RACE TO REBUILD GATHERS PACE
By Tom Chesshyre in The Times Jan 15th, 2005
Locals may face lean years
Local people may lose out in the aftermath of the tsunamis as multinational companies step in and build resorts that whisk toursit cash overseas - meaning poverty will remain in wave-struck areas for years to come.
Sustainable tourism experts say that now is a golden opportunity for communities in Sri Lanka and Thailand to rebuild areas flattened by the waves so that locals have owenership of properties, allowing cash to stay in local communities.
But they fear that, in reality, global market forces will come into play, with big international companies most likely to benefit - leaving the poorer locals, who do not have money to spend on more substantial toursit offerings, to go back to running higgledy-piggledly beach huts, basic guest houses and cheap food stalls.
Experts are also doubtful about recent announcements by the Thai and Sri Lankan tourist authorities that tourism will be developed in a sustainable way, as they believe that the overwhelming desire to increase tourisr arrival numbers to pre-tsunami levels colud be at the expense of all else.
Justin Francis, Managing Director of responsibletravel.com an on-line travel agency and lobbying group for sustainable tourism, said -
The problem is that the national tourist boards just want to get numbers back up again. The measure of success out there is: how many arrivals have we got? Some tourist hotspots just want more, but they don't realise that more is not always better. Apart from the impact on the environment and the culture, there's also the 'where next' factor to consider. Word gets out among travellers that places are no longer as peaceful and beautiful as they once were, so people move on. Backhanders and corruption are also a big problem.
Francis believes it is essential that international aid goes towards sustainable tourism development projects that will benefit local people in the long term. But he he said he had not heard anything from The Department for International Development (DfID) about the future of tourism in the affected areas of Thailand and Sri Lanka. He said -
Tourism is incredibly important in these countries, but traditionally the money has not stayed in the local communities. What is needed is tourism that alleviates poverty. That is possible and this is a wonderful opportunity to develop such tourism. But everyone needs to be planning this, and really understanding it.
Francis believes that that the first hotels to be rebuilt will be those with international ownership, which had insurance to cover weather damage. Most locals did not have such insurance, and this is why he wants aid to be focussed on tourism.
Times Travel contacted DfID to ask about plans to target money at tourist projects. A spokesman said -
At the moment all aid is going to humanitarian assistance. We will turn to longer term development funding at a later date.
Thai and Sri Lankan authorities are emphatic that tourism will be developed in an ecologically sensitive way. Tourist officials in Phuket have already announced plans for more cycle facilities and green areas. And in Sri Lanka developments can now only be built 100m from the sea, as opposed to 75m before - initially a 300m limit had been set, but locals complained that that this was too much of a limitation.
But Tourism Concern, Britain's leading responsible tourism lobbying group, says that there are more fundamental concerns. Patricia Barnett, director said - 'The tsunami highlights the over-dependency many governments on tourism but also represents a challenge to begin to correct what has been skewed for too long. Tourism is huge money spinner but it has failed to take responsibility for local people. Alreadt people are filling the sex bars of Phuket. We must move quickly to ensure that people can earn a fair living from tourism without having to sell their bodies and their children.
