Relation of tourism and development in Bali
http://www1.american.edu/ted/balitour.htm
1. The Issue
The island of Bali, Indonesia, always has been an enchanting
place for foreigners. Images of rice paddies, beautiful beaches
and temples and a fascinating culture draw tourists from all
around the world. It was only in the 1970s that tourism in Bali
started to develop. The industry did bring many benefits to the
island, such as increased employment, and its transformation from
a marginal economic area of the country to the most important
area in Indonesia after Jakarta. However, Bali s tourism
development occurred quickly and without proper planning.
Therefore, tourism has caused some serious damage to the island's
environment. As one example, the sleepy village of Kuta became
a tourist enclave, with its natural resources degraded and its
infrastructure overwhelmed. This paper will discuss the origins
of tourism in Bali and how it has affected the island's
environment. It also will discuss proposed alternatives to let
tourism and the environment coexist in a more balanced fashion.
2. Description
Mass tourism in Bali began in 1969 with the construction of
the new Ngurah Rai
International Airport, allowing foreign
flights directly into the island, rather than arrival via
Jakarta. Three years later, in 1972, the Master Plan for the
Development of Tourism in Bali was drawn by the government of
Indonesia. The government wanted to make Bali the "showcase" of
Indonesia and to serve as the model of future tourism development
for the rest of the country.(1) The plan was financed by the
United Nations Development Programme and carried out by the World
Bank. A
consulting company from France, SCETO, drew up the
plans, which called for the development of tourism in the
southern peninsula of the island, Nusa Dua, and allowing day-
trip excursions to the interior in order to protect the cultural
integrity of Bali, the island's main attraction. (2) The plan
was to cater to well-to-do tourists from Australia, Japan, Europe
and North America.
The original government strategy did not produce the expected
results. Instead of attracting the well-heeled to
luxury hotels
and resorts, the island drew many young and budget-conscious
travelers,eager to see more of the island than just resort
facilities. Consequently, the tourist industry in Bali
unintentionally evolved in order to cater to two types of
tourism: the "package-tour group high-spending tourists on the
one hand," and "individual low-spending tourists on the other."
(3) Locally owned tourist facilities sprung up in Kuta, Ubud,
Batur, Lovina and Candi Dasa to cater to the increasing number of
budget travelers. The big, luxury resorts pampering the upper-
scale tourists were owned by big multinationals from both
Indonesia and abroad. (4)
It was not until the 1980s, however, when an
oil market
collapse forced Indonesia to promote other exports and
investments, that the expected tourism targets the government
anticipated were reached. Moreover, after Garuda Airlines, the
Indonesian airline, decided to allow foreign airlines to fly
directly into Bali, tourism soared. Tourist arrivals in Bali
grew from 30,000 in 1969 to 700,000 in 1989. (5) From 1990 to
1993, these numbers rose from 2.5 million to 4 million. (6)
Bali's population in 1992 was about 3 million. (7)
The rapid and unplanned tourism development of Bali has had a
great impact on its
natural environment, affecting water
resources, increasing pollution and localized flooding and
putting pressure on the island's infrastructure. (8) There has
been an increasing generation of waste due to the rising local
population and tourist numbers. In the capital Denpasar, for
instance, about 20 percent of the solid waste was not collected
or disposed of. Instead, it was left in "informal" landfills,
dumped into canals or left on the streets. (9)
Other environmental problems due to mass tourism are
deterioration of water quality in coastal areas and destruction
of coral reefs, which are used in building construction. (10)
Hotels have been built along the coast and other areas without
regard to the water supply and waste disposal capacity, and many
commercial developments do not conform to provincial regulations
regarding the protection and integrity of historical and sacred
sites.
Candi Dasa, which attracts travelers wanting to escape
the crowds in Kuta and Sanur, already shows the strains on the
environment due to unplanned tourism. The coral reef around the
shoreline has been damaged by the villagers who use it for
building new guest houses. But as the reef disappeared, beach
erosion began.
To save what remained of the beach from washing out to sea, "a
row of monstrous concrete sea walls was built, worsening the
erosion and adding an eyesore." (11) Because of this
environmental degradation, Candi Dasa is losing tourists, and is
"well on its way to becoming Bali's first tourist ghost town."
(12)
It is not only the coastal regions that have been affected by
tourism development. Many large inland agricultural areas and
river basins have been affected as well. There has been a steady
loss of agricultural land, in particular the wet irrigated rice
fields, or sawahs, because of the increasing urbanization and
tourism development. (13) Ubud, the quaint inland artist's
village, has not been able to escape environmental damage done by
tourism. As the town is becoming more popular, the rice paddies
around the area are being drained in order to build more guest
houses. (14)
The best example of the impacts of rapid tourism development
in Bali, however, can be seen in the town of Kuta, located on the
isthmus south of Denpasar and north of
Nusa Dua. Around 1970,
before tourism exploded in Bali, Kuta was a small Balinese
village of 9,000 people, with little economic or cultural
importance in Bali. (15) Most of the population was poor,
deriving its income from farming and fishing, although land was
not very productive and the income from fishing very sporadic.
(16) There were no restaurants and only two small hotels located
in the outskirts of the village. The only potential resource of
the village was the beach, although the Balinese had no value for
it since it was not productive land and spiritually impure. (17)
Although Kuta was by no means targeted by the government's
tourism plan of Bali, its location close to the airport, its
beach access, inexpensive airfares from nearby Australia, along
with the villagers' ability to respond to tourists' basic needs,
allowed it to unintentionally develop into a tourist mecca. By
looking at the numbers, it is evident how tourism exploded in
such a short period of time.
Tourist visitors in Kuta (18)
| 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1976
| 1979 | 1980 |
|---|
| 6,095 |
14,522 | 18,010 | 14,852 | 36,052
| 60,325 |
By 1980, a third of the tourists coming to Bali stayed in
Kuta. (19) By 1975 there were more than 100
locally owned hotels
and 27 restaurants compared to 2 and none respectively in 1970.
(20)
This rapid development of Kuta produced many negative effects
on the town's environment and infrastructure. Kuta became a
"polluted, unpleasant, and diminished" town. (21) The coral
reefs were badly damaged since much of it was sold for the
construction of the airport and new roads for Nusa Dua. (See
CORAL case,
BARRIER
case,
SRICORAL case,
JAMTOUR case). This was not only a loss of a
natural resource, but also caused severe beach erosion of about
2 centimeters a year, and loss of beachfront property during high
seas. (22) There were severe trash problems along the beach,
much of it from plastic bags and drinking straws. As Hussey
points out,"[a]t low tide, the wet sand is now a slick morass of
trash, and plastic bags and straws bob on the surface of the
murky waters." (23)
Tourism development in Bali also has had an adverse effect on
some of its wildlife. The Sangeh Monkey Forest, one of the most
popular tourist places in Bali, is home to the long-tailed
macaque. Unfortunately, bad management of the site and
uneducated tourists have caused a "twisted relationship" between
the tourists and the animals. As researcher Meredith Small
discovered, these "normally gentle and friendly animals had
turned into beggars and thieves." The animals "stood up on two
legs and yanked on clothes. They jumped on people, pulled hair,
and rifled pockets." Tourists are warned not to wear glasses,
hair ribbons, or handkerchiefs around the monkeys.(24)
Food vendors and hawkers contribute to the problem. They
encourage tourists to feed the animals. Also stationed near the
entrance to a local temple are men who call themselves "guides,"
who sell photos of tourists feeding the monkeys. Small describes
the typical scene:
As a tourist enters, a guide tags along offering tidbits of
information (mostly incorrect) about monkey behavior. At the
first sight of a monkey, the guide pulls bits of food out of his
pack and puts it on the tourist's shoulder. The monkey, of
course, leaps up. The animal quietly munches away, and the
Polaroid camera flashes. The monkey is then shooed off, often
hit, and the guide demands 6,000 rupiah (about $4). (25)
The guides also bolster stealing among the animals: when
monkeys pilfer a non-edible item, the monkeys are rewarded with
bananas or peanuts, which perpetuates the behavior. It is thus
clear how uncontrolled tourism can affect animals behavior as
well as the natural physical environment. (See
KOALA case.)
The pressure that tourism has brought to Bali's infrastructure
and natural resources eventually forced the Indonesian government
to impose a freeze on hotel construction in 1991 in order to
control growth. (26) The government realized that the poor
planning and rapid tourism development that Bali went through
could in fact ruin the island s physical and cultural assets that
were, and still are, its main attractions. The island's
government also decided that Bali needed to diversify its economy
in order to avoid dependency on the tourism sector. This policy
divided the economy into three areas: agriculture, making up 32
percent of the island's gross domestic product; finance, industry
and services, making up 35 percent of the GDP; and tourism,
making up 33 percent. (27) By 1991 exports had jumped 17
percent, more than half of the US$ 225 million earned by small
companies producing traditional fabrics, garments and
handicrafts. (28) In fact, traditional exports from small,
labor-intensive industries, such as paintings, batik, silver and
wood carvings, have averaged a 20 percent growth. (29) The
government is also looking for more balanced tourism development,
since the southern part of the island is being strained by
increasing tourism. The island's planners have solicited the
help of a United Nations agency for planning a more balanced
tourism development for the rest of the island, emphasizing
cultural integrity and the environment. Part of the plan
includes encouraging the Balinese to lease instead of selling
their land to developers, and to assume new policies that
"increase awareness of the need to avoid commercialism of the
culture . . ." (30)
Substitutes:
ECOTR [Ecotourism]
Ecotourism and socially responsible travel are part of a trend
called sustainable tourism. This notion evolved from the new
paradigm of sustainable development that came out of the
Brundtland report. This alternative to mass tourism requires
managing all resources so that social, economic, and aesthetic
needs are met, and simultaneously maintaining cultural integrity
and well-being, fundamental ecological processes, biological
diversity, and life support systems. (32)
It would provide visitors with a high-quality experience while
maintaining the quality of the environment on which these goals
depend. (33)
Sustainable tourism should uphold the culture and environment
of the host community, its economy, and its traditional
lifestyle, indigenous behavior, and patterns of local and
political leadership. Local people should be involved in
planning and approval. There should be just distribution of the
costs and benefits, including effects -- positive and negative --
on future generations. (34)
According to Geoffrey Wall of the Department of Geography at
the University of Waterloo in Canada, "If tourism is to be
sustainable, it will be necessary to devise a typology of tourism
which will permit the matching of tourism types to resource
capabilities." (35) Wall uses Bali's Sustainable Development
Project of 1991 to devise a tourism typology for the island based
on four elements: attraction type, location, spatial
characteristics, and development status. Attraction type can be
cultural, natural, or recreational. (36) Location can be the
interior or the coast. (37)
Spatial characteristics can be nodal, linear, or extensive
resources. Nodal resources are specific sites that attract
tourist to localized places, such as waterfalls, temples, and
viewpoints. Most of these sites are fragile and have cultural
significance, thus there needs to be caution in their
development. Linear resources, such as coasts or excursion
routes, are more tolerant than nodal resources, but can be
deteriorated through "unilateral linear development,"which are,
for example, unbroken stretches of seashore development. (38)
Extension resources, such as cultural landscapes like the sawahs,
or national parks and other natural areas, are very fragile and
cannot sustain large numbers of tourists. (39)
Finally, development status can be divided into highly
developed, developed, and developing areas. In highly developed
areas, new developments should be limited and there should be
more emphasis on upgrading and remedial actions. In developed
areas, there should be care in avoiding the creation of "unbroken
linear developments" and should have more emphasis on the
upgrading of infrastructure. In the developing areas, "only
developments which are compatible with resource characteristics
and capabilities should be permitted." (40)
These four elements have been used in Bali to identify sites
to be intended for development and to suggest what type and
amount of development is suitable for each site. But in order to
assess whether developments based on these principles will be
sustainable, there must be a preset definition of sustainable
development for that particular area. The Bali Sustainable
Development Project did just that. (41) Bali's definition of
sustainable development encompasses the "continuity of natural
resources and production," "the continuity of culture and the
balances within culture," and "development as the process which
enhances the quality of life." (42)
Sustainable tourism has admirable goals, but it is not always
easy to achieve them. Both travelers and those working in the
industry, foreigners and locals, should be made aware of issues
related to consumption, culture and power. Ecotourism needs
great planning and sensitivity in order for it to work, and its
application is sometimes limited. It can be, however, a feasible
way to transfer part of the "financial wealth of the developed
world toward protecting the biological wealth of the developing
world." (43) One of the major problems of mass tourism has been
keeping the money inside the developing countries where it is
spent. Normally only about 45 percent of the revenues stay in
these developing countries, although some economists believe that
the number may be as low as 10 percent. (44). But since one of
the requirements for ecotourism is "to hire and buy locally," it
can be a sound alternative for many of these countries. (45) The
willingness of travelers to pay considerable amounts of money to
visit ecologically valuable places around the world can be a
source of great revenue for the host country and its conservation
efforts.
Sustainable tourism can also change people's conception of
their land and property. If implemented successfully, ecotourism
can give local people living in an area threatened by
deforestation or overfishing an economic reason to seek other
means to a livelihood. (46) In an island off Bali itself,
Halmahera, home of a rare bird in danger of extinction, a farmer
who owned the forested land where the bird lived was persuaded to
refuse the offer a Japanese logging firm to buy the land to clear
it. He chose instead to cooperate with the ecotourism
developers, who convinced him that he would earn more money
through tourist fees than from the one-time sale of his land to
the Japanese. Presently, the entire community is profiting by
providing lodging and transportation to the tourists. (47)
Even though sustainable tourism is not perfect, it can make a
difference, especially when tourism is becoming the largest
industry in the world. At least it can be a resource to the host
communities to help them decide what kind of development their
residents want to pursue.
YES
Even more than the environment, most of the research that has
been done on the impact of tourism on Bali has been on the
cultural effects. The Balinese consider themselves a distinct
ethnic group within Indonesia. In Bali, Hindus make up 93
percent of the population, but they are only 2 percent of the
Indonesian population. Additionally, Hinduism is unique in Bali,
as it is intertwined with art and nature, and is less involved
with scripture, law and belief. It is a blend of Hinduism,
animism and ancestor worship, thus it is more concerned with
local and ancestral spirits than with the traditional cycles of
rebirth and reincarnation. Temples are associated with a family
house compound, rice fields or geographical sites, and each
Balinese belongs to a temple through descent, residence, or "some
mystical revelation of affiliation. (48) The Balinese people see
life as a "never-ending dance between the powers of good and
evil, order an disorder." (49) Their religion tries to find a
proper balance between these opposing forces, and thus it fills
their entire lives and, thereby, the entire island. Their
offerings and rituals are performed in order to soothe the gods,
scare away demons, entertain the faithful, and to fill their days
with a common purpose. As Don Lattin describes in his article
"The Trouble with Bali," Balinese religion is the tiny offerings
of rice and flower petals placed daily in doorways, at
crossroads,and on countless outdoor altars. It's in the
architecture and the orchestras, in the metal tinkling of gamelan
music drifting across vibrant green rice paddies.It's in the art
and the stone gargoyles, in the Hindu epics brought to life
through the play of shadow puppets, and in the supple brown
bodies of Balinese dancers. (50)
Culture has always been the island's strongest attraction,
ranging from the beautiful Hindu temples to the dances and
traditional arts. Tourism will inevitably have some influence on
the cultural traditions of any host community, and this has also
happened in Bali, even when its culture is considered its
strongest asset.
With the need to improve the economic welfare of the people,
the government decided to develop cultural tourism as part of the
National Development Plan. Yet, there were no concerns at the
time with any type of cultural impact assessment (and evidently
no environmental impact assessment either). As a result, there
has been a commercialization of Balinese culture to meet the
tourist demands. Sacred temples are overcrowded by foreigners;
dances normally performed only every 60 years are now requested
and organized by hotels on a weekly basis; many masks, costumes
and jewelry used for religious rituals are in great demand in
antique shops, and thus handicraft workshops are promoted to
produce copies, which upsets many Balinese. (51)
One of the most recent controversial issues concerning the
impact of tourism on culture was the building of a resort area
near one of the most sacred temples of Bali, Tanah Lot. Many
Balinese felt that this resort would threaten the temple's
"cosmological primacy." (52) The resort will house a 300-room
luxury hotel, an 18-hole golf course, 156 villas, 380 resort
homes, and even a spa. (53)Bali's highest Hindu body, the
Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia, decreed in 1989 that any
development not related to spiritual needs must be at least two
kilometers away from a sacred temple; however, the regulation was
never truly enforced. (54) The resort's plans definitely
violated that rule; nevertheless, after much protest from the
local Balinese, the government of Indonesia allowed the project
to go ahead in mid-1994. (55) The PHDI ended up accepting a
compromise that included changing the resort's logo, which used
to be Tanah Lot's silhouette; relocating small family temples
displaced by the golf course at the firm's expense; and erecting
a hill of earth planted with trees to block the view of the hotel
from the temple and vice-versa. However, the resort was allowed
to remain within the two-kilometer area. (56)
At any rate, the area around Tanah Lot has not been a
pristine site in recent years. The spectacular sunsets attract
enormous crowds, some dressed in "the briefest of shorts and
halter-tops," and nearby there are rows of dilapidated shops and
small restaurants, waiting to cater to the 600 daily visitors to
the temple. (57) Local people, however, do not see these small-
scale and locally owned operations as intruding on the spiritual
sacredness of the temple. The resort, on the other hand, was to
be owned and managed by outsiders, and therefore would "upset the
harmony among man, god and nature." (58)
Many Balinese, however, feel that their culture is staying
alive and well despite the tourism influences. According to I
Made Bandem, an ethnomusicologist from the island, tourism is a
major source of support for dancers, musicians and artists on the
island. (59) The arts are not considered a profession, rather
they are used for religious occasions, like temple festivals and
other ceremonies. Bandem believes as well that culture needs
change, not seclusion, to survive. He sees the Balinese culture
accepting influences from other cultures, modifying and
transforming them, "making a new art but always based on the old
Balinese forms. That is what is unique about Balinese arts."
(60)
Raymond Noronha seems to believe as well that the Balinese
have responded to their advantage to the opportunities that
tourism has offered them. With a "resilience that amazes . . .
[t]hey have seized every economic opportunity
offered them, adapted styles of art and dance to suit
the tourist, crated a new kind of tourist
accommodation, the home-stay,as an alternative to the
staid and costly hotels, introduced the 'bemo' a three-
or four- wheeler and the motorcycle in areas where
transport is minimal . . .(61)
The Balinese have accepted new forms and styles of arts
introduced by foreigners. Even though some crafts and ancient
dances are dying out, like tortoiseshell work, bone and horn
carvings, and terracotta figures, new arts are being adopted,
such as batik from Java, furniture styles, woodcarvings and
masks. These developments, of course tend to offend many
purists. (62)
Inevitably, there are negative impacts as well. Beggars are
now very common. Beach vendors are pervasive and a nuisance.
Some of the best sawahs have been replaced by art shops hoping to
profit from tourism. Prostitutes are in evidence, especially in
Kuta, although the Balinese say they are immigrants. (63)
