Lecture: Drs. Usmar Salam, MIS
Written by:
Eky Amelia Putri
07/253932/SP/22130
If there was a quiz that questioned which small country that rely on it’s tourism as it’s main income, the answer would probably Singapore and followed by Macau, even though Macau is still a special administration region of China. Singapore as an island city-state is a popular travel destination, making tourism one of its largest industries. About 7.8 million tourists visited Singapore in 2006. The total visitor arrivals reached around 10.2 million in 2007, while Macau that is gained a tremendous popularity due its casino gambling tourism. Gaming revenue in Macau has grown at an annual rate of 23% in 2001-2006, that was passing Las Vegas which only gained 3% respectively. With these facts we have, we might questioned about sustainable tourism development in Singapore and Macau, and that was what we’re going to elaborate, but before we going to roll out it further, it would be better if we elaborate the theory we use, sustainable tourism development.
Defining sustainable tourism development might not as easy as it heard; there are a myriad of definitions for Sustainable Tourism, including eco-tourism, green travel, environmentally and culturally responsible tourism, fair trade and ethical travel. The most widely accepted definition is that of the World Tourism Organization. They define sustainable tourism as “tourism which leads to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems.” In addition they describe the development of sustainable tourism as a process which meets the needs of present tourists and host communities whilst protecting and enhancing needs in the future (World Tourism Organization 1996). Sustainable tourism development has four main pillars, they are: Economic Sustainability, Ecological Sustainability, Cultural Sustainability ,and Local Sustainability.
Singapore Tourism
As we all know, Singapore that has only 710.2 km² land area is a small country. But this small county has many tourist attraction, we may mention some of them, like Marina Bay, Bugis Street, Chinatown, Geylang Serai, Kampong Gelam & Arab Street, Little India, North Bridge Road for shopping tourism; There are also various art museums in Singapore like the Asian Civilisations Museums at Empress Place and Old Tao Nan School, Singapore Art Museum, and NUS Museums; Island resort like Sentosa Island which is is a relatively large island of Singapore located to its south. Along with a beachfront resort, the island's tourist attractions include Fort Siloso, its historical museum, the Underwater World aquarium, Pulau Ubin; Nature sight seeing in The Singapore Zoo and Night Safari, Singapore Botanical Gardens open to the public that is 52 hectares large, and includes the National Orchid collection, The Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, an extensive nature reserve which covers much of the Bukit Timah Hill, The Jurong BirdPark; and the last but not least, Singapore Night Life tourism which is according to the Singapore media, is among the top five countries in the world for nightlife, fine dining and shopping. Some popular nightspots in Singapore include: Boat Quay and Clarke Quay.
The management of tourism in Singapore has undergone many change over the decades. The adoption of many different policies and strategies are aimed for promoting the tourism it self, the most recent one is the establishment of Singapore Tourism Board. The board was first established in 1964 and was called the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. In that year, there were 91,000 visitors. The primary task of STPB was to coordinate the efforts of hotels, airlines and travel agents to develop the fledging tourism industry of the country. Later, STPB began to initiate new marketing ideas to promote Singapore's image aboard. The board created the Merlion, a symbol based on a Singapore mythical legend, that became an icon of the Singapore destination. The board also has been providing travel agent licensing and tourist guide training. STPB actively promotes the development of infrastructure, including the building of hotels and tourist attractions such as the Jurong Bird Park and Sentosa which now becomes a popular resort island for both tourists and local visitors. The board also market the city as a convention venue and organised events to attract visitors. In the 1980s, several historic and cultural significant areas such as the Chinatown, Little India and Arab Street were earmarked for preservation. These places express Singapore's cultural diversity and became popular tourist destinations. The Singapore River underwent a major cleanup program and the areas along the river were developed for restaurants and other tourists amenities. The board was renamed as Singapore Tourism Board in 1997. The board now oversees all aspects of tourism, including resource allocation and long-term strategic planning. It establishes offices around the globe to actively market the Singapore destination. Singapore tourism industry has grown rapidly since STPB was set up. In 2004, there were 8 million visitors.
Beyond the concept of sustainable tourism development, Singapore with it’s Singapore Tourism Board has implemented the pillars successfully. STB managed to fulfill the first pillar, economic sustainability with eshtablishing extensive network of offices spanning the globe. Currently, there are 22 Regional Offices and 2 Marketing Representatives spread over eight regions. These regions are:
1. America, located in New York and Los Angeles
2. Asean (island), located in Jakarta, Medan and Manila
3. Asean (mainland), located in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Vietnam
4. Europe, located in Frankfurt and London
5. Grater china, located in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hongkong and Taipei
6. North Asia, located in Tokyo, Seoul, and Osaka
7. Oceania, located in Sydney and Auckland
8. South Asia, Middle East and Africa, located in Mumbai, Delhi and Dubai
The regional office undertake the entire range of tourism functions from tourism marketing to investment promotion. They work together with in-market industry partners to promote Singapore to our overseas consumers, facilitate tourism companies in investment plans and business alliances, monitor competitive activities and support the development of multi-lateral agreements. The second and third pillar of sustainable tourism development is also fulfilled, it proved by creating Merlion as an icon of Singapore tourism that based on Singaporean mythical legend, and earmarking several historic and cultural areas such as Chinatown, Little India and Arab Street for preservation but also for attracting tourist, people who visited Singapore were at least once went to those areas, or one of them. The last is the forth pillar, Local Sustainability, STB has a tourist guide training programme for its program to maximizing the resource of its people.
Macau Tourism
Macau is situated 60 kilometres (37 mi) southwest of Hong Kong and 145 kilometres (90 mi) from Guangzhou.It consists of the Macau Penisnsula itself and the islands of Taipa and Coloane. The peninsula is formed by the Zhujiang (Pearl River) estuary on the east and the Xinjiang (West River) on the west. It borders the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone in mainland China. The main border crossing between Macau and China is known as the Portas do Cerco (Barrier Gate) on the Macau side, and the Gongbei checkpoint on the Zhuhai side. Macau Peninsula was originally an island, but a connecting sandbar gradually turned into a narrow isthmus, thus changing Macau into a peninsula. Smaller than Singapore, Macau has only 29.2 km² land area, but not to forget, Macau has a lot of tourist attractions to. Like historical and cultural tourism than can be found at old churches and chapels, for examples: Ruins of St Paul College, Macau Cathedral, St Dominic Church, St Joseph Seminary Church, St. Francis Xavier in Coloane, St Lawrence or Sao LorenzoSt Augustine Church, St Anthony (Sao Antonio), St Michael Chapel and Cemetery, St Francis (Parish) Church, Fatima Church and many more, the churches has a strong influence of Portuguese culture due its history of Portuguese permanent settlement in 1557. Aside from churches and chapels there are many more tourist attraction in Macau, for examples gardens like Casa Garden, Luis de Camoes Garden, Comendador Ho Yin Garden, Garden of the Arts, Flora Garden, Garden of Montanha Russa; Plazas, like Leal Senado Square, St Dominic Square, Cathedral Square, Jesuit Square of St Paul, Barra Square.
From all the tourist attraction than mentioned above, gambling and casino in Macau is their main gear of tourism. In a World Tourism Organization report of international tourism for 2006, Macau ranked 21st in the number of tourists and 24th in terms of tourism receipts. From 9.1 million visitors in 2000, arrivals to Macau has grown to 18.7 million visitors in 2005 and 22 million visitors in 2006, with over 50% of the arrivals coming from mainland China and another 30% from Hong Kong. Macau is expected to receive between 24 and 25 million visitors in 2007. Since the Handover, Triad underworld violence, a deterring factor for tourists, has virtually disappeared, to the benefit of the tourism sector. Starting in 1962, the gambling industry had been operated under a government-issued monopoly license by Stanley Ho's Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau. The monopoly ended in 2002, and several casino owners from Las Vegas attempted to enter the market. With the opening of the Sands Macau, the largest casino in the world as measured by total number of table games, in 2004 and Wynn Macau in 2006, gambling revenues from Macau's casinos were for the first time greater than those of Las Vegas Strip (each about $6 billion), making Macau the highest-volume gambling centre in the world. In 2007, Venetian Macau, at the time the second (now third) largest building in the world, opened its doors to the public, followed by MGM Grand Macau. Numerous other hotel casinos, including Galaxy Cotai Megaresort and Ponte 16, are also to be opened in the near future.
Given the fact above we may conclude that Macau has fulfilled the first pillar of sustainable tourism development too, with both policy of monopoly policy that ended in 2002 and the replacement of it which allowed several investment for making a good infestation in Macau, which brought the luck of revenue, taxes and charges. After the infestation, Macau became the first gambling center even passed Las Vegas. Not only that, The people of Macao have benefited considerably from casino revenues in the form of large tax contributions from the casinos that have gone into the development of infrastructure, culture and arts, generous social subsidies, health services, and education (Vong and MacCartney (2005)). As for the second and third pillars, Macau has fulfilled them with preserving its culture by keeping a good attention and treatment of the churches, plazas, and gardens that had mention above. And the last pillar, local sustainability, Macau fulfilled it with the fact that the tourist attractions, mainly the gambling and casinos has social benefit as the development of job opportunities, but also other aspect for instance increased pride among residents and the preservation of local customs (Vong and MacCartney, 2005).
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Sources and references
http://app.stb.gov.sg/asp/abo/abo.asp?
http://www.worldscibooks.com/eastasianstudies/etextbook/4828/4828_chap1.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Tourism
http://travel.mapsofworld.com/china/macau-tourist-attractions/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau.htm
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