Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Conclusion
The tourism industry in SE Asia was subjected to an unprecedented degree of
volatility during late 2002 and the first half of 2003. The Bali terrorism attack in
October 2003, while disastrous for Bali, exerted a powerful ripple effect which
impacted most SE Asian destinations, especially those with substantial Muslim
populations. The Bali bombing placed an unwelcome global spotlight on the per-
ceived and actual threat from Islamic organizations on the overall political stabil-
ity and tourism safety in some SE Asian nations.
The combination of negative media attention and negative government travel
advisories from major source markets in the West and Japan spurred regional and
national responses in SE Asia. The outbreak of SARS in the period of May–June
2003, while largely confined to SE China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, was mag-
nified by the media and to some extent by the World Health Organization as a pub-
lic health threat, grossly disproportionate to the number of people affected by the
disease. On the scale of global epidemic outbreaks, SARS was a minnow com-
pared to AIDS, malaria, cholera, typhoid, and historical manifestations of
influenza. The impact of SARS in SE Asia was a severe curtailment of tourism
arrivals during the identifiable danger period.
The tourism industry response in SE Asia to SARS and terrorism involved an
unprecedented degree of regional government and private industry cooperation in
recovery marketing programs. The previously moribund ASEAN tourism agree-
ment was rapidly resurrected by the initiative of ASEAN heads of state. PATA,
IATA, and the WTO worked closely with the global media and government tourism
bodies in SE Asia to implement a regional marketing recovery program revitaliz-
ing tourism it the region. Each country in SE Asia developed and implemented
destination-specific marketing and confidence-building programs to restore
tourism. The Singapore Roars campaign was highly organized, centralized, and
professional and achieved rapid results. The WOW Philippines campaign success-
fully minimized deterioration in tourism during a challenging period for the coun-
try. The Indonesian government’s campaign to restore tourism was hampered by
poor leadership, incompetence, a failure to heed professional advice, and a lack of
Tourism Security and Safety: From Theory to Practice
266
H7898_Ch14.qxd 8/24/05 8:50 AM Page 266

---

national direction. Conversely, the Balinese regional authorities implemented a
successful marketing recovery campaign heavily supported by local and foreign
private sector stakeholders. Consequently, Bali was less dependent on Indonesian
government support than other regions in the country.
The events of late 2002 and the first half of 2003 demonstrated the vulnerabil-
ity of the SE Asian tourism industry to events beyond direct managerial control.
SARS and terrorism demonstrated the importance of contingency marketing and
management practices to optimize recovery from crisis events. The tourism indus-
try’s private sector demonstrably and quickly learned from the many crisis events
of the early twenty-first century. Increasingly, SE Asian governments with a pow-
erful vested economic interest in maintaining a growing tourism sector have taken
the issue of recovery marketing seriously. A minority of SE Asian countries, espe-
cially Indonesia, have a long way to go before they are in a position to recover rap-
idly from tourism crises without a high level of dependence on outside aid. The
majority of ASEAN countries at both government and the private sector level are
demonstrating a high level of professionalism in their strategic marketing
approaches to the protection and recovery of their tourism industries and infra-
structure from crisis events.