Last week my column was about my experience in walking through casinos
in Macau (SAR) of China and of the concept of integrated resorts. I shared with
readers how integrated resorts were used to contain hundreds of thousands of
people in a world of dreams, within an artificially created environment. I had
several readers sending me e-mails commenting on what they thought of the
proposition I was making. Most said they never thought that one could contain
such large numbers of visitors within buildings and wanted to study more of the
concept.
One caught my attention in particular, for that reader was upset with
the thought that, I was promoting casinos for Sri Lanka. I did respond to him firmly
stating that, it is not my intent and thought it would be good for me to make a
clarification today, lest I be misunderstood.
What I did not tell him though is that, there is a lot of hypocrisy in
the way in which we think about gaming. Most of those who say that casinos are
not to be, forget that most Sri Lankan families each evening sit together in
front of their TV screens, to play the various lottery games available. Within
the city of Colombo, even in close proximity to schools, casinos carry on business
as usual.
The proposition I make is that we contain all of that in a single area,
to achieve the targets set for tourism while making rapid ROI, containing the
need to ‘develop’ facilities all around the country, for the millions of visitors,
we expect to have. It is indeed a pragmatic plea for conserving our valuable bio-diversity
rich natural and culturally vibrant heritage resources, for the longer term. What
I learnt as a conservation economist; is that the best way to conserve a
threatened resource, is by providing an alternative to replace it.
On a recent visit to Pollonnaruwa, we observed how the old bricks at
several heritage sites were showing signs of wear, as a result of over-visitation
to those particular areas. Some were even seen to be disintegrating. Each of
our heritage sites as well as our cultural resources has a limit or a carrying
capacity of what it can take, without causing irreparable damage to its form
and content.
As I have maintained through out my career in this industry, tourism is
a two-edged word. In the wrong hands and ill-managed, tourism can do much
damage to a country’s natural, cultural and human resources. Similarly, when
well-managed, tourism can be a most potent and productive endeavour
contributing to uplift the lives of communities, providing employment, incomes,
education, enriching local cultures and contribute towards conservation of
resources.
This year Sri Lanka expects to have nearly 700,000 visitors. In about
half a decade, the number is to reach 2.5 million according to our tourism
planners. A friend of mine exclaimed with a “But that’s half our population?”
in response to a politician’s claim that tourism will need 10 million people to
service its needs in the future.
It is most unfortunate that many who talk about tourism or even get
involved in its planning and management have not been exposed adequately to its
manifold faces. They know only of a few popular models and continue attempts to
replant some of them on our domain. Within Sri Lanka, there are of course exceptions
to this rule. One well known contributor is of course, architect guru Late
Geoffrey Bawa. The innovative spirit, creativity and the local feel he brought
to our hotel and resort architecture stands testimony to his great contribution
to tourism. To him a hotel was not just another well designed building, but a
platform to create a holistic visitor experience.
I have heard of an instance when he chased away a rock music group that
was about to perform in the lobby of the Light House Hotel in Galle, for that
was not to be the mood he had envisaged for his creation. Later, the amplified
sounds were replaced with mellow melodies of a bamboo flute.
I also know of an enlightened tourism entrepreneur, who prior to
designing a tourist hotel took a tour studying best practices at destinations such
as Bali, Chiang Mai, Sarawak and the like. He spent weeks at each, learning of
the why and the how of those experiences and the facility he developed is today
a hit with high-end visitors as well as being an award winner.
Within tourism’s many faces we could also explore many options. Home
stay based resorts, boat-houses, soft and hard adventure, creating dream
experiences, opportunities for volunteering, cultural interactions, mega-integrated
resorts, eco-lodges, niche developments, tea-trails, ancient heritage
explorations, colonial heritage explorations, wildlife explorations, study of elephants,
ornithology explorations, sea mammal explorations, sailing and angling
explorations … the list can be long and the faces are many.
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