To
the European mind, tropical islands are bountiful places offering travellers an
escape from everyday realities and a temporary materialisation of what is
imagined to be the good life. The jet aircraft has brought island paradises
tantalizingly close for the relatively affluent of the world.
For
North Americans the Caribbean is delightfully close as are the islands of the
Indian Ocean for more affluent South Africans. Despite their undoubted appeal,
neither the Caribbean nor the Indian Ocean have quite the intoxicating
attraction of the South Pacific. These previously most inaccessible of tropical
islands now face the challenges of adapting to an influx of pleasure-oriented
travellers from throughout the world, or in the case of those which have not
yet established themselves as tourism destinations, to solicit such an influx. Obviously, it can be seen on
the Islands of Indonesia that are visited by tourists without preparation or not
ready to be a tourist destination.
The Indonesian
who inhabit the paradise, to which so many Europeans have aspired, are also
under pressure to adapt to the temporary holiday migrations from across the
globe. Australians have long regarded Indonesian as their back-yard and the Islands
paradise have always been more accessible for them than for residents of the
Northern Hemisphere. Australian travellers are having to share Indonesia
holiday resorts with visitors from throughout the world. But do Australians
really need to travel overseas to find the type of paradise so deeply embedded
in the western imagination? Australia’s own Great Barrier Reef is fringed by
numerous tropical islands. Does this imply that paradise may be experienced
without the need for a passport? Do Australians weigh up the prospect of travel
to Queensland with its connotation of patriotism and of buying Australian
against the option of an overseas trip? Why Australians are interested to go to
Indonesia? Might both destinations lose their allure because paradise has
become too easily accessible, too prone to excessively hyperbolic promotion and
too easy to compare image with reality?
Not only the people
of Australia who looked at Indonesia. Even the Russians also like the islands. That is why Indonesia is a paradise
for those of developed countries. Then, can we take advantage of this
global trend? All depends on
how we manage marine tourism in Indonesia.
