gambitch - now available in blue

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Quick notes on bloglinks.

Ian, you're out of the doghouse now. Don't do that April Fool's thing with me again or it's back in you go!

A great shout-out to Semidi for bloglinking to a total stranger who just happens to comment sporadically on his blog. Semidi, you're male, right? And would you prefer me spelling your name with a big 'S' or small?

And, oh yes, thanks to everyone who helped get me past the 2,800 mark. Now for 3,000!

gambitch [ 12:48 AM]

Monday, April 18, 2005

The Singapore government has announced today its decision to lift a long-standing ban on the construction of casinos in the island nation. The move, according to government spokesmen, was part of an effort to stem the years-long tide of decline in tourist visits and revenue. The announcement was made despite months of fierce public debate which, for the most part, was inconclusive.

I could talk at length about the whole episode, but given I've been reading Paul Krugman lately (this after two years of nothing but Greg Palast - I reckoned it was time to diversify), I'll try to keep the ideas relevant. Suffice to say I'm not terribly chuffed by the continued efforts of small island economies in East Asia to emulate those resorts in the Bahamas.

The fall in tourism rates, and the reduction in tourist dollars in Singapore is partly because the island is, well, small. Also there is the fact that there isn't really very much history and culture to the place, which two hundred years ago mostly hosted quaint fishing villages. The lack of natural attractions means that tourists end up mostly visiting Disneylands. Which is great, except when you have proper Disneylands (as in, um, owned by Disney) in other parts of the world, and when there are other outstanding theme parks like the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, it takes plenty of character to make your own theme park interesting enough to pull in the tourists.

What's to be made of this? Either Singapore's previous attempts at theme parks have not really been that good - apparently there have been numerous flops like some theme park based on Asian civilizations (I laughed quite hard when I heard of that one) - or the attempts have come to no real result. Statistics released by the nation's official tourism promotion agency note that tourists are generally staying for shorter durations compared to previous years. That must mean that the old tricks weren't really working that well.

The ultimate question to ask with regards to the decision announced by the Singapore government is this: Will the decision to open casinos - not just one as previously expected, but two - cause fundamental changes that will make the island an attractive tourist destination with good revisitation rates? I'm no economics student, but that sounds rather improbable. Las Vegas is one whole glitzy city with dazzling lights everywhere you turn, and people omit to mention that the city is awash with cabarets and performance spots. Is Singapore eager to do the same, or has all the attention been centred around the casinos?

And just how will the construction of casinos create any kind of increase in cultural richesse exemplified in its tourist locations? For a country that has some 77% of its population being ethnic Chinese - don't take my word for it, here's a State Department report to prove it - it has a rather uninspiring Chinatown. The buildings are brightly coloured with modern paints, and some of them have even been converted to offices and such. Then there are the shopping malls with shopfronts that look like they belong better in the fringes of town. Lively and vibrant the area is not. I know - I've been there recently.

Another thing to note is the emergence of regional neighbours as tourist locations. Everyone knows about Pattaya and Phuket in Thailand, but somewhat more exotic locations like Angkor Wat and Siam Reap in the Indochina region are gathering more attention among culture fans and backpackers. Of course, who can omit Borobudur? With so many tourist opportunities in the immediate region, it is no wonder that Singapore has been consistently getting less attention once people run out of things to see on the island itself.

The emergence of budget airlines in Southeast Asia, just like the precedent in Europe, is only going to make regional tourist spot-hopping ever more attractive. Nowadays it is already common to see people go on tours of Europe where, at one fell swoop, they jet around from Milan to Madrid to Munich to Monaco, basing themselves at some convenient central location. European and American tourists interested in checking out Southeast Asia will probably do the same once budget carriers expand their list of destinations to include even the not-so-major cities in the region.

These trends aren't going to go away. Neither is the fact that people have seen all they wanted to see - and for some reason they don't want to see it a second time - going to go away. Perhaps fixing the situation shouldn't involve building a casino - sorry, an integrated resort - at all, if only because it does nothing to change the fundamentals, and the fundamentals can be changed without building one of these things. Perhaps people should ask just why the theme park approach isn't working - and I'd hazard a guess here that it's because there are too many of them, each of which is too small, making them tourism's version of bland Cape Cods. Perhaps there needs to be something of a realization that there's a rich cultural mine out there that should be tapped, but isn't. For what will be an expensive, land-chewing business venture, the casino route can be crassly described as irresponsible. But I'd be more polite and call it being lulled to become lazy.

gambitch [ 9:17 PM]