An experiment in special interest tourism

By Dewi Anggraeni

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Tourism has evolved. The last decades of the 20th century have seen several changes to international tourism. To begin with, the flow is no longer only west-west, west-east or west-anywhere exotic. Other sources have sprung up and branched out: east-east, east-west and east-anywhere different.

The latest trend which is yet to take root in some countries is ecotourism, a trend which grows in tandem with a new sensitivity toward our fragile environment.

However, there is a definite gradation of ecotourism, from that which has tourists travel in horse-drawn carriages into supposedly virgin forests and sleep in tents for days and nights on end, to that where tourists travel in four-wheel drives into canyons, try bungee-jumping over natural cliffs and waterfalls, eat witchety grubs for lunch, but have a great deal of comfort at night in accommodation which looks like environmentally friendly tents yet have all the mod-cons inside.

All in all, the ecotourists are saying to the environment, "Excuse us for trespassing. We'll try not to upset you and we won't stay long. When we leave, we'll remember to close the door behind us."

Have any tourists been that courteous to local inhabitants of the places they visit? Should they be "trained" to be more sensitive to the locals?

This is probably where Warwick Purser, an entrepreneur with a dream, comes in.

Purser lives in the village of Tembi, on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. He describes himself as a "white man who has chosen Indonesia as his home". Being the president of Out of Asia, a furniture and craft business with offices in Hong Kong, Thailand as well as Indonesia, who has lived in three countries, including his own -- Australia -- Purser knows what he is doing.

In fact, he has been planning his project since he moved his office from Bali to Tembi five years ago.

What Purser is planning to launch later this year is his version of tourism. Purser is a conservationist extraordinaire, who marries his conservationist dream with business pragmatism.

He enjoys living in Tembi, where he has constant contact with the locals. "I can have involvement with them. They're very nice people. There is dignity about them that many city people seem to have lost," he said.

To Purser, the next step is to introduce Tembi to people who genuinely want to learn about them, about daily life in a kampong, a segment of Javanese culture, which he describes as embedded in a multilayered world.

He is not thinking of the mainstream tourists, but instead, of special interest tourists; those who genuinely want to study Javanese culture at kampong level without having to do a university degree for it.

"I want to make it a serious business, giving the opportunity to these people to stay in the village," Purser said.

He is indeed putting substance into his dream. He has nearly finished building a compound of houses which will provide accommodation for this type of tourist. Strictly speaking, they are not new houses. Purser found them abandoned and dilapidated, and set about renovating them without changing the character of the houses -- from the outside.

The outward appearance of these houses would not set them apart from other fairly well-tended buildings in Tembi. A pleasant surprise awaits one inside, however. The furniture and set up are clearly provided for the utmost comfort of the guests, though everything is understated and mooted.

The furniture breathes in syncronicity with the local atmosphere. Nothing looks foreign or stands out like a sore thumb. Even the swimming pool evokes in the romantics, the place where Javanese royal concubinage played and bantered, instead of that usually found in a five-star hotel.

Tourists who stay at five-star hotels do not generally go into kampongs for several reasons. They are not interested, because they are on holiday, not on an anthropological exploration. They feel too intrusive to do so, because after all, the closeness of everyone to them makes them uncomfortable, for the villagers' and their own sakes. Last but not least, when they stay in a five- star hotel, they can always return to the impersonal zone if the ambience becomes too much for them.

Staying in Purser-style accommodation is like plunging into a pool of which the depth is initially unknown. It is "in your face". You are right among the villagers, breathing their air, smelling their lives and hearing their daily sounds, and witnessing their activity without any opportunity to seek the protection of anonymity.

Not to be neglected, also, is the likely reactions of the villagers. At the moment, Purser's "friends" may be welcome, since Purser is regarded as a "personality" whose presence livens up their village, as well as a benefactor, who built a fitness center for their use and provides regular entertainment by inviting celebrities to feature in dangdut parties. Nonetheless, when the project gets off the ground, and they find strangers walking among them, probably asking questions, will they still feel comfortable?

A safety catch that Purser keeps up his sleeve is that he is only building 10 rooms, thus limiting the number of strangers who could be present at a time in the village.

"What if there turns out to be a flood of tourists wanting to visit Tembi after your promote it?" we asked.

"I would find another entrepreneurial person to do the same in another village elsewhere, and maybe we can even link up," he answered.

The other side of his dream is to give Tembi the opportunity for employment, even full employment eventually. He would like to try and train Tembi villagers to produce all the things that the guests need. Ultimately, Purser wants Tembi to be set up as an example of a self-sufficient village that has an admirable standard of living.

At a glance, this new-style tourism sounds like a daring social experiment. It will be interesting to see how this experiment develops.