazza and cleansing in bath houses. The hotel was once claimed to be owned by Errol Flynn, a famous swashbuckler. Errol had died before further developing the attraction. The hotel was destroyed by a fire in the 1960s so currently, only the remains of this historic landmark still stands. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

In 1903, Portland experienced a calamitous hurricane that demolished fields of banana.In 1929, Farmers of Banana assembled and formed the Jamaica Banana Producers Association. Members of this association operated as one to secure their independence, position and controk in the Trade from other huge competitors. With assistance from the government, few years along, the Jamaica Producers Association was handling an abundant portion of the trade and by operating their own shipping company. In 1936 the Association became a privatized but is still operated by banana farmers. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

The banana industry drastically increased with three hundred and fifty-five thousand tonnes of export in 1936 but few years down the line it died. Currently, the Jamaica Producers Group of Companies with the assistance of All Island Banana Growers Association continues to cater to the interests of the island’s farmers of bananas. (Pieces of the past, 2002)

Types of Tourism practiced in Port Antonio
Impacts of Tourism in Port Antonio
Environmental Impact

Tourism has often flourished in this parish. Because of its natural attractions, any expansion into this sensitive area might damage the environment. Port Antonio is highly dependent on its natural resources from which it generates its income. In this parish’s present state, the landforms and water bodies caters to the habitats for many plants and animals; however there is need to develop proper resource management systems relevant to the influx of tourist. When it rains it gives lush vegetation but also leads to drainage problems to tourist areas. (Mcintosh)

Port Antonio offers an enchanting vacation experience even though it’s still in need of proper infrastructure. Hurricane Sandy has cause severe damage to the environment in Portland but with help from the government Port Antonio has managed to get back on its feet. Other environmental impacts include: pollution, harassment to visitors, air and noise pollution and deforestation.

Social Impact

The culture and the local population’s values are respected as well as the community’s identity. There are several historical monuments there which they are trying to preserve. One of the more important social aspect is the improvement in the services and facilities, bays, parks, transport, etc. On the negative side, the residents have become servants of the tourist and this has created resentment towards the visitors and appears areas of social tension.

Because tourism involves travelling from one destination to another, tourists will come across meeting new individuals of different cultures and as a result, cultural controversies may sometime occur between persons of different religion, ethnic group or more. More so, the attitude towards tourists by local residence may fluctuate. Residents may start of welcoming to the visitors but then develop certain resentment towards them. (Coast learn)

Economic

This speaks to factors such as employment, income, interest rate, productivity and wealth.

Current development in the travel and tourism trade reinforces trends towards a more cheap and flexible employment conditions. Children are sometimes recruited for such jobs, because they are cheap and flexible employees (Coast learn)

All involving member (the citizens, the tourism industry and the visitors) have invested interest in the management of the environmental resource base and a duty to do their part to support this management. If the environment is degraded all parties stand to lose – visitors will fail to come (or will be willing to pay less) and the countries will lose an important source of economic benefit. In other words the environment will produce reduced economic, ecological, and amenity benefits. (Edwards, 2009)

Role of tourism centers

A tourism information centre is an organizational structure where workers assist tourists, locally and internationally with the bookings of accommodations, sightseeing and transportation services. (Hayward, Marvell, Reynolds, & Stewart, 2005) The Jamaica Tourist Board, established in 1955 has on three branches located across the island (Kingston, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios). The role of the Jamaica Tourist Board is to market and endorse Jamaica as a destination. (Jamaica Tourist Board)

Currently there are no tourism boards or centers located in Port Antonio according to a representative working at the Jamaica Tourist Board Information Centre, but I do believe there is a need for one in that particular vicinity and every parish to be exact being as how they operate as a guide for servicing tourists who may want to explore the area. Tourists are going to need information of attractions that suit their interest to visit and how to get there. Therefore, the development of one would be most convenient for them.

Modes of transportations

Port Antonio is accessible by land, air and sea but the most favorable mode is by land. There’s a transportation center that extends along the waterfront where buses and taxis leave regularly, transfers from the airport to this area is offered by JUTA.

Ken Jones Aerodrome (913-3173) located 9km west of Port Antonio, no longer receiving flights from Air Jamaica Express at last visit. These days the only incoming flights are private planes and chartered flights of International Airlink and TimAir. Most upscale hotels offer free transfers to and from the Ken Jones Aerodrome for guests. (Lonely planet)

The Errol Flynn Marina, accessible by sea, offers customs clearance for private vessels (Lonely planet). This marina is also being used by the coast guards of a nearby police station.

Support Services in Port Antonio

Tourism is a very important part of Jamaica’s economy. People from all over the world travel to Jamaica for holiday yearly to experience the island’s pleasant climate, year round sunshine, the lovely white sand beaches and beautiful landscapes.

Port Antonio is a major resort area in the country of Jamaica. Many might not know that tourism was mainly started in this area and is still a main resort where tourist from all over the globe wants to experience. Port Antonio, which is the capital of Portland, has all the necessary support services to facilitate tourism. The area has many attractions, adequate transportation for tourist travel and many restaurants that tourist would like to feast at. The area also provides exquisite accommodation for tourist stay. One of the hotels located in Port Antonio is the Goblin Hill Villas. This resort is a very wonderful and pleasant place for tourist. Many tourists, when visiting Jamaica and desire to stay in Port Antonio, make reservations to stay at the Goblin Hill Villas. The resort offers many facilities to influence tourist stay. One of these facilities includes: a white sand beach protected by a coral reef, perfect for snorkeling. It was said by a visitor to the hotel, on trip advisor, that “beautiful property, full of character”.

Most tourist visit Jamaica to experience the wonderful attractions, do Jamaican activities or just to live the Jamaican lifestyle that they hear about. In Port Antonio there are many attractions and activities that tourist would love to experience for themselves. Most tourists, when visiting this resort area in Jamaica, make it a duty to have the experience of rafting the Rio Grande River. Rafting on the Rio Grande River was supposedly started by the legendary Hollywood star, Errol Flynn, to entertain his guest. Rafting on the Rio Grande is safe, and is done by a skilled, licensed raft captain. While tourists are on their rafting adventure on the Rio Grande River, they will pass through lover’s lane; this is also a tourist favorite. Rio Grande rafting provides some of the most beautiful views in Jamaica and on your 3 hour, 6 mile adventure; you will surely grasp knowledge of the wonderful island of Jamaica.

Another favorite attraction of tourist who visits the Port Antonio resort area is the Boston bay beach. Boston bay beach is famous throughout Jamaica and even the world, but not for its white pearly sand, nor for its clear and beautiful water, but mainly for the food. Boston bay is said to be the place where jerk food was originated from. When tourist are in the resort area of Port Antonio and are hungry for some tasty jerk food, this would be the place they rather to go. Boston bay hosts the Portland jerk festival once a year. Boston bay beach is also said to be a well known surf spot, maybe even be the best in Jamaica.

The blue lagoon is the next major attraction in the resort area of Port Antonio. The blue lagoon is a natural lagoon, located seven miles east of Port Antonio. The lagoon was thought of to be bottomless, but divers have discovered that it is 180 feet in depth. Tourist from all over will try to visit the blue lagoon to see the beauty of the lagoon or just to take a swim in it. The most attractive feature of the lagoon is its mysterious blue colour, which changes throughout the day, depending on where the sun is. If you spend a day on the blue lagoon, you will see a colour change of turquoise to sapphire. The Blue hole was the original name of the site, but because of the filming of the move Blue Lagoon, the name was then changed. The blue lagoon has attracted many tourists from all over the world visiting Jamaica. No matter which resort area tourist stays, they tend to want to make a trip to the Blue Lagoon.

Great huts in another pleasing hotel in the resort area of Port Antonio. It is located in boston bay, near to the boston bay beach. Great huts villa is actually different from most hotels. Instead of the normal modern, everyday hotel rooms, great hut gives to the tourists huts that are very comfortable and looks very antique. There are now windows in the rooms at Great huts, the rooms are just open to nature. Staying at Great huts villa, you will also get a beautiful view of the ocean, just outside your window is the boston bay beach. Great huts villa provide facilities such as a swimming pool, a library and laundry facilities etc. amenities include: in-room massage, housekeeping, arrange of wedding services, catering etc. Great huts villa is the right place for you, if you want something different and away from the normal tourist destinations.

Port Antonio provides adequate transportation services to facilitate tourism in the area. One such means of transportation is car rentals. Most travelers will rent a vehicle before they arrive in Port Antonio, to make their travel easier and more comfortable. It is easier to get through Port Antonio than other resort areas such as Montego Bay and Ocho Rios.

Another means of transportation that is carried out in Port Antonio is the taxi services. Not as many taxis are in Port Antonio as the other resort areas, but this is still the most popular mode of transportation for visitors. Taxi rates in this resort area are done by car, not by passenger. Fares would be as low as US $5-7 for 10 miles, so a tourist must agree to a set price by the taxi driver, before vehicle moves off to the required destination.

Bus service is another popular means of transportation that is provided in Port Antonio. This means of transportation can be tiring, slow and crowded. Majority of the buses doesn’t contain air conditioning and this could be a turnoff for tourist who chose this means of travel. Bus fare is about US $1 for 30-40 miles.

This means of transportation is mainly used by tourist to explore and get familiar with the area and its attractions. Guided canopy tours will be provided for travellers of all ages and fitness levels. The tours will carry visitors to historic locations in the vicinity such as Mooretown, working banana plantations and local waterfalls.

There are many restaurants in the resort area of Port Antonio that tourist like to go, but according to trip advisor, a place called Bush Bar is the number one restaurant, ranked by tourists. The Bush Bar restaurant is located at the Geejam hotel. They serve an assortment of continental and Jamaican cuisines. The restaurant also has a beautiful view of the ocean in Port Antonio.

Another famous restaurant in the area is the Juicy Beef Patties. Tourists love to eat patties and the Juicy Beef Patty restaurant would be the perfect restaurant for patty lovers on vacation in the resort area of Port Antonio. The Juicy Beef Patty restaurant is ranked number three on trip advisor for restaurants in the resort area of Port Antonio.

Marketing of Port Antonio

Port Antonio is marketed through a well-known travelling website created by the Jamaica Tourist Board where they promote the area through extravagant photographs and videos. They provide potential travelers with access to brief descriptions of the vicinity as well as a list of various products and services available within the area such attractions, accommodations, restaurants, activities and events to capture the tourist’s interest. (JTB Information Portal)

Conclusion

Based on what we have seen, heard and read we can safely say that Port Antonio is one of the best resort area in Jamaica. It is all reserved, natural and rich in history. The only thing left for potential tourists to do is to go and experience it for themselves.

According to Kreag G. (2001) the impacts of tourism are distinguished in seven different types, these are economic, service, social and cultural, natural, community attitude, crowding and congestion and taxes. These impacts are not applicable with every community because the resources and conditions are may differ. ‘Every coin has two sides’, means these impacts can affect negatively or positively. Planning and the plans of management with their current implementation helps to increase positive tourism issues and decreases tourism issues (Algansadi, 2009). In economic term, tourism helps to maximize the opportunities of employment like more number of jobs starting from entry level caries low wedges to high professional level positions in management and industrial fields. In service term, increase in tourism helps to create more number of opportunities to rise and develop facilities. According to Andriotis K. (2009) in terms of community attitude, as tourism increases range of facilities are used by the local people. Tourism helps to create place more thrilling and exciting. As new development is done by outsiders, community culture is get affected. In terms of crowding and congestion, people come together and get attracted to amazing places. In terms of taxes, tourist spends more money on behalf of services from which value added tax is gained.

According to Fennell (2008) in terms of social and cultural, it is in detail consideration of tourism consequence which can be the determinants or assets to the communities. Increase in number of tourist comes with their different values and affects the family life and individual behaviour. The close relation between tourist and the residents helps to create rise in opportunities.

Positive impacts of social and cultural are, the education and training plays important role for local people to learn and enhance their qualification and skills which is significant in tourism industry also help trained staff in the organisations. It helps to increase the standard life of the local people with positive economic growth. Increase in tourist spending power help to increase income of local person (Chin C.,2010). It helps to raise investment with the buying process of food, dress, culture and ceremonies etc, which can create tourist interest in the local culture. Negative impacts of social and cultural affects, increase in smuggling, gambling, drinking of alcohol also with the increase in underage drinking, rise in prostitution, drugs and crime. It affects lifestyle, culture, and most important language. Increase in the tourism area affects local residents. There is a negative impact on customs and values of local people (Kreag G., 2001).

In terms of natural, the areas of natural resources like oceans, waterfall, wildlife forests increases tourist attraction and new residents who loves the natural environment. Generally “clean” industry is known as tourism industry, hotels, parks, restaurants, shops are comes under that except factories. The historical and museums get preserved (Kreag G., 2001). Positive impacts as it work as a catalyst to preserve natural area also helps to gain economic benefits. Forests are preserved. The ecotourism is maintained which protects and preserve selected natural environment, also gain economic benefits of tourism development and reduces the impact on environment (Andereck K. L., 1993). Natural system also have negative effects like, it strongly affects on air and water pollution also sedimentation effects with demonising the forests for the tourist services (Kreag G., 2001). Flora and fauna has deep researched on wild life which includes mammals and birds arises the hunting and trapping activities increases also the marine life is get affected when toxic waste water runoff in sea. The soil and beaches are get damaged with the skies, cars, feet, horse etc. Oil refining situated in coastal areas with the water pollution and destruction. Solid waste major effects on soil and air pollution recycle and reusable helps to minimize the pollution (Mukherjee and Abir, 2008).

Okavango Delta is the amazing tourist place situated in north-western part of Botswana. It’s a home of wildlife where most of the tourist comes for photography and safari hunter. Annually, on average 50,000 tourists visit this place (Mbaiwa J., 2002). Tourism development has boost to create and enhance facilities like hotels, camps, airports, communication services, etc in region. This development has impacts on environment and socio – culture of region (Mbaiwa J., 2004). In positive aspect, the region major land is used for tourism development with helping local people to increase benefits from developing of natural resources and wildlife. Local people created an institution known as “Community – based Organisation” (CBOs) which help for tourism development and natural resource management. Institute distribute work in small parts, like ‘Khawai Community’ works on cutting of thatching grass and see it to the lodges in Delta, similarly others also choose their parts. This helps to empowerment of local community in region. 2) Tourism development widely creates employment which benefits for the financial development. Opportunities in jobs like accommodation services, tourism business, management, tour – operators, etc. The company like ‘Scot Wilson Consultants’ gave jobs to people in 20 ‘safari campuses’ (Mbaiwa J., 2002).As all the local communities has only create jobs and opportunities instead of depending on other companies. 3) Cultural rejuvenations promote tourism with their traditionally created products, services, shops, craft industries, etc which provides cultural services to the tourist to know cultural ways. The ‘Mekoro Safaris’ and ‘basket production’ are the major known businesses over there. The safaris are created like the dug in a wood, which use for transport and for hunting crocodiles and hippos. The basket production is their traditional business, which helps to generate more profit from the tourists as market comes to their home. 4) Positive approach among the local people, for development of tourism and conservation of wildlife helps to develop tourism and social economic benefits from tourist arrivals (Mbaiwa J., 2004).

According to Mbaiwa (2002) as negative aspect, tourism industry developed in Okavango Delta is largely owned and managed by internationals and developed in remote areas. The financial rates are so high that all services and goods beyond the local community richness. Major profit in earned by international companies and the margined income of the local people is low. The facilities are provided with which the tourist is comfortable. Most of the camps are run by Hospitality and Tourism Association with the international membership. 2) Racism development in tourism industry of Okavango Delta refers to relationship between black and white people. Management levels are occupied by whites, pay scale and benefits are very low for blacks (Fennell A., 2008). 3) Relations and structure of family is affecting by tourism. Foreign companies growing lodges and camps, less space to live local people accept wildness part. Relocate people affects their landmarks and relations. Working period of workers affects relationship with family and this impact on increases in HIV/ADIS spread. 3) Tourism and urbanisation put wide negative impact on social culture. The costumes and styles affect relationships. Prostitution is growing in most of the developing countries as urbanisation develops most impacts on local people. Tourism is the major economic sector, which increases in crime with illegal activities like drugs, violence and robberies (Mbaiwa, 2002, 2004).

Thus, looking back at the easy, tourism is growing rapidly dealing with positive and negative impacts on the tourist place. Increasing infrastructure put impacts on natural system. Its positive image is excellent for people but the negative image affects culture. Mainly socio cultural positive impact helps to development of tourist destination. Tourism helps to maintain nature and its components. Also it helps to create place attractive and thrilling. Development of tourism increases job opportunities. Positive impact of social culture help local people to educate with training, improves life standards and maintain their culture. Negative side effects mostly on diverse economic and culture, rise in crime, place issues, illegal behaviour.

Tourism is developing in Okavango Delta with combining positive and negative social cultural impacts on local people. Its positive impacts helps to develop destination mainly community based tourism. Participating local people helps to generate income and employment by self. ‘Mekoro Safaries’ and ‘Basket making’ helps to preserve their own culture. Tourism help local people to get international market at their place. Its negative social impacts affect on quality life of local people. Its important to focus on these impacts by all stakeholders of industry. The camps should be promoted but should not owned by international. The local people should get first preference in management jobs and there should be law to prevent racism.

Tourism industry nowadays is one of the worlds largest and dynamically developing sectors of external economic activities. For most of the country, tourism industry is the major economic and social phenomenond social phenomen the ground of and it has been predicted that it could be the largest income-generating source for a country in the coming year because tourism industry is the three main international industries along with the petrol and motorized vehicles. Southeast Asia is full and rich with the cultural and heritage sites which are worth for preserving and conserving. For the people in the country, these places help them to understand about their past, enrich their present lives and lay the foundation for their future generations. They inhabitants continue to practice and learn from their traditional beliefs, social practices and ritual and to use traditional management regimes to sustain the monuments and surrounding landscape that have nurtured them for several generations. Tourism is one of the world’s most profitable and fastest growing industries, if proper manage by the government of a country, which can be the effective tool for the conservation of culture and heritage sites and nature environment. It offers many economic benefits to the public and communities living in or near the cultural and heritage sites in terms of working opportunities, vitalization of the traditional crafts and cultural practices and opportunities for the inhabitants to express pride in their culture.

Problem statement

However, the uncontrolled tourism can also cause irreversible damage to physical and intangible heritage resources. These cultural and heritage sites in Southeast Asia region are under threat from different aspects and issues, such as the passage of the time, the forces of nature and disaster, modernization, uncontrolled development and population growth because these cultural and heritages sites is the powerful and strong magnet for the tourists who is interested on the rich cultural experience. Due to the high growth and development rates of tourism industry, volume of the foreign currency inflows which is considerable, infrastructure development, and introduction of new management and education experience dynamically might affect several different sectors of the economy, which might cause some impacts to the social and economic development of the country as a whole. This research intends to investigate and search on what are the impacts that the countries in Southeast Asia are actually facing, and examine the impact and how does the impact affect the countries in Southeast Asia. Also search on whether the government come out with any way or method to overcome such impart in the country.

Research objectives

Due to the preserving and conserving of the cultural and heritage sites, every country will come out different ways of management. Tourism industry will affect various aspects and issues within a country which bring a lot of impacts. Then publication is now focusing on the impact of tourism in every Asia pacific country. The uncontrolled tourism will cause different damages and impacts to both the economy and social sectors. To study on the impacts of tourism industry in Asia pacific region, may help to improve the advantages and prevent the disadvantages within the country.

Research question

-What are the impacts that the countries in Southeast Asia are actually facing?

-What is the most common impact that the countries in Southeast Asia is facing?

-What is the cause of the impact?

-How does the impact affect the countries in Southeast Asia?

-Is there any way or method to overcome the impact?

Hypothesis statement

Impacts can be divided into positive and negative impact. According to the impact of tourism in each country, it possibly will greatly affect the country. Normally the economic impact of tourism in each country is positive impact. As for social and environmental impact, these possibly will cause many social issues and problems if the government of the country did not handle it properly and apply or set any law enforcement. The morality in the country might get worsen and tourism industry will fall greatly due to the social issues and problems. Tourists would not like to travel to such a place which has many issues and problems. Environmental impact of tourism is more likely that the cultural and heritages site will be destroy by the exceed amount of tourists and also those who do not have the perception of recycle. The discharge of sewage will increase and it will destroy the beautiful natural environment in a country. Once the government able to sustain the environmental and stabilize the social problems and issues, then it will improve the tourism industry and attract more tourists.

Theoretical and conceptual framework

The purpose of this research paper is to research on the positive and negative impacts of tourism in Southeast Asia. The report would like to inform about the impacts that tourists might have to aware of when they travel to Southeast Asia countries.

This research proposal is mostly use the information that can be obtained from some journals and websites. From those journals and websites, researcher is able to obtain the information on impacts of tourism in Southeast Asia countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, and Philippines. It is important for researcher to use the true information and facts in order to convince the tourists about the positive and negative impacts of tourism in Southeast Asia. By informing the tourists about the impacts, then the tourists can have more awareness in their tour and travel in Southeast Asia. With the true information and facts can also know that how the impacts will affect the economic, social, environmental and etc. sector.

It is also to research on what actions have been taken or rules and regulation or law enforcement by the government of the countries in Southeast Asia.

View on tourism in Southeast Asia

Impacts of tourism in Southeast Asia

Impacts of tourism in Malaysia

Impacts of tourism in Burma

Impacts of tourism in Thailand

Impacts of tourism in Singapore

Significance of study

The purpose of this proposal is to find out the impacts of the tourism in Southeast Asia countries. Most of the social impacts of tourism in Southeast Asia are facing the sex tourism which is actually quite serious. Sex tourism is one of the problems that spread disease and from the research, there are some say that tourists from other countries do brought in the disease sometimes. There are also positive impacts of tourism and most of the country gets benefits from the tourism industry. Economic do improve and generate many jobs opportunities from the tourism industry. But it also bring harm to the environmental impact because the rapid growth of tourism industry, the government of the country will build more infrastructure in order to increase the carrying capacity of the tourists every year.

Scope and limitation

This research paper is only emphasizing on the impacts of tourism in Southeast Asia. To understand the view from the people so I actually trying to get some books or journal which specify on certain topic.

The collection of the date is restricted because there are many books and journals cannot be read due to the copyright issues. Therefore, researcher gets as many as data and read. After read then try to elaborate and briefly explain on what written on the data.

Basically the research is done purely based on the researcher own opinion and thoughts from the information and data obtained. All the data and information are limited and can be found and obtained from the websites and journals which are free.

Chapter 2: Literature review
2.1 Introductions on impacts of the tourism

Tourism is greatly affected and impact on the local communities in every country in the world. It can be both a source of income for a country, understanding towards a country and also a destroyer and corrupter of the cultures, social and environment in a country. The impacts of tourism are a popular and common topic in every country since tourism industry is now one of the largest industries in the world. Usually the most common impacts of the tourism industry we can found are the economic, environment, social and health aspects. By using the literature about the tourism as a baseline, should be able to found some impacts in each of the country and try to identify ways in whether these impacts can be affect positively or negatively. Tourism is able to bring benefits to a society or country in variety and different ways, yet there are also some inevitable negative impacts of tourism. Tourists and visitors are actually stood quite an important role towards the impact of tourism in a country. Tourists and visitors should be able to be attentive to the positive impact and aware for the negative side of the impacts.

2.2 Impacts of tourism in Malaysia

Tourism industry has greatly impact on Malaysia because tourism industry is the second largest industry in Malaysia. The social impact of tourism which Malaysia is facing is the growing industry of human trafficking. Sex tourism is a very common negative impact which can be found in all over the Southeast Asia country. In the sex tourism industry, majority of it are children which below the age of 18. Exploitation is normally driven by the wealth, poverty, unfair development, races and gender discrimination, corruption of traditional and cultural practices, lack of political will to end it. Based on one of the journal, most of the Malaysian children and women are sent to Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Canada, USA, Europe and Australia for prostitution. Otherwise, women and children from China, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and etc. are sent to Malaysia for commercial sex exploitation and the low income labour. Female from the village and rural areas in Malaysia are also trafficked for the same purpose. There is a huge demand from the tourists who are intentionally travel for the sex tourism. Moreover in Malaysia, the illegal organized crime groups are believed to be involved in sending the Malaysian female and children to other countries and also receiving the illegal entry into Malaysia. When the sex tourism has been started in a country, the amount of tourists who travel for sex tourism will only increase and that will worsen the situation in the country. The government of the Malaysia should come out with some stricter rules and regulations in order to implement and enforce the rules and regulations to tackle the sex exploitation by prevent and tracking the victims from migrant workers and people arrested for prostitution. Government should also increase their efforts to prosecute and punish those who receive benefits and advantages from involving in the sex exploitation.

Another than that, tourism industry has bring rapid damage to the ecosystem of the cultural and heritage, natural and popular sites. In Malaysia there are many beaches and Tropicana forests which are naturally and have many tourists every year. Many private or government company wish to get profit and they keep on develop on these natural environment. However, the uncontrolled development like building the mega infrastructure and resorts along the beaches has caused the major destruction to the natural environment. The discharge of sewage and rubbish from the development destruction of the ecological environment can also be the result of the development such as habours, resorts or airports that built along or nearby the beaches. Many organizations have pay attention on this aspect and issue and suggest that preserve and conserve the sustainable ecological environment than uncontrolled development and causing harm and destroy the ecosystem.

Malaysia is a country that has different cultures since long time ago and the cultural mixing is very common in Malaysia. The mixing of cultural does help in improving the tourism industry. The development of the tourism has actually help in enhance the tourists’ perception to Malaysia. Tourists who travel for the experience of cultural mixing would like to travel to Malaysia for the different and various cultures. Yet with the different and various cultures, Malaysian is able to live in a harmony and peacefully which is actually can be the example or prototype to some other countries. Government of Malaysia will conserve and protect the cultural and heritage sites. This may help to local people and also the future generations to learn from their traditional beliefs and also social practices.

Tourism industry also brings impact towards to economic sector. Nowadays the tourism industry is one of the largest industries in Malaysia. In year 2007, Malaysia started to promote their tourism industry with the slogan “Malaysia, truly Asia”. Based on the reports, the total amount of tourists receive is increasing year by year. Government decided to develop in the tourism industry and they promote the country with the slogan “Malaysia, truly Asia” because of the cultural mixing in Malaysia. The receipts from tourism are shown rapidly growth and the spending power is also increase. To many tourists, Malaysia is a shopping paradise which the exchange rate is considerate compare to Europe countries. There are a lot of shopping mall had been built in order to improve the economy of the Malaysia. Many resorts and hotels companies decided to invest in Malaysia due to the high growth rate of tourists. It can offer many working opportunities for the Malaysian and able to reduce the unemployment rate. All of these have the substantial impact effect on economy of the country. It is able to increase the GDP of the country, reduce the unemployment rate and generate employment, improving the foreign exchange rate and also the economy of country. All the industries which related to tourism industry could be also improve and lead to expansion.

2.3 Impacts of tourism in Singapore

Singapore is a country which located at the south of West Malaysia. Singapore is one of the best cities in the world. Its economy is often ranked within the world top ten most competitive and innovative city. Singapore is a small but highly developed country and it consists of 75% Chinese, 14% Malay, 9% Indian, and 2% others. It is the same like Malaysia which is also the cultural mixing country. Singapore is a popular travel destination, and the tourism industry is one of its largest industries.

Somehow, Singapore is also well known for the sex tourism in the country. Many tourists travel to Singapore will travel to the district which is actually well known for sex trade. In the district can actually see that there are female from other different countries who are working on the commercial sex exploitation. Based on the research, there are increasing numbers of young girls in Singapore are offering sex for sale. This is the negative social impact of the tourism because there are many tourists actually travel to Singapore and looking for the sex tourism. The sex tourism in Singapore is actually quite famous but however, the government of Singapore did not take much action. The government of Singapore came out with some law enforcement effort in control the amount of trafficking in persons in order to prevent trafficking, especially the commercial sex exploitation. However, the law enforcement doesn’t seem efficiently and the sex tourism is still a serious issue and impact for Singapore. This may because the tourists that travel for sex tourism are quite in a big amount and it does help in improving the economy in the country.

The GDP and economic in Singapore are always one of the top in the world rank. It has one of the busiest ports in the world and it is the fourth largest foreign exchange in the world. There are many international companies in Singapore which make it one of the busiest countries in the world. Based on the research, the GDP of Singapore is growing year by year. Recent year, there are some entertainments like casino resorts and universal studio grand opened up in Singapore and these sites have become another main tourism attraction. The opening of the casinos is able to attract many tourists who travel for gambling and it may strongly and dynamically improve the tourism industry in Singapore. In order to control the social impact of opening a casino, the government of Singapore comes out with certain rules and regulation to prevent the Singaporean from addicting to the gambler. For the local the entry fee SGD100 per entry will be charged whenever they want to enter the casino or purchase the annual entry pass for SGD2,000. This is under the Casino Control Act 2006 and the government aim to reduce the negative effects of compulsive gambling. The two casino resorts intend to boost the tourism of the Singapore, they expect that it will generate 45,000 jobs and able to attract 10 million tourists by the year 2015. In economic impact, the government of Singapore handles the tourism well and it increases many jobs opportunities for the locals and also foreign workers.

2.4 Impacts of tourism in Thailand

Thailand is a country which located in the heart of the Southeast Asia and it embraces a rich diversity of cultures and tradition. Thailand has the great and proud history of itself, tropical climate and renowned hospitality, the country is a never-ending source of entertainment and enjoyment for the tourists from all over the world. Like other countries in Southeast Asia, tourism is also the major source of income in Thailand. Tourism has been strongly promoted because the government of Thailand believed that tourism promotion will be able to generate the jobs opportunities, raise foreign exchange rates and contribute to economic growth and improved income distribution.

In Thailand, the government is actually having the conflicts in water allocation. Thailand would face water crisis in the coming future if the government did not come out with any water management and allocation. Based on research, tourism industry in Thailand is relatively water-intensive sector. By focusing on the tourism industry, which mean the amount of tourists travel into Thailand will increase. Therefor the amount of water been used in Thailand will also increase because more tourists then the demand of water is higher.

Tourism do brings a lot of destructive effects. Since the Thailand is having the uncontrolled development on tourism, the government trying to search for the less destructive way and method to reduce the level of destruction. One of the most intriguing sustainable tourism is the rural tourism. Most of the rural areas in Thailand are rich with the cultures, traditions and natural resources, which is able to become a tourism attraction destination. The economic impact of the tourism towards the Thailand is positive because tourism generates more job opportunities, raise foreign exchange rate, and economic growth. But these benefits are mainly for the urban society and city. It did not bring much benefit to rural tourism because most of the profit goes to the urban and modern cities. The profits earn from the taxes and fees return to government and government like not really invest in rural tourism. Most of the cultures, traditions and natural resources are in the rural areas. Therefore, the government of Thailand agreed that the rural areas should be preserved, and conservation of culture, arts, traditions and natural resources are promoted.

With the growth in amount of tourists travel to Thailand, it may cause the heavy impact towards the environment. In order to increase the carrying capacity of tourists, the government of Thailand has created more infrastructures, transportation and other facilities which can cause environmental distortion. In Thailand there are a lot of jungles or forests which provide the activities such as jungle tracking and camping. This may affect and cause the pollution to the natural environment. There are many disposal of human waste and discharge of the sewage within the jungle areas and it will cause the environmental impact. The government of Thailand should set the strict rules and regulations in order to protect the natural environment and prevent the increase amount of disposal of human waste and discharge of sewage.

Thailand has long been promoted as “sex capital” in the world. There are many tourists travel to Thailand for the purpose but it brought a lot of problems and impacts especially on the spread of AIDS. The tourists who had HIV might travel to Thailand for sex tourism which actually brought up the cases of AIDS. Government realized the issue and started to promote the use of condoms, in order to reduce the cases of AIDS. Yet the AIDS cases are still very common in Thailand nowadays.

2.5 Impacts of tourism in Burma

Tourism in Burma can bring benefits in a various ways like it helps in opportunities for the economic stability and cultural exchange are severely limited. The tourism in Burma is actually supporting the opportunities of economic stability for the local people. This includes all infrastructures which are built for tourism industry such as patronizing hotels, restaurants and etc. Burma is a country that rich with tradition and cultures and so there will be a lot of different and various handicrafts. Tourists shall buy those handicrafts when they travel to Burma which is actually able to improve the welfare of the locals, they are all generally associated with increased opportunities for women.

Burma considered as a country which isolated from other countries, so most of the time the Burmese people will never be able to leave their own country. Whenever there are any tourists from the other country travel to Burma, then only the Burmese people able to learn and experience the cultures from other countries. Tourism industry in Burma is able to bring the Burmese people the cultural exchange and they are able to learn the cultural from outside. Burma is also a country which rich with different and various tradition and tourists who travel for the culture experience, they will be able to learn and study on the traditions and cultures in Burma. It can help in create the awareness of the tourists towards the Burma and there will be increase in the amount of the tourists in the future.

Somehow, there are some inevitable negative impacts caused by the tourism in Burma. Many of the tourism association in Burma are run by the government. When a tourist spend money on those government run hotels, using government public transport, employing government tour guide, the income and revenues will go directly to the government which do not benefits any of the citizen and local people.

The tourism industry in Burma is actually facing a high degree level of leakage. There are some foreign companies in the economic industry of Burma, and most of the economic leakages are caused by them. They involved in import goods from other countries, international marketing cost and the interest payment which will cause the currency leakage from Burma to other countries.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology
3.1 Research Philosophy

In this chapter the researcher will briefly explain the ways of the research obtained for this proposal and also which method will be used in collect the data.

3.2 Research method and research design

This research will be done using a significant common research approaches and the methods will be used is the qualitative method.

3.3 Sources of data

The research only obtains the data with the secondary research which involve the valuable information regarding the facts and true information on impacts of tourism in Southeast Asia. Somehow there are limitations from getting the primary research, so researcher based on own experience traveled to these countries and write for the own opinion.

3.4 Secondary Research

Secondary research is normally done before the conducting the primary research. The research for this paper is involved a collection data form different books and journals which can be found from the internet. This research proposal is written based on the data and information got from the books and journals and add on some own opinion.

List and describe the potential positive and negative socio-cultural impacts of tourism in an area of your choice.

Tourism is a product that is produced and consumed at the same time. Tourism affects the economy and lives of communities and has proven to be a lifesaver for many destinations. Impacts occur when tourism changes the value systems/ behavior, threatening native identity and that changes occur in community structure, family relationships, ceremonies, collective traditional styles and morality. Tourism can also cause positive impacts as it can serve as a helpful force for peace, help avoid urban relocation by creating local jobs and foster pride in cultural traditions. The type of tourist will have a differing effect on the host community. The mass tourist is less likely to adapt to the local cultures and will seek amenities and standards found in his home community. On the other hand the independent tourist will adapt more readily. The process of tourism development is very important because the speed and nature of development can be a major influence on the magnitude and direction of socio-cultural changes. The term socio-cultural impacts refer to changes to resident’s everyday experiences, as well as to their values, way of life, and intellectual and artistic products.

NEGATIVE SOCIO-CULTURAL IMPACTS OF TOURISM

Tourism can cause change / loss of local identity and values by:

Commodification
Standardisation
Loss of authenticity / staged authenticity
Adaptation to tourist demands

POSITIVE SOCIO-CULTURAL IMPACTS OF TOURISM
The promotion of cross-cultural understanding
The incentive value of tourism in preserving local culture and heritage
The promotion of social stability through positive economic outcomes

The potential positive and negative socio-cultural impacts in Cyprus

The positive and negative impacts of tourism on the Cyprus socio-cultural structure has been an issue for a long time. Social impacts can be considered as changes in the lives of people who live in destination communities, which are connected with tourist actions in regard to moral conduct, creative expressions. Cultural impacts can be the changes in the arts, traditional ceremonies, customs and rituals and architecture of people that result from tourism activity. Witt (1991) claims that, “the greater the difference between the host community and the tourists the greater will be the affect of tourism on society”. This presents a challenge to decision makers in regard to the type of tourism that a destination is trying to attract. Thus, for example, at the national level a specific development might be justified on the grounds that it is positive for the society as a whole even if on average it is not positive for the host community. All travelers seek tourism experience, yet very different goals and objectives are required through different roles and behaviors. This occurs because in Cyprus are many different types of tourists. Each type of tourist can be expected to behave differently while visiting a destination. Certain groups can be seen as more exploitive and less sensitive to social and cultural values. Explorers blend into the Cyprus life as local people do and stay longer but they have contact with fewer people than members of a charter tour that moves through Cyprus for shopping or sightseeing.

In the case of Cyprus, the tourist policy of the Cyprus Tourism Organization aims to attract middle and high-income class tourists in order to minimize possible resentment between locals and tourists. According to statistics by ‘Eurostat’, Cypriots enjoy a higher standard of living than other regions and the type of tourist that visits the island is not the typical high and middle class income tourist but mostly youngsters who tend to reach their limits once they are abroad. The effects of tourists’ behavior and activities on young people in the area are very noticeable. The increase in drug trafficking and crime are the two major effects of tourism on the local community. Young people tend to spend a lot of their free time away from their families and from community activities since they spend more time in the tourist areas going out clubbing or at bars. As a result, we have an increase in the number of school dropouts and in the number of people smoking at early stages of their age. Cyprus is considered to be one of the few destinations that have controlled tourism well, and it is now repaying the benefits.

Cyprus is still an up market destination offering a friendly atmosphere and high quality service. Cyprus has always marketed itself as a prestige resort. Surveys show that many residents see the tourists as a breath of fresh air into the society, economy and life of the locals. The Cyprus Tourism Organization is aiming to keep its high quality and consequently it’s up market clientele by offering excellent facilities and different types of tourism activities such as Agro Tourism, Bird Watching and Cycling. To achieve this selective advertising and promotion are adopted in order to attract this type of customer.

The development of the Tourist Industry led to an improvement in the standard of living for the local people in several areas as tourism expenditure increases the income and improve the standard of living and the quality of life for the locals. Tourism also contributes to the development of infrastructure with the building of airports, new roads, restaurants and hospitals, attraction to enable greatest number of citizens to benefit from the cultural, recreational and leisure activities of the tourism sector. Tourism has also aided in arising the interest for art festivals and crafts, for example weaving, embroidery, wood crafting, pottery etc that have been practiced in small villages for hundreds of years.

The impact of tourism on the conservation of old buildings is also both positive and negative. Cyprus residents claim that tourists look for and appreciate local architecture and authentic traditional style, so a lot of buildings are being renovated or conserved as mainly tourist attractions, which would have been destroyed by eager owner. On the other hand, old buildings do not have enough capacity to provide accommodation for the growing number of tourists, so they are destroyed to give room to new and large guest houses with appropriate capacity and tourist facilities.

The media have described Paralimni and Agia Napa as “a round-the clock neon-lit cosmopolitan mini-metropolis and topless sex capital of Cyprus”. The majority state that tourists have a negative effect on the Cypriot way of life and that tourism changes the traditional culture, also it decreases the lifestyle quality of Cypriots who live in tourist areas. The extreme concentration of tourists resulted in the modification of social attitudes among young people, particularly towards sexual behavior. The European way of living has altered the Cypriot society as younger generations are seeking different values than their families’, and thus resulting in weaker family bonds. A number of researchers examined the link between the perception that tourism contributes to increase in crime and the support for its development. The crime is related to resident perceptions of tourism development. There is also an increase in prostitution and rise in criminal activity and possible anger between local and tourists. Rural population, long term residents, farmers, and younger segments perceive tourism as contributing to an increase in crime especially in the area of Agia Napa. Agia Napa is advertised as a place of great consumption of alcohol, sex, drugs and crime and a great damage caused by thousands of topless beach goers. Moreover the massive arrival of youngsters changed the image of the area from a fun relaxing atmosphere to more of a nightlife entertainment with many nightclubs and discos. As a result, there is an increase in drug trafficking and crime as well as the young generation in Cyprus has started to adopt different set of values on morality and style of dressing which is not acceptable by the older generations. Tourists have altered the Cypriot values and beliefs especially among the young generation and as mentioned before the dress code has changed and nudity is much more acceptable now.

In spite of all negative and positive impacts of tourism on the socio-cultural structure of Cyprus it is not yet clear whether the benefits outweigh the costs. In general, the residents of Cyprus have a positive attitude toward tourism. Since the success of tourism depends very much on the human attitudes and behavior of the residents of a destination towards tourists, this seems to be an encouraging result for the future of tourism development. Residents recognize a range of potential positive and negative impacts of tourism however, current attitudes are generally quite positive and there is support for future modest increase in tourism. The tourism development strategy should aim to protect local culture, respect local traditions and promote local ownership and management of programs and projects so as to foster community stewardship of the natural resource base. As integrated processes take time, tourism umbrella organizations should start with voluntary self-restraint, until locally adapted objectives have been reached.

REFERENCES

Witt, S.F. (1991). Tourism in Cyprus, Balancing the benefits and costs.

Travel Management.

Elena Spanou (2007), The impact of Tourism in Cyprus.

Internet: www.srcosmos.gr/srcosmos/showpub.aspx?aa=10216

Assessed on 25/02/10 21:00pm

All the tourist who travel to and stay in places outside the normal range of not more than one year of time and business opportunities. An event that makes the demand of goods and services and provides the position is considered part of the tourism industry. This industry also includes the formation of a particular product sold to visitors even if they do not form a major part of tourist consumption. There are several infrastructure sectors such as electricity, telecommunications, water supply and cause the production of some sectors such as travel items, sports equipment, photographs, materials, drugs and cosmetics such as airports, railways, roads, water, facilities like electricity, clean water, drainage and disposal of solid waste. Services and facilities such as hotels, restaurants, recreational facilities and shopping.

Tourist today does not know much of Cambodia due to their place and environment. Their main attractions are Angkor Wat which the whole period of Angkor Wat spans from than 15 centuries. During this period the whole area of Angkor Wat was built.

Cambodia is a beautiful place for vacation but a lot of people are unaware of it and its place where the famous attraction is which the Angkor Wat is. Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy of King Sihamoni. Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city government, is a country economic, industrial, commercial and cultural centre of the main hub of Cambodia. Siem Reap, near the famous Angkor Wat ruins in a small town is the gateway to the Angkor region, Cambodia is a tourist destination. Battambang in western Cambodia, the largest city, is famous for rice, Sihanoukville, the coastal cities of the production is a major harbor and beaches resort.Cambodia one of about 181,035 (69,898 miles), with 1 square kilometers area population of more than 140,000 Chinese red. Usually identified as Cambodian citizens. Most of Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia, but the country also has a large number of Muslim majority Cham, as well as Chinese, Vietnamese and small animist hill tribes. Agriculture has been Cambodia most important sector of the economy, some clothing, tourism, development is also an important amount of foreign visitors to Angkor Wat more than 4 million.In 2005, the oil and gas reserves located in the waters of Cambodia, once commercial mining began in 2011, the oil revenues that can affect the economy of Cambodia

After a long series of wars with the neighbouring kingdom, the Kingdom of Ayutthaya sacked Angkor and abandoned in 1432 because of a failure of ecological and infrastructure damage. The Court to transfer the capital to Lovek any government attempt to return the glory through maritime trade. Short-lived effort, however, as the war continued with the Ayutthaya and Vietnam resulted in the loss of more territory and the occupied Lovek in 1594. Over the next three centuries, the Khmer Empire change as his country’s government and the kings of Ayutthaya Vietnam, and the relatively short period of independence and equipment found at the core of quartzite gravel along the Mekong River, Stung Treng and regions KratiA© Province, and in the State of Kampot, but they are not dating diandalkan. Some archaeological evidence shows little community of hunter-gatherers occupied Cambodia during the Holocene: an archaeological site is considered the most ancient Cambodia Laang Spean cave, in the Territory of Battambang, which includes the Hoabinhian mentioned. Excavations in the lower layer to produce a series of radiokarbon in 6000 BC. Top layer on the same page to give evidence to the Neolithic transition, gerabah ceramics containing early date in Cambodia archaeological record for the Holocene period and Iron Age remains the same limited. prehistoric site other than the date is somewhat uncertain Samrong Sen (not far from the ancient capital of Oudong), where the research began only in 1877, and Phum Snay in Banteay Meanchey province north. Prehistoric artifacts are often found during mining activities in Ratanakiri.
Prehistoric evidence of the most prominent in Cambodia, but may “Earthworks circle”, found in red soil in the near Memot and the surrounding area of Vietnam in the late 1950s. Function and age is still debated, but some of them may come from the second millennium BC at least. An important event in the prehistory of Cambodia is a slow penetration of the first rice farmers from the North, which began at the end of the third millennium BC. They may speak Mon-Khmer ancestors

Background of the problem

There is not much of awareness among the tourist in Malaysia and other countries about Cambodia. A lot of my lectures ask me have I been to Cambodia and I answer no I have not been there. He told me that Cambodia is very nice and it is worth to go there. Cambodia is a third world war country that is why a lot of people would not know about Cambodia.

The sex tourism in Cambodia is bad where one third of the country is filling with child. A country should advise the children to not do sex tourism as it will affect them mentally and internally. Cambodia should discourage sex tourism in their country.

Most of the tourist knows about Cambodia but they would never travel there. Sex tourism is one of the main problems because of prostitute it will engage HIV positive because of sex tourism. Cambodia is one of the poorest countries which are still recovering from their war and political repression. A child do not receive education from schools all they know is sex because of the parents did not send them to a proper education because the parents are not able to pay for the education fees. A child should receive a proper education without abiding their children education as you know education is very important to children.

Problem statement

Cambodia has been known as a country that provides sex tourism other than the attractions which have been associated with so many negative perceptions.

The negative view on Cambodia has been widely known as a country for sex tourism. Is Cambodia dredging its rivers to death which gives negative impacts in Cambodia due to the exports of sand to Singapore and now they are killing their own people for it where fisherman needs to travel further to feeds their family.

Does sex tourism gives negative impacts to Cambodia? And are Cambodia children receiving proper education? What can help Cambodia to increase in their tourism? Therefore in this research, researcher main intention is highlight to help Cambodia to increase in their tourism whereas can boost their economy also. To rectify the negative issues in Cambodia which is the sex tourism? The researcher hopes to promote Cambodia tourism and help them to solve these problems.

1.3 Research Question

1. Is there any ways to help Cambodia tourism?

2. How can we promote Cambodia tourism?

3. What are the positive issues that can help to boost Cambodia tourism?

4. What can the government do to help?

5. Is sex tourism one of the main problems of Cambodia?

Research objective

To rectify the public negative perception on Cambodia

To promote Cambodia tourism

To create awareness to the tourism

Come out with a proposal that can boost Cambodia tourism

To solve the negative issues in Cambodia

To base this research with facts obtained from journals.

Theoretical and conceptual framework

The purpose of this research paper is to rectify the negative perception of the public view on Cambodia. The researcher would like to inform the tourist on Cambodia attractions and culture.

This research paper will mostly use the real facts of information that can be obtained from Cambodia tourism, Government website, and other journals will also possible to obtain online. This will conveniently provide the researcher information in order to expose the true facts to the tourist about the wonder of Cambodia. From the resources that researcher has been able to obtain which most of the resources are journals that are written about positive issues in Cambodia and their attraction which benefits the tourism. It is important for the researcher to use the true information in this research in order to convince the tourist on the positive issues happening in Cambodia. At the same time to also rectify the negative perception among the tourist as it is a great loss if the tourist does not know the positive issues in Cambodia and their attractions.

It is also to note the actions that have should be done by the government of Cambodia by rectifying the negative perception and to promote their tourism and to come out with proposal to boost Cambodia tourism.

1.5.1Conceptual framework

With the conceptual framework that provided in mind map form below, it is to show how this research has been done and followed by accordance to the mind map. To come out with proposal to attract tourism in Cambodia and to solve their negative impacts that cause tourist not to travel to their country. Create awareness to the tourist regarding their cultural, heritage and history and to promote their attractions which is Angkor Wat.

Views on Cambodia tourism
Impacts of negative issues that affect tourist
Positive issues on Cambodia
Rectification of Negative Perception
Proposal to boost tourism in Cambodia

1.6 Significance of study

The purpose of this research is to find out the perception of the tourist on Cambodia. This is done on order to rectify the problem of Cambodia. The negative issues have an impact on the tourism which causes them not to travel to Cambodia. Sex tourism is one of the problems where the country might be filling with diseases which cause the tourist not to travel there and because Cambodia did not do much promotion on their own country to create awareness to the tourist. Due to the limited resources that might be available to the tourist and that not much of these attractions have been promoted to the tourist. The tourist still contain the wrong perception on Cambodia therefore the researcher is also hoping that after this research has been done many effective ways to promote Cambodia tourism to the tourist.

Scope and limitation

This research paper will only focus on the positive issues of Cambodia and to get a better view of the people thoughts and opinion on Cambodia. I will interview the people in Petaling Jaya area. Give a proposal to boost Cambodia tourism.

The collection of the data will therefore be restricted to the population of this area only. Due to the limited focus group it is assumed that this group will hence represent the general tourist view on Cambodia.

Researcher has therefore analytically reviewed the sampling the results of this research before summarizing it into a more conclusive data to be published in this research report. Researcher also disclaims the liability towards the opinion gathered from the tourist opinion as the data will be collected randomly.

The research is done purely based on the opinion and thoughts of the information obtained and researcher own view with no benefits of promoting Cambodia tourism in order to make profit. The information obtained by the researcher is limited by the information obtained from government of Cambodia and journals.

2. Literature review

Why people have negative perception on Cambodia? Because of its sex tourism and indeed it gives a negative perception to the people. There is so much more in Cambodia than just sex tourism that people did not see it. In this chapter the researcher will reveal the true facts about the beauty of the attractions, food and cultural of Cambodia. A further explanation regarding its positive issues of Cambodia and their attractions will be discussed in detail. In addition the research would help the public to gain more knowledge and depth understanding on Cambodia tourism it would help them to change their negative perception on Cambodia. The proposal to boost tourism in Cambodia will be discussed thoroughly in this chapter.

Negative issues

The political ecology of transition in Cambodia 1989-1999, Peace and forest exploitation

For the past few decades the forests have played and very important role in transition from war to peace. The most politicized resource of reconstruction process that has failed. The forest exploitation has a financed of continuation of war between the cold war. Cambodia being the most politicized resource of the process that failed either to be green or democratic international community. Cambodia forest is a process of transforming nature into money through political.

The poverty and environment in Cambodia

The environmental can inflict serious damage on poor people because of their live hoods usually depend on the natural resource and their living conditions. The same moment the poverty constrains may reduce in the poor and degrade the environment at some certain rates that are not incompatible with long term sustainability.

The importance of the poverty and the environment has sparse because the data are often difficult to obtain in developing countries. The geographic information on the poverty and using the indicator maps and statistical analysis. The implementation of the poverty and environment strategies may be cost effective for some environmental problems.

Status of the Cambodian inland capture fisheries sector

Cambodia has very few income generating possibilities beyond the natural resources for example agriculture, forestry and fisheries and is economically almost fully dependent on them. This research gives a brief overview of the country inland fisheries which support a thriving industry of a great economic and social importance. It aims to improve understanding of the issues at stake for the continued sustainable utilization.

Gender, sex and HIV

Human race have relationship through family, community and other through professional ties with one another. The issues of choices during our stage of our lives which will relates to sex but without having parents sexual intercourse there will not be us. Deaths are a issues of HIV because of having sexual intercourse that cause this disease that will cause us to terminate our lives.

Identify patients eligible for highly active antiretroviral therapy among HIV positive adults in Cambodia

The HIV infections in Cambodia determine the sensitivity; specify of the organization criteria to start a antiretroviral treatment based on clinical criteria alone or combination. The patients were wrongly identified to be in a need of HAART among the most.

Global child sex tourism

Pornography and children from commercial sexual purposes and one of the first organization that seeks to end the commercial sexual exploitation for children. Child sex tourism is especially happening in Asia and Cambodia is the most popular destination for sex tourism. The majority of adult male sex tourists in the form of industrial countries to travel to developed countries are lower where the law is weak because sex is cheaper and easily available. The majority of adult male sex tourists in the form of industrial countries to travel to developed countries are lower where the law is weak because sex is cheaper and easily available. Child sex tourism practices can erase the integrity of economic, social, and moral nation’s largest victims are helpless children are involved. The voices of the children too much and their stories untold and stolen their plainness. Children should have the effect of long-term emotional, psychological and physical from sexual exploitation

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Positive issues

Upland crop technologies in Cambodia economic evaluations

Research and development was being done in the highland districts of Cambodia to develop new farming systems and crop management technologies. Income levels of farmers in this region are relatively low because of small size and low productivity of agricultural crops. This paper is also intended to encourage the adoption of these technologies and to investigate how the process can be facilitated. To identify two key technology features or benefits relative to be considered successful and tradability. A minimum target figure of profit on investment in new technology as men look from investigating how much the increase in relative profitability may be enough to drive successful adoption of technology

What can be done about the private health sector in low income

The health sector is very large private low-income countries. This consists of various suppliers and used by many large service providers. There is great concern about the high services rendered to the various service providers. Private health sector can be defined as consisting of all providers who are outside the public sector where they are commercial purpose and that purpose is to cure illness and prevent disease. They also include large and small companies and professional groups like doctors, national and international organizations have no government. They provide services such as hospitals, home care and maternity clinics run by doctors, nurses and paramedical staff,

Cambodia enhancing governance for sustainable development

The Government is very important for the future of Cambodia during the last decades for the transition to liberal democracy and market economy. Cambodia donor policy makers and the public have recognized that the strengthening of good governance is essential to maintain economic and social. The study includes three domain structure of government is the public sector, civil society and the media. The scope of the study hall has two benefits can also help strategic programs at the project level in the government’s overall picture. Good governance in the development of an important issue in Cambodia. During the transition to liberal democracy and market economy during the last decades. good governance systems need to adapt to changes in the role of state and government as well is to show a key strategy for maintaining social and economic development in Cambodia

Therapy to prevent vertical transmission of HIV

The proposal is not recommended to extend ARV treatment programs to the regions where early in the training and equipment for HIV testing that will not happen because of the move resources to the less effective to use. The second run pilot projects at selected sites located in the district are eligible for health benefits. When running a pilot project would be useful to collect the same data as mentioned in the report in order to assess the real costs and benefits ex post.

Current issues on PMTCT Cambodia is facing

Drug is not only the cost voluntary counselling and testing and need also to be provided to the mother and child and to be integrated to the overall provision of primary health care:

According to the Journal written by the world health organization that drug is not only the cost voluntary counselling and testing and need also to be provided to the mother and child and to be integrated to the overall provision of primary health care clearly stated that:

Introducing a strategy of antiretroviral drugs use and replacement feeding is however a complex process. To take advantage of the intervention, mothers need to know that they are HIV-positive, and they must therefore have access to voluntary counselling and testing. Costs and benefits need to be carefully assessed. Policy makers need to decide what kind of program is feasible and most appropriate for their countries and whether or not to test models of the strategy in pilot projects before introducing it more widely. Such a program requires a commitment to ensuring there is an efficiently functioning primary health care system with certain key services as a basis for introducing the strategy. Where these conditions do not already exist, decisions need to be made about how to strengthen the health infrastructure, what time frame would be realistic, and what else is needed to create the conditions for sage and successful introduction of antiretroviral drugs and replacement feeding.”

The given level of resources to be committed on the provision of such a complex services and one may wonder if saving the lives of a few children that might be saved through this process when is worth our time and money to save a person live. There is so much to be done that they would require also a little more money and time available. It is necessary for the ministry of health to investigate the aspect in order to produce guidelines that are acceptable and quality oriented. There might be a risk to see the private sector taking over and providing a poor quality or an unnecessary antiretroviral treatment.

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Chapter 3: Research Methodology

3.1 Research Philosophy

Here the researcher will explain the methods of the research undertaken from this study. This chapter basically will explain which method to use to collect data.

3.2 Research methods and research design

This research will be done using two significant common research approaches. The researcher will be using qualitative methods.

Where qualitative method would involve a more subjective a way of sampling by assessing individual thoughts and opinions such as interview

3.2 Sources of data

This research would obtain the data from two resources where a secondary research would involve valuable information regarding the facts about Cambodia tourism and other related general technical information. However there might exist a limitation to the information gained due to its availability and relevance to the current perception. The primary research data would collect directly from the survey and interview conducted to specific groups of subject.

3.3 Secondary Research

This type of research is basically done before the primary research is conducted. In order to obtain more through information regarding this research paper before interview can be conducted. The researcher will be able to equip herself with the technical knowledge that is required of her for this research. Secondary research for this paper would involve a collection data from various sources of published data related to tourism in Cambodia. The researcher has used an amount of journal, articles, government site, internet and newspaper to form a secondary data.

3.4 Primary research

Primary research is done in order to obtain information from the public directly attributed to the research paper. This research will focus more on the perception of the public towards the negative perception of Cambodia and ways to rectify the negative issues that the public have. At a same time the researcher will also try to find out methods that can be done to promote Cambodia tourism.

In this research an interview will be conducted to the public around Petaling Jaya area. The data collected will represent the opinion of the public in Malaysia generally. An arranged interview will also be conducted with one of the tourism sector lecturer regarding tourism in Cambodia

The methods of this research would be conducting an interview to the member of the public. These research methods would be more of a selective sampling due to it being done on only specific groups of the people in public.

The interview would involve questions asked by the researcher one-on-one regarding on the negative perception on Cambodia and also to enquire their opinion on how to promote Cambodia tourism. The targeted of the public for this would be college students will be selected randomly.

A special interview will be conducted with the Lecturer that is teaching tourism in order to enquire their knowledge and opinion on Cambodia and also to enquire ways to promote tourism in Cambodia.

3.5 Respondent

In regards of getting the opinion of the public for this research the researcher will conduct a survey on specific group around Petaling Jaya area. This will also represent a broader view of the public in Malaysia. This is in order to gain more knowledge on their perception and opinion on Cambodia itself and at the same time also to enquire suggestion that can help to rectify the negative perception towards Cambodia.

3.6 Data analysis

The data obtained from the interview of the college students or the public on ways to promote Cambodia tourism and their suggestion on how to improve it would be selected based on feasibility. The other interview that is conducted with the lecturer which teaches tourism subject will be more feasible than the students. The lecturer information is more accurate and more appropriate for this research.

The fuel prices are determined by the crude oil prices. In order to produce fuel and other petroleum products, the main raw material used is crude oil. (Chevron Corp, N/A) The prices of crude oil are determined by the market force of demand and supply. If there are grows in demand or disruptions in supply of crude oil, then the market will adjust by increasing the price of crude oil, subjected to the changes in demand or supply. One of the most recognisable causes of fluctuation in fuel prices is disruptions in the supply of crude oil in the market. Political instability is one of the factors. Majority of oil producer countries are in the emerging regions, where disruptions in supply of crude oil always happened and affecting the price. (Chevron Corp, N/A) Besides, shortages of supply can be resulted from a sudden refinery outage or maintenance and pipeline problems. On the other hand, the rise in the price of crude oil is caused by the increase in international energy demand driven by strong long term economic growth especially in non-OECD countries. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, make a projection that in between 2006 to 2030, there will be a dramatic increase of 44% in the total world consumption of energy. (Caltex, N/A) Adding together political instability, disruptions in the supply and growing demand for crude oil cause the price of fuel to be volatile. (237w)

To manage airlines companies, the management will try to minimise any cost associates with the company. According to Air Transport Association, 25.4% of airlines operating expenses were contributed by fuel. As the fuel price becoming increasingly volatile, airlines industries will face risk in rising fuel price and one of the ways to get rid of the risk is by hedging the fuel price. Hedging is a risk management tool that allows airlines to lock in a price for fuel and protect them from the risk of soaring fuel price in future. Neeraj Kapoor, Go Air spokesperson commented that aviation fuel pricing in certain region like India does not favour hedging, but recent hike in fuel price make them reconsider on hedging their fuel. (Kabtta, K, 2008) On the other hand, South West Airlines, which hedged about 70% of its fuel, got to consume it at a lower price of $51 a barrel, compared to the market price of $135 per barrel. (Kabtta, J, 2008) Besides hedging, airlines usually will increase the price of its fuel surcharge. Fuel levy or fuel surcharge is the additional cost to the fare, imposed on per ticket basis in order to retrieve the rising price of the fuel. (Koch, R, 2010) As for example, Virgin Blue had decided to follow Qantas action of increasing fuel surcharges due to the spike in global fuel prices. (Oaˆ™ Sullivan, M, 2011) In short, an airlines company could avoid the surge of global fuel prices by either hedge the fuel price with any hedging instrument such as options or increase the fuel surcharge on the passenger. (268 w)

Now let us examined what are the possible impact that fuel price volatility may bring to the airlines industry and suggestion for the airlines company in dealing with this crisis. As we had discussed above, a surge in fuel prices will directly hit the airlines industry as the rising in cost of fuel will result in increase on the cost of operation. Besides, fuel prices are determined to have a relationship with economic recessions. Soaring fuel prices will trigger higher inflation which later be cooled off by monetary policy. As a result, demand for air travel will decline. Despite facing such challenge, there are airlines that determined enough to go against the tide by trying to reduce costs as well as implementing new strategies to be more competitive. Most of the airlines resorted in drastic action by firing some of their employee in order to cut cost since labour cost contributed almost 24.7% out of total operational cost. (Air Transport Association, N/A) As for example, due to sudden hike in fuel prices, Qantas determined to cut down the number of its employees. (Hannan, E, 2011) While other airlines company trying their best in finding new strategies in order to stay competitive with other airlines. For example United Airlines strategy is to use software developed for flight planning to choose the best route and speed of flight. (Wilen, J.2008) Another good example is Cathay Pacific where they decided to opt towards more fuel efficient aircraft such as Boeing 747-8F and Boeing 777-300ER other than issuing fuel surcharge on tickets to cover for soaring fuel prices. (Cathay Pacific Airways Limited 2010)In brief, increase in fuel prices may impact the airlines industry directly or indirectly and there are several ways to face this issue.(291)

In summary, airline industry has been badly affected by the rising fuel prices. The industry is losing both customers and revenues. Some airlines are trying to go against the tide by reforming themselves, but to a limited success. These airlines are working hard to reduce cost and implement new strategies to win back customers. While the world is still in recession, those efforts have started to show some good results. As such, it is possible to see airlines will bounce back and recover from bad financial conditions sooner.(88)