Hard selling hawkers disturb tourists

By Rob Goodfellow

DENPASAR (JP): Made is 26 years old. Like a thousand or so other young men from Bali, Java and Madura, he works for the Kapten, an Indonesian Army Officer from East Java who holds one of the official licenses to vend souvenirs on the streets of Kuta and Legion. Each member of the Kapten's club pays Rp 15,000 to sign up and Rp 3,000 to renew their membership each month. This arrangement gives young men like Made the opportunity to wear a numbered yellow shirt and sell watches or silver jewelry to one of the thousands of bargain hunting visitors who ply the backstreets of Bali's tourist mecca every day.

Like all members of the club, Made buys his box of goods, in this case cheap watches made in Surabaya, directly from the Kapten. Each watch, which some call "visa watches" because they only last until your holiday ends, costs Rp 15,000 (US$6.66). Anything Made takes on top, minus the club fees, is his to keep. On a good day it can add up to Rp 30,000. On a bad day, nothing.

Kuta's hawkers say trade is very slow this year. Frustration has led to the hard-sell, confrontation and abuse. Most tourists learn to ignore the hawkers, but there have been recent reports of threats, pushing, pinching and punching as the heat, the crowds, the dust and the toxic clouds of vehicle exhaust fray the tempers of both the hunter and the hunted.

According to Denpasar-based anthropologist I. Gusti Made Santikarma (Degung), what is happening on the streets of Kuta is a visible representation of social change in Bali. Degung maintains that, "to the street hawkers each tourist seems like a millionaire. They are the ones who stay in expensive hotels. They are the ones who pull out their bulging wallets with a year's income for an ordinary Indonesian wage laborer to pay for a cheese and tomato jaffle. Why are you surprised that the street sellers are starting to fight back? They are frustrated and confused. Life in Kuta has become very fast.

"Twenty years ago Legia was a coconut groove. Now it is virtually a city. Anyway, you have to remember it was the Aussies who taught the hawkers how to swear. And now their words have come back to haunt them," he explained.

But it is more than a war of words. The Bali hard-sell takes many forms, but all demonstrate an appalling lack of cultural insight into the buying behavior of Western tourists.

"Hawkers cannot hide their contempt for us", says Allison from Sydney who comes to Bali every year on holiday.

"I think that in their hearts they hate us for who we are and what we represent. They see what we have and they want it. When we don't buy they become aggressive and abusive. Sometimes I feel really frightened," Rose from Melbourne explained. "Why should I want to buy one of their cheap watches? I don't like what they sell and I don't like the way they never leave you alone, even when you are eating. We don't treat our overseas guests like that, why should I put up with their ignorant behavior," she added.

The antipathy of tourists towards the hawkers is understandable when you consider the techniques the hawkers employ. Hawkers will follow a tourist until "they catch their eye." If possible they will learn their prey's name and then never stop using it. They will follow tourists into shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, the street salesmen operate on the assumption that enough pressure will ultimately land a sale.

After "What's your name?" comes the sales pitch. This starts off hard and then gets harder. "You buy, cheap price, what you want, you tell me your price" it continues. The hawker becomes pushy, often grabbing the person's hand, often thrusting their product right into their prey's face.

"You buy! Just 10,000!" A refusal is greeted with angry words. Reciprocal aggression on the part of tourist is matched by physical abuse from the hawker. They push, spit on the ground and curse.

All this betrays the most basic principle of sales -- there must be an interest and then a desire to buy. Hard-sell works only when subtle enough not to be recognized for what it really is. The Kuta hawkers destroy the atmosphere in which the desire to buy is created.

Unfortunately the trend towards hard-sell is not isolated to Jalan Kuta hawkers. Rachel from Wollongong complains that she was abused and humiliated by the staff of the taxi service at Ngurah Rai Airport. She described how one attendant hissed "ten thousand, ten thousand" at her -- a price double the prescribe taxi fare to her destination. When Rachel said she wouldn't pay that amount, the employee responded by humiliating her in front of a long line of other tourists, "Then you can just walk lady -- go, go!"

Experiences like this are now common place around Kuta. John, an American from San Francisco, had his traveler's cheques stolen on the ferry from Lombok. When he respectfully asked an employee of the local Wartel (telecommunications depot) to make a collect call to American Express, the response was a crude attempt to extort money by insisting that the now broke visitor use their service.

Like all forms of Bali hard-sell, John's experience is a betrayal of the basic spirit of generosity towards guests and a serious miscalculation about how much foreign tourists are prepared to tolerate.

Made and three other hawkers a stalking their prey, an obese and perspiring middle-aged Australian woman. "Why don't you f--- off!" her husband threatens, or I'll smack your f----- face in!"

A tourist bus full middle aged Japanese tourists roars by, engulfing the players in a cloud of diesel exhaust. Made sees a family of blonde, sunburned and heavily hair-beaded Germans on the other side of the road. Sensing a kill he pauses only long enough to curse the fat woman's husband. Another tourist who will make a point to never buy anything as long as he lives from a Kuta street hawker.