Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Learning Objectives
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To understand the concept of tourism recovery.
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To understand the role of marketing in recovery from tourism crises.
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To understand the role of different components of the tourism industry in
recovery processes and their interrelations in recovery processes.
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To understand the meaning of ad hoc and post-crisis marketing concepts.
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To understand the importance of alliances in facilitating centralized, fast, and
effective recovery.
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To understand the importance of a multinational regional approach to tourism
recovery.
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To understand the growing significance of government travel advisories and
global media coverage as image determinants for destinations.
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Introduction
The advent of mass international tourism since the 1970s stimulated rapid growth
for inbound and stopover tourism in Southeast Asia (SE Asia). Tourism represents
one of the most lucrative economic segments for most SE Asian countries. The
tourism industry is a major source of foreign currency earnings, creating millions
of service industry jobs throughout the region. Increased per capita earnings within
Eastern and SE Asia combined with the reduction of tourism prices in real terms
within Asia are key factors in accelerating SE Asia’s development as one of the
world’s fastest growing regional tourism destinations.
SE Asia’s tourism industry was spared the most severe initial repercussions of
September 11, the 2001 attack against the United States and the launch of the US-
led global “War on Terror” against Islamic political movements. During the 6
months following September 11, 2001, international tourism experienced a decline
predicated on safety threats to long-haul air travel. SE Asian tourism remained rel-
atively buoyant throughout most of 2002 partially due to the perceived isolation of
SE Asia from the Afghan and Middle East trouble spots. Equally relevant is the
fact that most travel to SE Asia originates from within or near the region
(Koldowski, 2003).
The bombing of the crowded Sari Nightclub in Denpassar, Bali, on the evening
of October 12, 2002, resulted in the murder of 200 tourists and wounded 300 from
24 countries (Henderson, 2003). The world’s deadliest terrorist attack in recent his-
tory specifically targeting tourists placed SE Asia at the epicenter of the War on
Terror. The convicted perpetrators were members of the radical Islamic group
Jemal Islamyia with affiliated cells throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand,
Singapore, and the Philippines. The Sari Club bombing had a devastating impact
on tourism to Bali and throughout Indonesia, causing collateral damage to the
security perception of many neighboring SE Asian countries. Although Islamic
organizations have been active in SE Asia for many years, the Bali attack exacer-
bated fear of Islamic violence in SE Asia. The governments of many tourist gen-
erating countries including Japan, United States, United Kingdom, and Australia
issued cautionary travel advisories which encompassed Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, and the Philippines. The combination of negative media coverage and
negative government travel advisories was perceived as a major threat to the via-
bility of the tourism industries in the region.
Southeast Asian tourism was forced to respond to a further challenge in March
2003 when reports surfaced about the outbreak of a condition known as Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which became known worldwide as SARS. This ill-
ness has similar symptoms to pneumonia and was initially diagnosed in Southern
China but by March and April cases appeared in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam,
and Canada (Singapore Tourist Board statistics, 2003). According to the World
Health Organization, between March and July 2003 there were over 7,000 con-
firmed cases of SARS. The deaths of 774 people were attributed to SARS.
The outbreak of SARS was regarded as a potentially serious public health risk.
However, the actual extent of the problem was relatively minor in comparison with
ongoing global epidemics including AIDS, malaria, cholera, and typhoid, which
cause the death of millions annually. The blanket international media coverage of
SARS, the mysterious nature of the disease, and the absence of a known cure com-
bined to ignite panic in the countries affected and among international travelers.
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Three SE Asia Tourism Recovery Campaigns
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Media footage of people in the streets and airports of Hong Kong and Singapore
wearing surgical masks created a sense of fear among travelers who sought to
avoid even transiting in cities known or even thought to have contacted the disease.
Although tourism to Singapore and Hong Kong was most heavily affected by the
SARS scare, the tourism industries of most SE Asian countries were collateral vic-
tims of SARS. Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines had minimal exposure to
SARS but tourism to all these destinations was negatively affected.
Fear of terrorism arising from the Bali bombing and the outbreak of SARS in SE
Asia, much of it magnified by media coverage in the West, was exacerbated by a
series of negative travel advisories issued by the governments of many economically
significant tourism source markets including the United States, United Kingdom,
Australia, and Japan. The advisories suggested that citizens defer travel to several
countries in SE Asia, notably Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and, for brief peri-
ods, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore (Henderson, 2003).
Although there were varying impacts on tourism within each SE Asian country,
the regional extent of the threat to tourism industry spurred SE Asian nations to
respond regionally. On November 4, 2002, the heads of state of ASEAN
(Association of South East Asian Nations) met in the Cambodian capital Phnom
Phenh to pledge their support for an ASEAN tourism recovery marketing cam-
paign (Association of South East Asian Nations, 2002). An ASEAN tourism mar-
keting organization has theoretically been in existence since 1988; however,
regional tourism marketing was rarely practiced. The crisis engendered by the Bali
bombing motivated the region’s political leadership to swiftly reactivate ASEAN
tourism marketing cooperation.
At the private sector level, the Bangkok-headquartered Pacific Asia Travel
Association (PATA), the main travel industry body representing the Pacific Rim,
placed the restoration of SE Asian tourism as its top priority project from the time
of the Bali bombing and was supported by national tourist offices and peak travel
industry bodies of all SE Asian nations and the International Air Transport
Association (IATA). In 2003 PATA launched its innovative recovery campaign,
Project Phoenix, designed to stimulate tourism recovery throughout SE Asia. In
essence, Project Phoenix involved cooperation between specific media organiza-
tions, airlines, national tourist offices, tour operators, and hotel chains. The cam-
paign involved SE Asian regional and destination specific marketing promotions
and a range of incentive travel offers to jump-start consumer recovery post- SARS.
This chapter will examine the regional recovery campaigns and issues while
focusing on three specific recovery campaigns representing the major challenges
encountered by the tourism industry in SE Asia during the final quarter of 2002,
the first half of 2003, and the varying successes of recovery strategies employed.
The first specific recovery campaign discussed is Bali’s attempt to restore
inbound tourism following the Sari Club bombing of October 12, 2002. The
restoration campaign was unusual in that it was dominated by the private sector.
The Balinese provincial tourism authorities were professional in their approach
but there was considerable evidence that Indonesian government actions did more
to hinder, rather than to help, the recovery processes. Bali enjoyed an unusually
high degree of support from foreign tour operators and from PATA in its market
recovery program.
The Singapore Roars marketing campaign was a highly professional, govern-
ment initiated, and generously funded restoration marketing campaign designed to
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stimulate a rapid recovery of tourism to Singapore following the end of the SARS
scare in July 2003. An unusual feature of the Singapore Roars campaign was that
it was conducted in selected source markets in conjunction with similar campaigns
promoted by Thailand and Malaysia. Although it emphasized Singapore, the
Singapore Roars campaign was not conducted in isolation. Singapore, as a highly
centralized city-state, marshaled a high level of coordination in its marketing cam-
paign. Singapore’s tourism marketing is characterized by close cooperation at the
leadership level between the public and private sectors of the nation’s tourism
industry.
The Philippines tourism industry has had a long history of navigating its way
through a variety of crisis events since the mid-1980s. Islamic terrorism has posed
a background problem in the Philippines since the early 1990s, although occa-
sional attacks against foreign tourists have raised the media profile of this prob-
lem. The Philippines was a collateral victim of the fear of terrorism and SARS. The
Bali attack focused global attention on the endemic issue of Islamic terrorism in
the Philippines. Despite rare attacks in Manila and several well-publicized inci-
dents of abduction and killing of tourists, Islamic terrorism is primarily confined
to southern Mindanao. Although there were no SARS cases reported in the
Philippines, tourism suffered to a limited extent from the SARS scare.
From 2002, the Philippines Department of Tourism, under the leadership of its
energetic secretary Richard Gordon, decided to conduct a highly visible and posi-
tive marketing campaign which directly challenged the negative stereotypes preva-
lent about the Philippines. The WOW Philippines campaign was carefully targeted
and designed to re-image destination Philippines and to spread the benefits of
tourism as widely as possible across the 7,000 island archipelago nation. While not
designed as a campaign to recover from specific events such as was the case with
Bali, local terrorist incidents, or SARS, the WOW Philippines campaign is
designed with the longer-term goal of changing consumer and industry percep-
tions of the Philippines and stimulating real growth for the country’s tourism
industry. Gordon, elected chairman of PATA in 2003, also sought to incorporate
the Philippines recovery marketing campaign within a broader SE Asian tourism
recovery campaign. An unusual aspect targeted the 8 million Filipino nationals liv-
ing overseas to act as tourism marketing ambassadors of the Philippines in their
respective countries of residence. They were encouraged to make return visits and
incentives were offered as motivation to nationals of their country of residence to
visit the Philippines.