Locals sidelined in tourist paradises

Pamela Nowicka, Guardian News Service, London

My Balinese friend Ida texted me about the Bali bombs. When we spoke she expressed anger and dismay about what she called the Saudi Arabianisation of Indonesia over the last 20 years.

Often dubbed a "paradise" in holiday brochures, the small Hindu island is a microcosm of the impact of global tourism and the inequalities enshrined in its inexorable consumption of culture, people and environments. However repugnant such attacks, it would be naive for holidaymakers to ignore the fact that north-south tourism has a powerful political undercurrent -- as the bombers clearly realized.

Bali may indeed be paradise for over one million foreign holidaymakers who travel there every year. But for ordinary Balinese, and the economic migrants who flock there from other poorer parts of predominantly Muslim Indonesia, life is far less benign.

Tourism is trumpeted by governments in the global south as a quick-fix means of generating the much-needed foreign exchange demanded by the IMF and the World Bank. But there is rarely any consultation with ordinary people whose lives are irrevocably affected by the influx of wealthy foreigners, and little regard to the environmental, social and cultural impacts at the sharp end.

When we holiday in the developing world, we are engaged in more than a spot of much-needed R & R. Many in the global south regard tourism as a new form of colonialism and cultural imperialism. While that may be hard for the suntanned holidaymaker to take on board, for the millions of ordinary people servicing their needs -- the waiting staff, room cleaners, receptionists, shop workers, guides, massage ladies and taxi drivers -- the linkage is clearer.

Tourism is a huge industry -- the third largest globally after oil and narcotics -- employing hundreds of millions of people worldwide. While it benefits some, its impact on local economies and the social and environmental fabric is often disastrous.

Tourists like to wear the kind of clothes they wear at home, often flouting norms of decency in the host country. They stay in rooms that are palatial by local standards, and five-star luxury resorts exclude locals from beaches. Tourists' consumption of electricity and other resources is many times that of locals. The trickle-down effect mostly fails to trickle down -- the bulk of tourist profits in many developing nations ends up leaving the country.

And while corporations like KFC, Starbucks and McDonald's colonize Kuta's main drag, how can local restaurants compete with the pull of multimillion-dollar ad spends and brand recognition? Local businesses go broke and families fall into poverty.

In Sri Lanka, the aftermath of the tsunami is being used as an opportunity to push through plans for luxury resorts, while locals are still housed in temporary camps. The government has announced a 200m to 1km coastal development zone that excludes locals from the beach on grounds of safety -- but five-star resorts are allowed within the zone.

As tourist numbers plummet in the aftermath of the Bali atrocities, against a background of heightened religious tension, the invisible people who keep the cogs of the tourism machine turning and depend on a notoriously fickle industry for their livelihoods are set to become the hidden victims of the Bali bombs. For the tourist it might be a question mark over paradise.

The writer is a consultant with Tourism Concern (www.tourismconcern.org.uk).