Airports have become chaotic, hotels are being thrown up with
little regard for safety and sanitation, beaches are strewn with garbage
and coral reefs are dying.
The six-month closure of the Philippine tourism island of Boracay for a
revamp after the country's president branded it a "cesspool" reflects
the growing pressures on beach resorts across Southeast Asia as visitor
numbers surge.
Tourism experts say the region's infrastructure is buckling under
record visitor numbers, especially as more Chinese holiday abroad, and
expect more drastic measures to come.
Airports have become chaotic, hotels are being thrown up hastily with
little regard for safety and sanitation, tropical beaches are strewn
with garbage and coral reefs are dying.
Thailand already has plans to shut its famous Maya Bay in the Phi Phi
islands for four months this summer, while an environmental group is
calling for urgent government action to tackle a "crisis" on the
Indonesian tourist island of Bali.
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"Many out-of-control destinations across Asia will need clean-ups,"
said Brian King, associate dean of the School of Hotel and Tourism
Management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. "These may come from
government, or industry or from NGO-driven community action. The danger
is that little happens until the crisis point is reached."
He added: "Boracay is not the first and won't be the last closure."
Airlines have already started to cut back flights to Boracay, which had
2 million visitors last year, with the largest foreign contingents
coming from China and South Korea, ahead of its closure on April 26.
The Philippines, which had record visitor numbers last year after three
years of double-digit growth, estimates the Boracay closure could
reduce full-year GDP by 0.1 percent.
It is also planning to inspect the beach resort of Puerto Galera, on
the island of Mindoro, and is already looking at the resorts of El Nido
and Coron, in Palawan province, where an influx oftourism and rapid
development has put infrastructure under strain.
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But rival tourist hotspots around the region are not all rubbing their
hands at the prospect of the extra revenue from the redirected tourist
traffic.
Kanokkittika Kritwutikon, the head of the Tourism Authority of
Thailand's Phuket office, said the island was at "stretching point",
particularly its airport, which has undergone a number of upgrades in
recent years to try to cope with overcapacity.
"Our policy is to try to spread tourism around" from Phuket to
"secondary destinations that are less well-known," said Kanokkittika.
"Apart from guests arriving by plane to Phuket we also have boats coming
in, including cruises, so you can imagine how many tourists come
through Phuket."
The shutdown of Maya Bay in an attempt to salvage the area's coral
reefs - which have been damaged by crowds of tourists and warmer
temperatures - follows the closure of 10 popular Thai diving sites in
2016 after a National Parks survey found bleaching on up to 80 percent
of some reefs.
Pattaya, south of Bangkok, serves as another cautionary tale.
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An influx of western tourists from as far back as the 1960s, when
American soldiers came on leave from the Vietnam war, and a construction
boom in the 1990s transformed it from a picturesque fishing village to a
town known for its seedy nightlife and high crime rate.
Thailand's tourism ministry expects 37.55 million tourists this year,
up from a record 35 million in 2017, of which 9.8 million were from
China.
Shutdowns "too late"
Benjamin Cassim, a tourism lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic School of
Business in Singapore, said the closures of Boracay and Maya Beach could
become "test cases" and will be closely monitored by other countries
with popular beach resorts.
A non-profit group in Indonesia has been calling on the government to
tackle what it calls an "environmental crisis" in Bali, the country's
most popular tourist island, which saw more than 5.5 million visitors
last year.
