'Bali needs red-light districts'

'Bali needs red-light districts'

DENPASAR, Bali: A travel agency entrepreneur says that Bali, with its thriving tourism industry, needs localization of red- light districts.

"Bali really needs localization of prostitution," John Ketut Panca said during a seminar here entitled "Sun, Sea, Sand, Sex and Culture Tourism" at Warmadewa University yesterday.

"The society and the government shouldn't be hypocritical about this," he added. "Prostitution has been around for ages, anyway."

He pointed out that the sex industry is already booming in several districts, including Kuta and Sanur.

In a bid to scrap the tourist industry's image here as being inseparable from the sex trade, then-governor Ida Bagus Mantra campaigned to promote the notion of "cultural tourism." Bali, he argued 20 years ago, is rich with cultural heritage and this is what should be promoted.

A French anthropologist working at the Club Med Hotel, however, estimated that only 10 percent of Bali's tourists go there to observe its culture. The rest, he said, come to avoid the cold seasons in their countries. (23)