The Hindu Business Line : Betting big on tourism

The governments of Lao and Cambodia are placing their bets on more and more tourists visiting their heritage sites, and their success in responding to the concerns of tourists will define their continued success.

Thai daily Bangkok Post recently lamented in an editorial that while the tsunami affected towns such as Phuket have rapidly rebuilt themselves and tourist arrivals are healthy once again, the rules on safety and zoning restrictions that were put in place are being ignored with new stores blocking designated evacuation routes. In the chase for the tourist dollar, many things are forgotten. Very few countries like Bhutan are sceptical about the flood of tourists and try to restrict arrivals to manageable levels.

As I completed checking in at the airline counter in Siem Reap Airport, Cambodia, a fellow passenger who had completed his check-in ahead of me turned around and heaved a sigh of relief. A big tour group from Korea was filling the lines to check in. "I'm glad I missed them," he said. "That group was at every site I visited, obstructing all the photos I was taking."

His agony was the government's ecstasy. The governments of Lao and Cambodia are placing their bets on more and more tourists visiting their heritage sites, and their success in responding to the concerns of tourists, including that of how to make checking-in at airports easier, will determine their continued success.

Temple attractions

Cambodia is a developing nation, with a GDP (at Purchasing Power Parity rates) of about $2,500 (Rs 1.1 lakh) and has bet its future on tourism, which accounts for about 50 per cent of its GNP.

Tourist arrivals in 2006 were 1.7 million, an increase of 20 per cent over the previous year. The tourism officials are confident that they will meet their target of three million tourists by 2010. The tourists brought in $1.4 billion (Rs 6,300 crore) in 2006.

With over 60 per cent of tourists coming to visit the wonderful Angkor Wat (temple) ruins, the government is actively exploring how it can promote other sites in the country.

The Cambodian Government has taken advantage of aid from various allies to fund restoration and preservation work of the country's temple ruins. It is collaborating, among others, with German, French, Chinese, and Indian governments.

During the various Khmer reigns from the Sixth to 14th Century, a lot of money was obviously spent on building these temples.

While a Left leaning liberal may feel that it was a lot of wasted money, given the returns from them, in terms of tourist spending, it must seem a fair investment by the current rulers!

Tourism services

Cambodia has instituted various systems to make it easy for the tourist. Hotel construction at Siem Reap is going on at a feverish pace, filling up both sides of Highway No. 6. You can get an `e-Visa' over the web or procure one on arrival at the airport. Tour guides undergo a four-year programme of study after high school and get a bachelor's degree to qualify as a guide. They need to pay a licence fee annually, wear a specified uniform even as free-lancers, and follow a code of practice.

For instance, when a guide accompanies the tourists to a restaurant, he or she is not expected to sit at the same table with their guests even if invited to, but at a separate area reserved for them.

Guides are certified in specific languages, based on their competence. Taxi and tut-tut (the auto-rickshaw equivalent) drivers wear a standard vest with their number emblazoned across for easy identification.

Lao is less prosperous with a per capita GDP (at PPP rates) of $2,000 (Rs 90,000). The nation is still staunchly communist, and tourism is one area that offers its people opportunities lacking elsewhere.

Mr Phonepet, who showed me around Luang Prabang, was trained to be a teacher; he prefers, however, to make a living as a tour guide. His wife, trained to be a nurse, makes more money selling T-shirts in the night market catering to the tourists on the main street, Th Sisavangvong.

Multiple currencies

The official currency in Lao is the kip ($ = approx. 9600 kips) and in Cambodia it is the riel ($ = approx. 4000 riels). In both countries, the Thai baht, the dollar and the euro are readily accepted in shops and restaurants.

Cambodia and Lao subscribe to a semi-official dollarisation where another currency has legal tender status in the country. Even a ten-year-old selling you postcards on the street knows the exchange rates!

With very little in terms of local manufacture, the Cambodian economy is heavily reliant on imports and requires hard currency. Thus, the country has gone a step further to almost making the dollar its official currency.

The visa fees, airport exit tax, and even the entrance fees to monuments are listed in US dollars. The post-office lists its philately collections in US dollars although the face value of the stamp is in riel. Even the ATMs spit out dollars that you have to convert to local currency at money-changing locations.

Ultimately, history and monuments can attract the tourists, the governments can set up systems and structures to facilitate the visit, but the local public must be a willing player. Do they see the tourists as welcome guests contributing to the local economy, or as innocent lambs who can be fleeced? All heavily visited areas usually have shades of both.

Gem scam

Thus, I was not surprised when a bright-faced young man, looking at me scrutinising a map outside my hotel in Bangkok, approached me offering to help. He gave me directions to the tourist mall that I wanted to go to, but added that it wasn't a very good one.

Instead, he said, there was another shop that was not too far away that was holding a sale in gems ending that day. It was a government certified shop that normally does only wholesale business. He was an off-duty cop, and had bought a ring for his wife that morning.

If you go there, mention that I sent you, he said. So off we went, my wife and I, and were met at the (almost empty) shop by a sales clerk who wondered how we came by, since they normally did only wholesale business. We explained, and then the clerk (who turned out to be the owner's son) went on to offer us a 60 per cent discount, ramping-up their normal 40 per cent, and part of a week-long sale that ended that evening.

The items we liked turned out to be beyond our budget, and although the sales clerk was pushing us to buy something, even of lower value, we did not make any purchases.

It was only when I reached the hotel and decided to read the chapter on Bangkok in my Lonely Planet Travel Guide did I see the boxed warning about the `gem scam' ; it described to the last detail the experience we had gone through and narrowly escaped being duped!

(The author is professor of international business and strategic management at Suffolk University, Boston, US. His Internet address is cgopinat@suffolk.edu)

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