One would have thought the world has progressed since immigrant Sylheti restaurateurs started calling London's Russell Square "Rasool Square," and billboards in Bengali started to appear in Manchester as a proof that race loyalty is a good weapon of business. But, obviously, it hasn't. Modern tourism shows the old trick still holds.
Asia's first mass tourists were the Japanese, and I remember the massage parlours along Manila's Mabini Street all had signs in Japanese on their doors. Hotels, restaurants, shops, curio stores, everywhere that the high-spending visitors were likely to be had similar signs. And Manila was no exception. It was the same story in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok. Packaged tourism had arrived along with packaged marketing.
Then came the West Asians with petrodollars in their pockets, and all over Asia signboards began to appear in Arabic. The Chinese and the Koreans were next. Indians were late in the game, but an entire Chungking Arcade grew in Hong Kong around visiting sub-continentals, where they ate, lodged, and shopped, happy to be home away from home. Singapore's Little India has a different origin, but, after they have done the packaged sights, travelling in packaged tour buses, no Indian or Bangladeshi leaves without visiting Mustafa's 24-hour shopping multiplex on Serangoon Road.
I'm not saying this is wrong, but is this what we desire? If tourism is meant to promote interaction between cultures and understanding among peoples, is that purpose being served by the way it's packaged and delivered? If you stay, move, shop, and eat (your own kind of food) as a shepherded herd, with tour guides waiting on you all the time and taking care of all your worries, including doling out packaged capsules of local history and lore, what kind of interaction can there possibly be with people whose countries you happen to visit? Okay, you've visited Hyde Park and Madame Tussaud's and the Buckingham Palace, or Hong Kong Disneyland, Arun Wat, or Sentosa, but how much do you know of local cultures and traditions? How much are you changed and enriched by your visits, except acquiring photographs and souvenirs to show your friends and family back home and fill your showcases, and being able to make "I was there" kind of conversation? Are you a little less of a diehard nationalist and a little more of a liberal, with fewer prejudices and freer thinking?
These thoughts come to mind as I read of the huge benefits packaged tourism has brought, and continues to bring, to Asia. Sixty per cent of the global tourism demand now emanates from this region. The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) says tourism revenues in the region will top $4.6 trillion by the end of 2010. Visitor arrivals will reach close to 500 million. More significantly, two-thirds of all international arrivals will be generated from within the region itself. That is, more fellow Asians would be visiting fellow Asian countries. Specifically, more Chinese, Koreans, and Singaporeans will be on the road, and, inevitably, as personal affluence grows, more Indians.
Packaged outbound tourism seems to have gripped the Indian mind, and some 8.3 million Indians travelled abroad last year to shop or honeymoon, or just to spend vacation time with family. Expectations are that the annual outbound traffic will reach 50 million by 2020.
Our inbound is lagging badly though, there were 380 international arrivals in Asia last year, and we had only about 5 million. Even Angkor in Cambodia has moved from just 7,600 visitors in 1993 to over 2 million in 2007 and expects 3 million by 2010. In Thailand, Phuket alone had 5 million last year. Singapore is looking forward to 17 million visitor arrivals and $30 billion in tourism revenue by 2015. By comparison, Sri Lanka's inbound count is no more than 500,000, Nepal is about the same, and Bangladesh is talking of 1.3 million international visitors by 2020.
But who's getting what is beside the point. The thing is, worldwide, the pie is getting bigger, people are travelling more, and hotels, stores, resorts, and tour organizers are having a ball. But is the world a different place because of all this? Are the human borders blurring? Do we think less as an Indian or Chinese or French or Russian and a little more as a member of a common human family? Do we snigger a little less at how others behave or live? Are we more respectful of other opinions and thinking?
It doesn't seem so. Yes, packaged tourism has brought untold benefits to countries and a whole lot of people, but has done little to liberate us from ourselves. We flit through countries like a bird glides over a landscape, and come back home with nothing changed. We go out as strangers and come back as strangers too.
