A new day breaks to the rhythmic shuffling of bare feet upon the ground.
Like an apparition from centuries past, a procession of several hundred shaven-headed monks emerges through the dawn mist, snaking its way through the sleepy narrow streets. Buddhist locals line the route to make their daily offerings of rice and fruit as the monks file by with their alms bowls. Then, as silently as they appeared, the monks disappear back inside their temple walls, their saffron robes billowing softly behind them.
A monk rushes to dawn prayers and meditation at one of the hundreds of Buddhist temples in Luang Prabang, Laos [Jack Picone/Al Jazeera]
This dawn ritual in Luang Prabang is just one aspect of life that lends the small city its ethereal, forgotten air. Located in the country of Laos, 370km (229 miles) northwest of the capital, Vientiane, Luang Prabang lies in a beautiful valley at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers.
That, during parts of the 20th century, the borders of Laos were sealed to foreigners, combined with its shimmering temples and ancient religious aura, has ensured the town has remained one of the most cloistered, unspoiled places on the planet.
Al Maktoum International Airport is envisaged to have capacity for 260 million passengers upon completion.
Dubai has started work on a $35bn airport terminal that is set to have the world’s largest capacity upon completion, the emirate’s ruler has said.
Dubai’s Prime Minister and Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said on Sunday that the new terminal would be five times the size of the current Dubai International Airport and handle up to 260 million passengers annually.
All operations at Dubai International Airport will be transferred to the newer Al Maktoum International Airport over the coming years, Sheikh Mohammed said.
“As we build an entire city around the airport in Dubai South, demand for housing for a million people will follow. It will host the world’s leading companies in the logistics and air transport sectors,” Sheikh Mohammed said on X.
“We are building a new project for future generations, ensuring continuous and stable development for our children and their children in turn. Dubai will be the world’s airport, its port, its urban hub, and its new global centre.”
Today, we approved the designs for the new passenger terminals at Al Maktoum International Airport, and commencing construction of the building at a cost of AED 128 billion as part of Dubai Aviation Corporation’s strategy.
Once completed, Al Maktoum International Airport, which opened in 2010, will be the new home of flagship carrier Emirates and feature five parallel runways and 400 aircraft gates.
Paul Griffiths, the CEO of Dubai Airports, said the development would solidify Dubai’s position as a leading aviation hub.
“The growth of Dubai has always been hand in hand with the growth of its aviation infrastructure and today we see another bold step on that journey,” Griffiths said in a statement.
Dubai International Airport has been the world’s busiest airport for international travel for 10 consecutive years, putting the facility’s capacity under strain.
Nearly 87 million passengers used the transit hub last year, topping pre-pandemic levels.
Dubai announced a record 17.15 million international overnight visitors in 2023, up by nearly 20 percent from the previous year.
Demonstrators say mass tourism is overwhelming the Atlantic archipelago.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets of Spain’s Canary Islands to demand changes to the model of mass tourism they say is overwhelming the Atlantic archipelago.
An estimated 57,000 people joined the protests, which began at midday (11:00 GMT) on Saturday, Spanish media reports said, citing the central government’s representative in the islands.
Flag-waving crowds packed the streets of the main towns across all of the archipelago’s seven islands, chanting and whistling, and holding placards with slogans like: “The Canary Islands are not up for sale!”; “A moratorium on tourism”; and “Respect my home”.
“It’s not a message against the tourist, but against a tourism model that doesn’t benefit this land and needs to be changed,” one of the protesters told the Reuters news agency during the march in Tenerife’s capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Smaller marches were held elsewhere in the island group and other Spanish cities, all of them organised by about two dozen environmental organisations ahead of the peak summer holiday season.
The protests were called by some 20 social and environmental groups who say tourist overcrowding perpetuates an economic model that harms local residents and damages the environment.
They want the authorities to limit the number of visitors and have proposed introducing an eco-tax to protect the environment, a moratorium on tourism and a clampdown on the sale of properties to non-residents.
“The authorities must immediately stop this corrupt and destructive model that depletes the resources and makes the economy more precarious. The Canary Islands have limits and people’s patience [does], too,” Antonio Bullon, one of the protest leaders, told Reuters.
A woman shouts next to a banner with the word “tourism” during a demonstration in the Canary Islands [Borja Suarez/Reuters]
‘We can’t keep looking away’
The archipelago of 2.2 million people was visited by nearly 14 million foreign tourists in 2023, up 13 percent from the previous year, according to official data.
Authorities in the islands are concerned about the impact on locals. A draft law expected to pass this year – one that toughens the rules on short lets – follows complaints from residents priced out of the housing market.
Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said on Friday that he felt “proud” that the region was a leading Spanish tourist destination, but acknowledged that more controls were needed as the sector continues to grow.
“We can’t keep looking away. Otherwise, hotels will continue to open without any control,” he told a press conference.
Anti-tourism protests have multiplied in recent months across Spain, the world’s second-most visited country, prompting authorities to try to reconcile the interests of locals and a lucrative sector that accounts for 12.8 percent of Spain’s economy.
The Canary Islands, which lie off the northwestern coast of Africa, are known for their volcanic landscapes and year-round sunshine attracting millions of visitors every year, with four in 10 residents working in tourism – a sector that accounts for 36 percent of the islands’ gross domestic product (GDP).
Before the coronavirus pandemic brought the global travel industry to its knees in 2020, over-tourism protest movements were already active in Spain, notably in Barcelona.
After travel restrictions were lifted, tourism surged, with Spain welcoming a record 85.1 million visitors last year.
Puerto Escondido, Mexico – With its bucolic beaches, lush greenery and kaleidoscopic sunsets, it is not difficult to see why the remote tropical paradise of Puerto Escondido has become so popular.
The coastline, tucked away on the southern Pacific hip of Mexico’s Oaxaca region, is a mecca for surfers, bar hoppers and bohemian beach bums. Wildlife abounds, with pelicans perched on rocky outcroppings, buzzards gliding overhead, turtles and dolphins making appearances at sea and random iguanas scurrying about.
But because so many are choosing to experience this beach oasis, the town faces a problem that plagues similar destinations around the world: the rising tide of tourism and a lack of preparation for it.
A decade ago, Puerto Escondido was a rather unassuming place largely off the international radar, save for a smattering of retirees from North America and surfers from Europe and Australia. But around that time, a flurry of articles drew an abundance of attention to this secluded Shangri-la due to a combination of word of mouth driven largely by the rising influence of Instagram and a boom of tourism across Mexico in general.
Since then, the impact of the town’s growing reputation has become starkly apparent.
In March 2020, many people flocked to Puerto Escondido to wait out the COVID pandemic. The small town swelled with Mexicans escaping the density of Mexico City and people from all over the world fleeing strict COVID restrictions in their countries in favour of Mexico’s more lax approach – borders remained open for the duration of the pandemic, while business closures and lockdowns were relatively brief and inconsistently enforced – and the tranquil shores of Oaxaca.
This influx of temporary residents was a turning point for Puerto Escondido. Construction exploded: hotels, restaurants, bars, dubious dance clubs – the works. The economic dominance of the so-called “digital nomads” skyrocketed rental prices and the cost of living climbed.
Before long, the community was struggling to keep up in the face of unchecked tourism and development.
“It’s grown a little too much” for its own good,” says local graphic artist Orlando Salinas, who grew up visiting Puerto Escondido with his family before moving there in 2017 and has since become involved with various community groups. Salinas notes that while the fast flow of tourism has had economic benefits for those in the industry, “almost every other aspect is being negatively affected”.
“In the last five years, Puerto has experienced a growth in unsustainable tourism with a lack of proper management and regulation, causing a huge impact on the environment and local economy,” says Emmett Balassone, the communications coordinator for the nonprofit Save the Waves, which was formed to protect surf ecosystems around the world.
This situation has resulted in “inadequate wastewater infrastructure, erosion issues associated with development and the lack of legal protection for some of the critical habitats in the area”.
Playa Zicatela, Puerto Escondido’s main tourist strip [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]
Over the years, several efforts have coalesced to address these issues and recently, activists scored an important victory in their attempts to reduce tourism’s manifold strains.
The fight involved the area’s last untouched beach – a wildlife-rich, lagoon-nestled cove known as Playa Punta Colorada – which had fallen into the crosshairs of developers. The struggle to protect it dates back more than a decade and its story is largely at the centre of the community’s advocacy for more sustainable tourist regulation.
The first threat to Punta Colorada came in 2011 when officials announced the construction of a dock. Opponents argued this would wreck the adjacent beach, lagoon and reef, and organised a group that eventually took the name Salvemos (“Save”) Colorada. They prevailed then and when a second attempt to resurrect the dock project reared its head in 2021. But the biggest danger was yet to come.
“New concerns arose in August 2023 when the state government announced a new development project,” explains Salvemos Colorada member Almendra Gomezleyva Melchor. The plans included the construction of a shopping centre, a low-budget hotel, a luxury residential area and four all-inclusive hotels.
“This news once again jeopardised the ecosystem of Punta Colorada,” Melchor adds.
And as Balassone points out, the negative impact had not only local but also wider implications. “Playa Colorada is one of the last intact coastal ecosystems in this part of Oaxaca and includes mangroves, which are key in fighting climate change.”
Salvemos Colorada joined a coalition of groups united in opposition to the development, including Save the Waves, Costa Unida, the Oaxacan Conservation Fund and SOS Puerto – the last of which has played an increasingly prominent role in advocating for local tourism and environmental regulations.
Controversial construction in the La Punta neighbourhood [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]
SOS
SOS Puerto formed spontaneously in 2022 when founder Andrea Esquerra noticed a newly-fenced-off area on one of the town’s still-lesser-developed beaches, Bacocho. While it was already home to a couple of hotels and a beach club, this particular stretch of sand tends to be quieter and frequented by locals rather than rowdy tourists. The foreigners who do visit typically come to participate in the baby turtle release program; the lush, sylvan space between Bacocho and Colorada is home to turtles, crocodiles and many other species.
This area was being threatened by a planned construction of an 80-unit luxury apartment building. At a meeting to discuss the complex, which was held by the State Water Commission and attended by the municipal president and councillors, Esquerra questioned the project. This drew support from other attendees who named her as the representative of Bacocho, Colorada and another adjacent beach, Coral.
“Days later, they began to remove sand with trucks,” she recalls. “I went and tried to stop the trucks while sending messages for help on my Whatsapp groups, then more citizens began to arrive and we closed the street for four days.”
Blocking streets and highways has been a common tactic among various protest groups in the region, with varying success. In this case, it worked. The project was cancelled, and as a result, SOS Puerto became a recognised voice for the community. Today, it has roughly 14,000 followers on Instagram – impressive numbers considering the town’s population is three times that number.
SOS has earned popular support among residents, says the local artist Salinas, because “they’ve been hitting a lot of the goals that they’ve set for themselves. Especially lately”.
The green space between Playa Bacocho and Playa Colorada is home to turtles, crocodiles and many other species [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]
A new threat
That “lately” refers to the most recent threat to loom over Punta Colorada – the aforementioned shopping centre and hotels. Once again, organisations opposed to development joined forces to save the beach.
“This ecosystem is crucial,” explains Melchor, “because – besides having one of the most significant waves for bodyboarding – it hosts a wetland with white and red mangroves, protected species such as the leatherback turtle and crocodiles, various species of migratory birds, mammals, reefs and even geological remnants.”
What’s more, the proposed complex would shut down public beach access, depriving the residents of the last pristine beach in Puerto Escondido.
“Access to that beach,” says Esquerra, “would be totally privatised by the large hotel chains”.
To make matters worse, it was discovered that a water treatment plant next to the beach was overflowing due to inadequate tourist infrastructure and that wastewater was pouring directly into the ocean. So the coalition’s efforts became threefold: to improve sanitation, prevent the privatisation of beaches and stave off the alteration of the ecosystem.
This struggle went from the streets to the courts, starting with peaceful demonstrations, an online petition and requests for meetings with the governor and other political figures – to no avail.
“Seeing that the government persisted in its plan to develop Punta Colorada,” says Melchor, “we took legal action and initiated a collective protective lawsuit, claiming our right to a healthy environment”.
The groups gathered some 300 signatures, which were enough to convince a judge to suspend the construction permits.
“For now, that area cannot be sold or privatised,” says Esquerra.
But while this victory is promising, the fight isn’t over yet: The judge’s order is only temporary.
“We are still in the trial process awaiting the verdict,” says Melchor, explaining that the coalition is going over conservation proposals with the ministries of environment and tourism. “We are hopeful that the government will listen and understand the importance of preserving Punta Colorada.”
Advocates of the Colorada complex – including officials from the state and municipality – did not respond to requests for comment.
Long-abandoned construction looming over the Zicatela tourist strip [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]
The big question
The fight over Colorada implies a broader question: How will Puerto Escondido react in the face of its rapid tourist influx?
Esquerra emphasises that the coalition is not against tourism.
“Our fight is against inequality and the lack of investment and planning in the face of growth,” she says, “which leaves both locals and tourists unprotected. A strong investment in infrastructure is needed to sustain growth and to guarantee access to clean water, beaches and seas free of wastewater, transportation and health and safety.”
“Since the pandemic,” says Melchor, “the growth of Puerto Escondido has been exponential. However, this is not reflected in infrastructure improvement”.
As a result, she adds, the town has experienced wastewater spills, power outages, water shortages and increasing traffic issues, as well as “new social problems such as gentrification, displacement, and dispossession” caused by the rapid increase in housing prices and cost of living.
So what can Puerto Escondido do to address these matters?
Melchor says that among the various solutions proposed, key factors involve investment in basic service infrastructure like drainage systems and treatment plants, as well as the regulation of construction, housing density and vacation rentals to ensure that money stays in the region and that taxes will be collected for reinvestment in the community.
Proponents of these actions argue they will not only protect the town but secure its status as a thriving tourist destination.
“The area will continue to grow,” notes Balassone, “so adopting these changes now will ensure that Puerto keeps the natural treasures that have drawn surfers and visitors from around the world in the first place”.
Playa Carrizalillo is one of several beaches in Puerto Escondido [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]
A global consideration
Puerto Escondido is not alone in its struggle to confront surging tourism. Residents of destinations around the world – from Thailand’s Chiang Mai to Colombia’s Medellin, Bali to Barbados, Portugal’s Lisbon to Vietnam’s Hoi An – are facing similar issues. And it is only going to become more pressing as the number of travellers and location-independent workers continues to climb.
According to those fighting in Puerto Escondido, solutions arise from dedicated community organisations.
“We’ve been doing a good job of cultivating a solid community,” says Salinas. “Almost everybody is involved in some sort of social project.”
“Change happens when communities unite at the grassroots level,” agrees Balassone, “and develop a long-term vision for the place that they love and a strategy for long-term protection”.
If the residents of similarly afflicted destinations should learn anything from the case of Puerto Escondido, these activists advise the prioritisation of people over profits.
“Puerto Escondido’s struggle can inspire other cities to unite and work as a community,” says Melchor. “I think we are an example that working together can achieve things that might seem impossible at first, such as stopping large constructions or billion-dollar developments.”
It all comes down to collective action.
“The unity of citizens is very important,” Esquerra affirms. “Power lies with the people and we are the ones who decide what we want for our cities and destinations. It is important to get involved and inform yourself, and to raise your voice when the interests of a few pass over the needs of the people.”
His soldier son toured Afghanistan with fighters in his crosshairs, but US traveller Oscar Wells has a different objective – sightseeing promoted by the Taliban’s fledgling tourism sector.
Marvelling at the 15th century Blue Mosque in northern Mazar-i-Sharif, 65-year-old Wells is among a small but rising number of travellers visiting Afghanistan since the war’s end.
Decades of conflict made tourism in Afghanistan extremely rare, and while most violence has now abated, visitors are still confronted with extreme poverty, dilapidated cultural sites and scant hospitality infrastructure.
They holiday under the austere control of the Taliban authorities, and without consular support, with most embassies evacuated following the fall of the Western-backed government in 2021.
They must register with officials on arrival in each province, comply with a strict dress code and submit to searches at checkpoints.
ISIL (ISIS) attacks also pose a potential threat in the country.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Afghanistan rose 120 percent year on year in 2023, reaching nearly 5,200, according to official figures.
The Taliban government has yet to be officially recognised by any country, in part because of its heavy restrictions on women, but it has welcomed foreign tourism.
“Afghanistan’s enemies don’t present the country in a good light,” said Information and Culture Minister Khairullah Khairkhwa.
“But if these people come and see what it’s really like,” he added, “they will definitely share a good image of it.”
Wells, on a trip with travel company Untamed Borders, which also offers tours of Syria and Somalia, describes his visit as a way to connect with Afghanistan’s people.
He describes a “sense of guilt for the departure” of United States troops.
“I really felt we had a horrible exit, it created such a vacuum and disaster,” he said. “It’s good to help these people and keep relations.”
For solo traveller Stefanie Meier, a 53-year-old US citizen who spent a month travelling from Kabul to Kandahar via Bamiyan and Herat in the west, it was a “bittersweet experience”.
“I have been able to meet people I never thought I would meet, who told me about their life,” she said, adding that she did not face any issues as a woman on her own.
She did experience “disbelief that people have to live like this”, she added. “The poverty, there are no jobs, women not being able to go to school, no future for them.”
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Entrepreneur Jehan Abu Bakar is fuming that she will soon have to pay more in airport fees whenever she flies from her home in Malaysia to other countries in Southeast Asia.
Jehan, the founder of the organic soap company LeStarry Natural, said any increases should be commensurate with the facilities provided but Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s services, from the WiFi to the immigration procedures, are lacking.
“Baggage clearance that takes forever is also an issue. More immigration counters should be opened to reduce long waits in queue – this is also part of the services,” Jehan told Al Jazeera.
“Let’s not talk about the absence of the train – that is a big one,” she added, referring to the suspended Aerotrain that connects the airport’s two terminals, KILA 1 and KILA 2.
The ageing Aerotrain has been offline since last year to undergo upgrades and is scheduled to commence operations either by the end of this year or, at latest, March 2025, according to Transport Minister Anthony Loke.
“When can we see some improvement? Hike [fees] and remain the same? Such a shame,”Jehan said.
Lawyer Lim Wei Jiet agrees.
“If the service at our airports has been reliable and good so far, I don’t think many Malaysians would mind. However, it’s clear this is not the case,” Lim told Al Jazeera. “One obvious disappointment being the breakdown of the (Aerotrain) train at KLIA I, which has not been repaired to date even after many months.
“This is frankly an embarrassment to Malaysia, which proclaims itself as a tourism hub. I think Malaysians deserve to ask why there is a need to increase the service charge when the service provided thus far is sub-par,” Lim added.
Lim said that while KLIA 1 could claim to rank among the best airports out there a decade ago, it is now showing signs of wear and tear.
“I dislike comparing with Singapore on every issue but it does sting as a Malaysian to see Singapore’s Changi Airport… which is objectively much better functionally and aesthetically compared to KLIA 1,” Lim said.
From June 1, passengers departing from the KLIA 1 will have to pay 73 ringgit ($15.5) to travel to any of the nine other countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), up from 35 ringgit ($7.41) currently.
Travel outside of ASEAN will remain at the current rate of 73 ringgit ($15.5).
Travel to ASEAN countries from KLIA 2, where the budget carrier Air Asia operates, will rise from 35 ringgit ($7.41) to 50 ringgit ($10.60).
However, travel beyond ASEAN from KLIA 2 will get cheaper, with the service fee reduced from 73 ringgit ($15.5) to 50 ringgit ($10.6).
The Malaysian Aviation Commission said the fee increases were necessary to “support the aviation sector’s recovery and adaptability in the post-Covid-19 pandemic environment”.
Malaysia is trying to bring tourists back to the country after the COVID-19 pandemic [Lim Huey Teng/Reuters]
Not everyone takes issue with the revised fees.
Carmelo Ferlito, an Italian economist who travels frequently from his home in Kuala Lumpur to Asia and Europe, believes the price hikes and the facilities at KLIA 1 are still acceptable.
“It seems to me the increases remain very much within a tolerable range,” Ferlito, who mostly travels to Milan and his wife’s home city of Jakarta, told Al Jazeera.
“Despite not having restored the Aerotrain service, KLIA 1 remains a pretty good airport when compared to its regional peers. It is much more comfortable than Bangkok and Manila for sure,” Ferlito said.
“I think that travelling frequently gives a better perspective and if you have been to Manila, Bangkok, Dhaka, Colombo, Lahore, etc… well, then you start really thinking that it is great to be at KLIA 1,” he added.
KLIA 1 opened in 1998 and was designed by the renowned Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, the brains behind Kansai Airport, the world’s first floating airport, in Japan’s Osaka.
KLIA 2, the low-cost carrier terminal, began operations in 2014.
Despite the price hikes, Malaysia’s airport charges are still lower than some regional peers, including Thailand.
Airports of Thailand (AoT) is set to increase passenger service charges at six international airports by 30 baht ($0.82), to 730 baht ($20.2), per person from April 1 to cover the costs of a new common operating system for airlines.
Jacqueline Fong, who shuttles between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching, Sarawak, on an almost weekly basis and makes about half a dozen international trips a year, also does not see a problem with the hikes.
“For me, if flight tickets are still dynamically priced, I should still be able to purchase flight tickets within my travel budget and that’s inclusive of the airport passenger charges,” Fong, the founder of homegrown handicrafts brand Tanoti Crafts, told Al Jazeera.
“I feel these charges… although [they will] increase the overall cost of travel, will not affect me much if I have the flexibility of travel times/dates and I am able to purchase cheaper flight tickets.”
Ibrahim Sani, the CEO of Peneraju Foundation and a frequent traveller domestically and overseas, said the fee increases are welcome given the need for the government to widen its tax base.
“The increase will help fund the airports’ upkeep and growth,” Ibrahim told Al Jazeera.
Accountant Mikhail Hafiz said he was not thrilled about the increase, which he believes will be especially resisted by those travelling with children and other family members.
“But I will bite the bullet and accept it, so to speak, if it helps the airline industry’s post-pandemic recovery,” Mikhail told Al Jazeera.
Bali, Indonesia – At dawn, as the first shards of light dance over the rice fields in the seaside village of Seseh on Bali’s west coast, Putu and her husband Made, who like many Indonesians go by one name only, spend an hour reciting prayers and distributing small palm leaf baskets containing offerings to ensure the health of the coming harvest.
Later in the day, their 11-year-old daughter will attend a class for “sanghyang dedari”, a sacred trance dance for girls that is designed to counteract negative supernatural forces.
Meanwhile, her two older brothers will hone their skills on wooden xylophones and hand drums as part of a traditional “gamelan” orchestra in preparation for a ceremony celebrating the completion of a new Hindu temple, one of more than 10,000 on the island.
In the coming weeks, Made and his children will help their neighbours create giant “ogoh-ogoh” dolls, representations of evil mythological creatures fashioned from wood, bamboo, paper and styrofoam, that will be paraded through the streets and set alight the night before Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu new year.
Taking place this year on March 11, Nyepi, or the “day of silence”, will see every light on the island turned off, transport come to a halt and the airport close. Everyone, Balinese or not, will stay at home to give evil spirits the impression there is nothing to be found on the island.
“Every day I lay offerings, attend a ceremony or go to a temple,” Putu told Al Jazeera. “I do this because I am Hindu, because I believe. My children do the same and when they have children, they will do the same also.”
Balinese place small palm leaf baskets containing offerings around their homes, fields, temples and buildings every day [Ian Neubauer/Al Jazeera]
The Balinese anomaly
Putu’s hopes for the future are shared with the vast majority of Balinese, an island where a hybrid Hindu-Buddhist religion based on ancestor worship and animism dating back to the first century has survived and even thrived in the face of mass tourism.
By 1930, tourist numbers reached several hundred per year. Last year, 5.2 million foreigners along with 9.4 million domestic holidaymakers visited Bali, according to government data, and the island is developing at breakneck speed to cater to the demand.
The negative effects of such tremendous growth are illustrated in the murals of Balinese artist Slinat, who marries the iconic photographs of Balinese dancers with contemporary emblems like gas masks and dollar bills.
“These old photos were the first images used to promote tourism in Bali and convey that it is an exotic place. They kick-started tourism in Bali,” Slinat told Al Jazeera. “But then we had too much tourism and it ruined the exoticness of Bali. So I created this parody to express how much things have changed here since those photos were taken.”
Nevertheless, Balinese traditional culture and religion have remained resilient in the face of the tourist onslaught, which is something of an anomaly compared with other tourist hot spots around the world.
“When local people entertain tourists, they adapt [to] tourists’ needs, attitudes and values and ultimately start to follow them. By following tourists’ lifestyle, young people bring changes in the material goods,” was the finding of a study on the impact of tourism on culture that was published in 2016 in the Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Sports.
The study said the Pokhara-Ghandruk community in Nepal was a textbook example, where “the traditional fashion, behaviour and lifestyle of young Gurungs have been severely affected by tourism … [who] disobey their elders’ Kinship titles”. It said Indonesia was an exception – a country where “to attract distant tourists, children nurture local customs to create a strong and authentic base of cultural components without disrupting ancestors’ values”.
There are no flights in or out of Bali’s international airport on Nyepi day and tourists must stay in their hotels [File: Fikri Yusuf/Antara Foto via Reuters]
A lecturer in traditional architecture at Warmadewa University in Bali, I Nyoman Gede Maha Putra explains the roots of that approach.
“Colonial government policies dating back to the 1930s that promote how the Balinese should be Balinese, including school curriculums, production of traditional foods and beverages and unsparing investments in religious buildings have played a key role in preserving culture and religion on the so-called Island of the Gods,” he said, adding that construction codes formalised in the 1970s that required no new building to be no taller than a coconut tree had helped maintain “a sense of the place” on the island.
“Soon, all our young people will start making ogoh-ogoh paper statues for Nyepi. No one will be left out. They will enjoy the process, they will enjoy the parades, and feel proud when the tourists see what they’ve made. And our daily ceremonies will continue because we believe very strongly that our ancestors’ ghosts live around us and our ceremonies are the only way we can communicate with them,” Maha Putra said.
A facade
Others say it is the adaptability of Balinese culture that has made it resilient.
“Balinese culture is not static,” I Ketut Putra Erawan, a lecturer in political science at Bali’s Udayana University, told Al Jazeera. “Time and time again it has shown it has the power to reinvent itself through the problems and opportunities we face; things like tourism, social media, individualism, capitalism and mass culture. It finds new ways to make itself relevant to young people in new times.”
But these new shapes and expressions are not as solid as those of the past, he cautions.
“Today we are flooded with so much information and misinformation, and what that tends to do is promote the skin of the culture, the outside element of the culture, things like consumerism and fashion, but not the core of the culture,” Erawan said. “Many people prioritise the wrong things in their cultural expressions. They are much more interested in dressing like Balinese and telling everyone on social media they are Balinese instead of obtaining the high level of knowledge needed to understand our complex culture and religion.”
Rio Helmi, an Indonesian photographer whose work focuses on the interaction between Indigenous peoples and their environment, agrees.
He fears time is working against Balinese culture.
“As to the strength of the culture, I think there is some truth to that,” he told Al Jazeera. “But a lot of it is about identity rather than involvement in the deeper side of the culture and its values. What I am seeing now feels more like form over function. People always repeat the phrase ‘tri hita karana’ – maintaining a good relationship between man and God, man and nature, man and the environment – but often it feels like a slogan, a bandage to cover up bad things like people building on sacred land. We have to be careful about making generalisations as there are still many people who live traditionally. But the power of money is everywhere.”
Ceremonies take place every day in Bali, including in popular tourist locations [Ian Neubauer/Al Jazeera]
Today, multi-storey hotels and condominiums many times taller than coconut trees are popping up across the island’s traditional rice fields. However the biggest display of the disparity between form and function, Helmi says, will be on display during the ogah-ogah procession in Ubud, the spiritual heart of Bali that has expanded from a sleepy cultural village into a bustling tourist hotspot, where there will be loudspeakers, souvenir vendors and bandstands.
“It will be a real show put on for tourists, whereas in the villages the events will be about introspection, the sense of the year coming to an end and chasing the demons out. It is their moment, their culture. It is not a show,” Helmi said.
Bangkok, Thailand – Bangkok’s Chinatown, lit up by red-lanterns and decorative banners to celebrate the Lunar New Year holidays, is bustling.
As the region welcomed the Year of the Dragon last weekend, ethnic Chinese Thais thronged temples to light candles and pray for good fortune.
Inside the glowing red interior of Wat Mangkon Kamalawat – the largest Chinese temple in Bangkok – women wore traditional cheongsam dresses and took photos with their loved ones.
Outside, in the hustle and bustle of Yaowarat Road, lion dancers performed as visitors – Thais and legions of tourists – crowded the street, sampling the food and shopping from stalls in the market.
Many were from China, with official figures showing hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals chose to spend the holiday, which began on February 10, in Thailand where they no longer need to get a visa.
“Destinations in Southeast Asia traditionally rely on a strong Lunar New Year holiday to kick-start the tourism calendar,” Gary Bowerman, a tourism analyst in Kuala Lumpur, told Al Jazeera.
“Thailand has positioned itself astutely to capture outbound travel demand from China with its bilateral visa waiver and aggressive marketing into the Chinese market led by the prime minister. This resonates well with Chinese tourists and has encouraged Chinese airlines to add more capacity over [the] Chinese New Year.”
A lion dance on the streets of Bangkok [Tommy Walker/Al Jazeera]
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin started his push to lure more arrivals from China in September when he announced a temporary visa waiver for Chinese tourists. The short-term agreement soon became permanent after Thailand and China signed an indefinite mutual visa exemption for their nationals to visit each other’s country starting from March 1.
Nithee Seeprae, deputy governor for marketing at the Tourism Authority of Thailand, says Chinese arrivals have been encouraging.
“It’s very exciting and [a] successful Chinese New Year, and it is a positive sign for the new visa waiver between China and Thailand because it brings more confidence for the Chinese tourists,” he told Al Jazeera. “Now we got 27-28,000 tourists [arriving each day] since the 1st of February, it is almost back to normal before Covid. Last year, at the same time, it was 7-8,000. Last month 500,000 [China visitors arrived].”
Thailand’s government spokesman Chai Wacharonke said on Saturday that four million tourists had arrived in the country from January 1 to February 8, including more than 730,000 Chinese.
Based on Nithee’s approximate figures, Chinese arrivals could reach one million by the end of the month.
“We have promotions with online travel agents, and [we] coordinate with normal travel agents to create a roadshow in the big cities in China. Also, the flights are back to 90 percent [capacity] like before the pandemic because of the visa waiving. We [are trying] to coordinate with influencers and key opinion leaders from China to create the content experience in Thailand,” he added.
More initiatives planned
Phuket, in southern Thailand, has seen an influx of arrivals in recent weeks.
Yaowarat Road in Bangkok’s Chinatown is packed with food stalls and shops [Tommy Walker/Al Jazeera]
The island hotspot is expected to welcome 49,000 tourists a day through the international airport during the Chinese New Year period until February 16, according to local media.
The festival falls in the middle of Thailand’s high season, which usually runs from November to March, and is a major holiday for mainland China.
Ranjeet Viswanathan, the director of sales and marketing at the luxury Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort, said occupancy was even higher than many had hoped.
“This year has started with a bang. Every hotel has seen better-than-expected results in January and this continues in February. Our hotel has been doing over 92 percent in occupancy since January 1,” he told Al Jazeera.
Chinese tourists make up about 12 percent of the resort’s business and the number of travellers in 2024 so far is five percent higher than a year ago.
According to the Chinese calendar, 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon, which can be a time for new ideas, projects and prosperity.
Chinese visitors have long been crucial to the Thai travel industry, but even with the jump in arrivals, the numbers remain well below 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In that year, Chinese visitors made up more than 11 million of the record 39 million tourists who visited Thailand.
Last year, there were more than 3.5 million Chinese arrivals, but that still fell short of the five million predicted by Thai officials.
Experts put the lower-than-expected numbers down to China’s own economic issues and domestic travel trends. The mass shooting in a Bangkok shopping mall in September that killed one Chinese national, and the release of the Chinese blockbuster movie No More Bets, a film depicting scams in Southeast Asia, may have also played a part.
The Thai government under Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has introduced visa-free travel for Chinese tourists [File: Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo]
But the recent surge of Chinese visitors to Thailand shows China’s outbound travel is recovering, according to Bowerman, the tourism analyst.
“Strong demand for travel to Thailand from China in the first two months of 2024 suggests that this year will be very different for outbound travel from China compared to 2023,” he said.
Thai tourism officials have forecast more than eight million arrivals from China by the end of 2024.
The tourism authority’s Nithee is already working on luring more visitors from China and is in talks to arrange new flight routes from China into Thai cities including Udon Thani in the northeast and Hat Yai in the south. He is optimistic Thailand is on track to meet its arrivals target by the end of the year.
“It is really promising. We have to keep an eye on these situations and get more confidence for tourists and do more promotion,” he added.
Jakarta, Indonesia – After spa therapist Murniyati survived COVID-19 on a sparse salary, she thought the worst was over.
But after the Indonesian government’s announcement of a steep rise in taxes on entertainment services, she fears the salon where she works could be forced to close, leaving her unemployed.
“My husband is just a taxi driver so our combined income is low. Our life, my life, depends on him and me,” she told Al Jazeera.
Murniyati is just one of the countless workers across Indonesia who could be affected by the plans to apply a 40-75 percent tax rate to entertainment services such as spas, bars, nightclubs and karaoke joints.
The proposed hike has sparked a fierce backlash from businesses, including a court challenge by spa owners in Bali.
Hariyadi Sukamdani, the chairman of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association, said in a press conference last month that the changes would lead to job losses in an “industry that absorbs a significant amount of labour and does not require higher education, making it essential for the general population”.
Amid the blowback, the government announced it would delay the hike pending an evaluation.
“We will collectively assess what the impact [of a higher entertainment tax] would be, especially for small business owners,” Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar said last month.
Sofie Sulaiman, 55, left, said the spa worked hard to keep all of their staff during the pandemic, but they are not sure if they could get through a tax hike [Madeline Croad/Al Jazeera]
Still, Sofie Sulaiman, Murniyati’s manager at Jamu Body Treatments in Jakarta, is angry.
The spa provides jobs for many women, all of whom are from less well-off backgrounds. Many of them are widows and single mothers, and most have been working at the spa for more than 20 years.
Sulaiman said her business would need to cover the cost of the tax hike, as it is too high to pass on to customers.
“Our market is teachers. It’s not businessmen, it’s not tourists, it’s not honeymooners who spend money when they travel. They are just teachers, they are just housewives,” Sulaiman told Al Jazeera.
Sulaiman said it would be impossible to make a profit under the new tax regime.
“We will sacrifice ourselves,” Sulaiman said, adding that she might have to close down. “There is nothing left after that.”
Revenue and incentives
Bhima Yudhistira, an economist from the Center of Economic and Law Studies, said the tax hike could boost revenue for local governments and provide greater autonomy to communities, but the lack of consultation had left officials divided.
“Some local governments which have huge tourism spots such as Bali see this as not a potential for revenue, they see this as a new tax burden after COVID-19,” Yudhistira told Al Jazeera. “They will lose because the number of tourists will drop and businesses will be affected.”
COVID-19 had a devastating effect on Indonesian businesses and workers, with 2.67 million jobs lost in 2020 and more than 30 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) forced to close during the pandemic, according to the national statistics office.
Other countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia could be new options for tourists, Yudhistira thinks, which could be another attack on Indonesia’s entertainment industry post-Covid [Madeline Croad/Al Jazeera]
Under the planned tax revision, the rate is set by each local government, making November’s local elections especially important, said Yudhistira, who is sceptical about the government’s promise to provide relief measures and incentives to affected businesses.
He believes businesses could be “cherry-picked” depending on their political connections.
“We see that many of the local government incentives previously didn’t work well … The industry owners or business owners that have strong connections to the local government leaders, to the governors, they have incentives.”
Indonesia has made a name for itself as an affordable destination, but some government officials have expressed their hope that higher costs will drive away visitors on a budget in favour of high-spending tourists.
Gabby Walters, an associate professor of tourism and business at the University of Queensland, said that such an approach would be a mistake.
More than one million Australians visited Bali last year, most of them looking for a cheap, fun holiday. They made up a quarter of all tourist arrivals, making them the largest visitor group, according to official statistics.
“[Australian] Bali tourists want alcohol, they want to party, so you’ve seen a rise of beach clubs, nightclubs and that’s not what the high-yielding tourists are after,” Walters told Al Jazeera. “The way that the Bali tourism industry is structured, it’s set up to encourage and cater for that market.”
It is a market that could be put off by higher prices, at a time when tourism numbers are only just over half of what they were before the pandemic, Walters said.
“If there’s going to be a 40-75 percent increase to buy a drink in a bar or go to a nightclub or have a massage, then people are definitely going to look elsewhere,” Walters said, noting that other destinations in the region have been cutting taxes.
Thailand dropped a related tax to five percent to attract tourists and has seen a boom in arrivals. More than 28 million tourists visited the country last year, while Indonesia attracted just over nine million.
Moving forward, Sulaiman is unsure about the future of her spa, but she knows that shutting up shop and leaving her staff unemployed is a possibility.
She is confused, like many others in the industry, about the lack of consultation.
“I don’t think in any other country, you would find this kind of hike in tax,” she said. “They have never invited us to have a discussion.”
Yudhistira said the tax revisions were made too quickly, with those most affected left out of the conversation. He thinks there are other ways to increase local government revenue without damaging the entertainment industry.
“The burden for the entertainment industry is high, the number of laid-off workers … Instead of increasing the entertainment tax they should increase the other local government tax,” he said.
Spa therapist and receptionist in Jakarta, Murniyati, 36, said if she loses her job, her family will struggle to afford to live [Madeline Croad/Al Jazeera]
With the outcome of the government’s tax plans unclear, legal appeals pending and local elections looming, the future of the entertainment industry is uncertain.
For workers like Murniyati, so are their livelihoods.
“Our lives depend on our jobs. We are worried,” she said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest tourism campaign in India’s tropical island territory of Lakshadweep has sparked an ugly row with Maldives government officials who believe India cannot compete against their nation’s renowned tourist hotspots.
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