Turn down the volume: How to plan for a sustainable tourism recovery after C‑19

May 6, 2020

Leatherback hatching at Khao Lampi - Hat Thai Mueng national park. Image courtesy of (c) Phuket Marine National Parks Operations Center 2 / https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2624818794469718&set=pcb.2624819491136315&type=1&theater
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Bangkok-based travel & hos­pit­al­ity entre­pren­eur and sus­tain­able tour­ism advoc­ate Willem Niemeijer sees an oppor­tun­ity in the SARS-CoV­‑2 crisis; an oppor­tun­ity to rebal­ance tour­ism with more sens­ible man­age­ment and less vis­it­or volume. But make your plans swiftly because Mr Niemeijer reck­ons recov­ery will be faster than many think.

The lock­down meas­ures in place to keep the COVID-19 coronavir­us from spread­ing have been an unmit­ig­ated dis­aster for the travel industry. Mil­lions of people are fur­loughed or out of their jobs. Bil­lions of dol­lars have been lost. Loc­als are shel­ter­ing at home. City streets, fam­ous beaches, and icon­ic tour­ist sites around the world lie almost empty.

How­ever, reports of wild­life return­ing to claim former hab­it­ats, such as the leather­b­ack turtles in Phuket and the dugongs in Trang show the upside to the downturn.

There are oth­er pos­it­ives, such as lucky trav­el­lers enjoy­ing a vis­it to Angkor Wat, and hav­ing that world-renowned site all to them­selves.

Most tour­ist attrac­tions in the world are closed or can­not be reached. But ‘soon’ they will open their doors again. 

How long the recov­ery takes is anyone’s guess. My take is that it will be faster than we think. One of the reas­ons I believe this is that the crisis is glob­al. With loc­al­ised neg­at­ive events in the past such as SARS, 9 – 11 and the 2004 tsunami, trav­el­lers could go else­where. Now we can’t travel at all. In short, this crisis is the great equal­iser. All des­tin­a­tions are at zero on a level play­ing field.

This is an oppor­tun­ity. Spe­cific­ally, it’s an oppor­tun­ity to make the comeback all about bet­ter man­age­ment, not volume. To do that, let’s look at why vis­it­ors come to des­tin­a­tions in the first place.

Take Cam­bod­ia. While the des­tin­a­tion has a lot to offer — verd­ant jungles, pristine islands, vibrant city life — the core attrac­tion has been the phys­ic­al ruins of ancient Khmer cul­ture. At the same time, the bad exper­i­ence of hordes of tour­ists being in the way of each oth­er takes the pleas­ure out of what should be a pos­it­ive experience.

So how about vis­it­ing Angkor Wat when few people are there, as is the case now? This can be done by using exist­ing book­ing and tick­et­ing apps such as used by the Van Gogh Museum in Ams­ter­dam, the Pra­doi in Mad­rid and oth­ers, to man­age vis­it­ors num­bers to each site.

Angkor is a massive com­plex, with many impress­ive temples far apart: Taphrom, the Bay­on, Preah Khan and many oth­ers beside Angkor Wat. On top of that, there are sites fur­ther afield, such as the mag­ni­fi­cent Banteay Srei com­plex. Tech­no­logy can be deployed to plan vis­it­or num­bers to each site in time slots, cre­at­ing a far super­i­or exper­i­ence and allow­ing for bet­ter con­ser­va­tion of the World Her­it­age Site. Entire itin­er­ar­ies can be built, per­haps adding (elec­tric) vehicles to trans­port vis­it­ors from site to site, avoid­ing over­crowding, and ensur­ing vis­it­ors see all the import­ant locations.

An empty Angkor complex in Cambodia courtesy of COVID-19. Image (c) Herman Hoven of Khiri Travel.
An empty Angkor com­plex in Cam­bod­ia cour­tesy of COVID-19. Image © Her­man Hov­en of Khiri Travel.

Thai­l­and, the most suc­cess­ful South­east Asi­an coun­try in terms of tour­ism num­bers, has for some years now been waver­ing between qual­ity and quant­ity. The then Min­is­ter of Tour­ism and Sports, Ms Kob­karn Wat­tanav­rangkul, pro­claimed in 2017: “It’s the qual­ity of vis­it­ors that we’re look­ing at. The emphas­is is now on the rev­en­ue per head and the qual­ity.” Yet today all the meas­ur­ing is still done in pas­sen­ger arrivals, which means that rev­en­ue growth is always trail­ing arrival growth.

After many dec­ades of growth, and with per­haps up to 15% of its eco­nomy depend­ent on tour­ism, it’s too late to make the choice. Thai­l­and needs to ace both qual­ity and quant­ity. Invest­ment in the sec­tor, made by play­ers big and small, should be sup­por­ted, encour­aged and rewarded.

To find sus­tain­able growth, where no sac­ri­fices are made to cul­ture and envir­on­ment, the coun­try should take inspir­a­tion from the 1987 – 88 Vis­it Thai­l­and Year, a cam­paign that bril­liantly pro­moted factors that set the coun­try apart from oth­er des­tin­a­tions: a liv­ing cul­ture that has in many ways remained unchanged over cen­tur­ies, innate hos­pit­al­ity, and an unri­valled cuisine.

This Thai spir­it, hos­pit­al­ity and tra­di­tion can still be found every­where in the coun­try, espe­cially in less-vis­ited places. This real­isa­tion should encour­age invest­ment in vis­it­or dispersion.

Mean­while, already heav­ily developed places should step up their efforts in con­ser­va­tion. Phuket, for example, can now build its repu­ta­tion as the island where Leather­b­ack Turtles are pro­tec­ted through tour­ism fund­ing. This will go a long way in attract­ing qual­ity travellers.

With a level play­ing field, the glob­al C‑19 crisis has cre­ated a unique oppor­tun­ity for busi­nesses and des­tin­a­tions. They need to join hands to elim­in­ate weak­nesses and invest in core strengths. Then they can bounce back fast and grow sus­tain­ably bey­ond 2019 numbers.

The future of tour­ism should be about bet­ter man­age­ment, not volume.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Leather­b­ack hatch­ing at Khao Lampi — Hat Thai Mueng nation­al park. Image cour­tesy of © Phuket Mar­ine Nation­al Parks Oper­a­tions Cen­ter 2

About the author

Willem Niemeijer, Founder Khiri Travel, Founder & CEO YAANA Ventures
Willem Niemeijer

Willem Niemeijer has been pas­sion­ate about travel for as long he can remem­ber. Start­ing out at a stu­dent travel organ­isa­tion in the 1980s, he moved to Thai­l­and in 1987 and foun­ded Khiri Travel in 1993. The DMC now oper­ates in eight coun­tries with 18 offices, and has a ded­ic­ated char­ity, Khiri Reach.

In 2016 Willem foun­ded YAANA Ven­tures to cre­ate and grow a port­fo­lio of sus­tain­able hos­pit­al­ity brands in Asia. Today, YAANA over­sees nature lodges in Thai­l­and and Cam­bod­ia. Through YAANA Willem has bold plans for the sus­tain­able hos­pit­al­ity sec­tor in remote parts of Asia.

In addi­tion to Khiri and YAANA, Willem is involved in GROUND Asia, spe­cial­ising in ser­vice learn­ing pro­jects for schools and uni­ver­sit­ies; Nar­una Retreats, provid­ing per­son­al lead­er­ship devel­op­ment; and HMP Mas­ter, a new cloud-based solu­tion for boutique hotel management.

Willem resides in Bangkok with his fam­ily and is flu­ent in Dutch, Eng­lish and Thai. Find him on Linked­In and Twit­ter.

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