high public relations profile

Trade Winds

Tourism In Vanuatu

A low economic priority - but a high public relations profile

Dr NORMAN DOUGLAS of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, was recently in Vanuatu where he had a close look at the country’s currently booming tourist industry. He found that while in overall terms of economic planning in Vanuatu, tourism has a relatively low priority, its capacity to generate quick revenue has led the authorities to engage in vigorous efforts to promote it in the service of their longer-term aims.

A trilingual sign greets visitors at Vanuatu’s Bauerfield airport pro viding both a welcome and a request. The sign is displayed in English and French the lan guages of the old condominium.

It is also displayed in Japanese, an acknowledgement of a valu able tourist market that Vanuatu like many Pacific Islands hopes to attract. It reads; “Melanesian culture and tradition is different from yours. We hope you will leave understanding more of it and respecting it while you are here.”

That Melanesian culture, rather than the tatters of colonial culture, receives pride of place immediately distinguishes the mood of Vanuatu from its neigh bor, New Caledonia. The name of the new nation itself is indica tive of pride in and concern for Melanesian values. The fact that it threw cartographers and travel agents into confusion for a while is of no consequence. Certainly it would have been easier to retain the “old” name and perpetuate the fallacies of explorers and colonial governments. After all, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have done just that. And one suspects that, whatever the political fate of the French territ ory to the southwest, its name will remain forever New Caledonia.

Visible remnants of decades of the South Pacific’s strangest col onial government of course lin

ger. Offices of the French resi dency may now be occupied by Vanuatu government ministers, but one can still read the name of the condominium behind the re painted sign over Vanuatu Motors a Bums Philp sub sidiary while the drop box for local mail at Port-Vila’s post office is still designated New Hebrides. Queen Elizabeth II and Giscard d’Estaing no longer smile simultaneously from the walls of Barclay’s Bank, but two blocks behind the main street the avenues General de Gaulle and Winston Churchill merge in comfortable colonial liaison.

On a previous visit in July 1980 I stood in Vila’s main street in the midst of a formidably enthusiastic crowd of several hundred Vanuaaku Pati suppor

ters demonstrating their desire for the independence which was only a few uncertain days away.

Tourists were conspicuously thin on the ground, having been frightened off by the bad press the islands were receiving inter nationally, though at night their places in Vila’s bars and restaur ants were taken by British com mandos and French paratroopers, ostensibly there to ensure a smooth transfer of power. Tour ist contact with outer islands like Santo and Tanna was out, though Vila itself provided diversion enough as British troops strolled around wearing T-shirts bearing the legend “Coconut Comman dos” and complaining occasion ally about the lack of appropriate recreational facilities. “The trou ble with this f g place,” one of them remarked to me in the bar of le Lagon, “is that there’s no f g women. We may as well get up there (Santo) and punch a few heads; there’s no thing else to f-—g do.” Thank fully the military presence is no longer relevant, if it ever was. As for the tourists, they have return ed in greater numbers since the independent nation of Vanuatu became a new and competitively

priced South Seas destination, and tourism itself became a sig nificant part of the country’s economic development.

Just how significant was something I discussed recently with Warwick Purser, Vanuatu’s director of tourism. Purser, whose experience in the field includes Australia and Indonesia, is cautious about the place of tourism in developing countries: “Unlike some Southeast Asian countries which have gone into tourism because they have no thing else going economically, Vanuatu has resources, agricul ture and fisheries, which must receive priority to protect the country from an over-reliance on tourism.” When Purser accepted the job in 1981, the dust of secessionism had settled, but tourists had not returned in sig nificant numbers. Indeed, he ad mitted to being slightly sceptical about the prospects. “There was no tourism tax, no indigenous involvement in the tourism in frastructure, a very limited amount of local produce and handicrafts. Those were the im-

Hideaway (Mele) Island Resort, Vanuatu, part of the expanding tourist scene.

mediate challenges.” My impre

ssions were that those challenges were well on the way to being met, though there had been some

predictable grumbling about the

10 per cent government tourist tax (compare 3 per cent in Fiji).

Purser expects that the expat riate role in Vanuatu tourism “should and must always con tinue” but makes it clear that development must respect the needs of the local population.

American writer Paul Theroux once claimed that tourism invari

ably turned a country’s popula

tion into waiters and chamber maids. It is that possibility that Purser is determined to avoid.

“The local entrepreneur must be given incentives. A tourism in which Ni-Vanuatu are employed only as waitresses or taxi-drivers would be intolerable.”

At the same time he is under

standably wary, given Vanuatu’s

post-colonial land tenure prob

lems, of some of the deals which seek to involve Ni-Vanuatu in tourism of the resort develop ment type; “We don’t want another Erakor!” The remark surprised me, since I was staying at the Erakor Island resort and enjoying its superb location, its associations with missionary his tory, and its wonderfully low

key atmosphere. “My objec

tion,” Purser continued, “is to the way the place was established as a joint venture. It’s now the policy of this government to dis courage similar ventures based on a sharing of the net profits. It leads to all sorts of suspicion and hence trouble. We don’t expect custom landowners to have ex perience in analysing hotel ex penses and profits, so the form we hope to adopt is one of a percentage of gross revenue clear off the top, rather than encourag ing them to give land in return for being 50 per cent sharehol ders. There are too many grey areas. Custom landowners don’t always understand why, for inst ance, in the interests of promo tion, it is necessary to give travel agents free accommodation.”

I had to admit a sympathy with their attitude. I’ve never really

understood why either, especial

ly since most travel agents re main lamentably ignorant about the products they are attempting

to sell. To get to Port-Vila from Sydney the first time I had to fight off determined attempts by an agent to sell me first Noumea’s Club Med and then Queensland’s Dunk Island. On Erakor itself, the resort’s co manager Jill Palise was quick to refute any suggestion that the arrangement was less than satis factory. “The villagers take a great pride in the resort,’’ she assured me, “both as sharehol ders in the enterprise and as employees.’’

Purser envisages a natural limit to tourism development: “Our workforce . . . The popu lation of Vanuatu is relatively small (an estimated 120,000 in 1981) and there are other work priorities.” There is no precise figure on employment in tourism but estimates place it at about 1000, about a seventieth of the workforce. The chances of Vanuatu going the way of Hawaii in tourism seem comfort ably remote. “We’re not really in the numbers business here,” said Purser. “Whafs important to me is that handicrafts sold in Vila should not come from Taiwan or Manila and hotels shouldn’t have to serve canned fruit salad and fish fingers.” The illustration was apt. The previous

Ni-Vanuatu string band at the Sydney Opera House: Quiet jol lity in discreet surroundings.

evening at La Cascade, sup posedly a leading Vila restaur ant, my wife had ordered a crab cocktail and received instead chopped up seafood sticks. The French owner was not merely unapologetic but almost offen sively indifferent to our com plaint. The French ambience of Vila, Purser insisted, must be maintained.

It is Vila’s multi-cultural am bience rather than anything specifically French-derived which makes Vanuatu’s capital so appealing to tourists, guaran tees its place on cruise boat itineraries, and assures that its harbor well observed from the lounge bar of the Hotel Rossi always contains a number of cruising yachts. The ambience incorporates the cluttered Chin ese stores along Pasteur and Car not streets, the often photographed but always fas cinating open market on the waterfront, and the confusion of craft at the quayside.

Back of town, at a suburban village called Seaside, atmos phere of a less appealing kind prevails. One of the most squalid of shanty towns in the South Seas, it consists of micro communities from a number of Vanuatu’s islands living in con ditions which are quite inade quately described by the word “slum’’. Perhaps even more de pressing because of its incongru ous juxtaposition is a similar though smaller collection of hovels opposite the Japanese owned luxury hotel, le Lagon.

Amongst the graffiti-covered walls of rusting roof-iron, card board and packing cases a sign reads: “Bom to Lose’’. The pro ximity of hovels to hotel is an ironic comment on the depart ment of tourism’s latest publicity campaign, the slogan for which is “Vanuatu: lies des Contras tes”.

If the stated aims of the re public’s five-year development plan are achieved, of course, there should be no losers, and certainly no Ni-Vanuatu bom to that fate. The contrasts will be merely between the physical or ethnographic features of the country rather than in the alarm ing distinctions in economic levels and living conditions,

problems admittedly bequeathed to the new leaders by their colo nial predecessors. The current National Development Plan (1982-1986) is the first find as such must be regarded as a docu ment of some significance. For the purpose of this article its chief interest lies in its attempts to integrate tourism with other economic development, and in the objectives of the tourism sector.

These are, to say the very least, laudable in their optimism.

Of seven main objectives, five are specifically concerned with the common good including such features as local participation and ownership, the development of tourism where local communities favor it, and the preservation of the nation’s cultural and environ mental heritage. The first objec tive is carefully vague, declaring the revenue generated from tour ism will “as much as possible, remain within the country’’, and the seventh, which aims to attract tourists from the upper socio economic groups, while superfi cially sound (tourism is about money after all) has implications which could undermine most of the other objectives. It is argu able that such desirables as the control of tourism revenues, in crease in local initiative and par ticipation, and the preservation of the cultural and environmental heritage are likely to be least well

served by an emphasis on one class of tourists.

The capital needs of tourism within the framework of economic development over the planning period make it seem like a low priority, marginally ahead of trade and co-operatives and mineral resources at 4 per cent each (what mineral re sources?), but a long way behind agriculture at 49 per cent and some distance from forestry at 12 per cent and manufacturing at 10 per cent. Of the 323 million VT (roughly $A3.23 million) to be spent on the tourism sector, 10 per cent for infrastructure is ex pected to come from grant aid and the remainder from private investment. About two-thirds of the capital requirements are ear marked for the last two years of the plan period, the period of expansion.

In the light of these priorities it is worth referring to a ministerial paper on the subject of Vanuatu’s economic objectives, issued some months earlier. It expresses reservations about making tour ism a major development objec tive yet admits that “when placed in a larger picture, and particularly as a means of enabl ing this country to become an agricultural and agro-foodstuffs exporter, tourism takes a very essential role’’. Vanuatu watch ers with long memories may re call that the pre-independence

pronouncements by the Vanuaaku Pati on tourism were considerably more ambivalent.

Perhaps, as many commentators on tourism development have ob served, the phenomenon begins to generate its own inexorable momentum after a while, regar dless of the efforts of govern ments to use, contain or control it.

For all that, there is a clear indication that the government

Open-air missionary church on

Erakor Island: Tourism in as sociation with history.

Warwick Purser

seeks to exercise considerable control. Air Vanuatu, while managed by Ansett, is 60 per cent government-owned, and can share with UTA the credit for reviving tourist interest in the islands after the low spot of 1980-81. The increasingly lucra tive local tour market, hitherto a near monopoly of Bums Philp via its subsidiaries Island Holi days and Hibiscus Tours, has been broached in no small way by the government-run Tour Vanuatu. Bums Philp has been given until April 1983 to phase out this aspect of its activities. A program of training for hotel staff under the United Nations Development Program has been initiated, and there are plans for a new cultural centre and botanical gardens. Other controls which illustrate increasing government involvement relate to hire car companies, which are required to attain majority local equity by 1985, and the supply of local produce to cruise ships, which must be in Ni-Vanuatu hands by January 1, 1984. “Where a sec tor is deemed to be of national interest,” reads the ministerial paper mentioned above, “the government may wish to get involved. . .”

Low development priority or not, the concern with increased tourism is a highly visible feature of the nation’s activities. Its most recent illustration was the ap pearance in Sydney in early Feb ruary of a travel trade delegation, which coincided with a political shake-up in Vila. Led by Minis ter of Finance, Commerce, In dustry and Tourism, Kalpokor Kalsakau, it included Director of Tourism, Warwick Purser, repre sentatives from Santo, Tanna and Pentecost, Air Vanuatu reps, hoteliers large (representing the Intercontinental and le Lagon) and hoteliers small such as Col leen and Harry Patterson of Vila’s Solaise. Renowned artists Nicolai Michoutouchkine and Aloi Pilioko were in attendance with an extensive range of their works, and a Ni-Vanuatu string band jollied things along in a discreet atmosphere of Sydney Opera House’s exhibition hall.

All that was missing was the presence of Isobel Gidley posing as Jimmy Stevens’ 27th wife. . .

Of the new tourism projects disclosed, the most ambitious was a plan for a resort, to open in 1984, on Iririki Island, the loca tion of the old British residency.

Here jet-setters, with a feeling for history will be able to jog, play tennis, badminton or volley ball and watch in-house video, all the while understanding and respecting Melanesian tradition.

On a more fundamental level, one Pentecost entrepreneur is of fering “A day in the life of a Ni- Vanuatu” where for a mere 2150 VT a tourist may work in a village garden, make copra, cook his own lunch and play village football, thereby experiencing Melanesian culture less

vicariously.

The tourist promotion in Aust ralia was an arresting and obvi

ously expensive display, though

Purser was coy about the cost.

“WeTe concerned about con veying accurate information on Vanuatu,” he told me. “Cost is relatively unimportant. We want people to know that we are at least as competitively priced and appealing a destination as New Caledonia or Fiji, and more varied.” That variety was the subject of a newly made promo

tional film on Vanuatu, no better or worse than most of its kind, though the insistent pseudo- Caribbean background music

hardly enhanced its authenticity.

Given the deluge of vapid and misleading information on Vanuatu that continues to appear in Australian newspapers and magazines the purpose of the exhibition was certainly valid, though its aims were not well served by the distribution of an agents’ “fact file’’ which con tains too many errors of historic al fact, typography and current information to be of much use to its intended readers.

The seeming contradiction in Vanuatu tourism between modest development and vigorous public relations becomes understand able if one considers the long term economic objective “above all to be an agricultura

land agro-industrial country”.

The promotion of tourism there fore becomes a quick means of raising tax revenues and foreign exchange to serve a noble end national self-sufficiency, and the “development of Melanesian man as he sees fit”.

Examples from the Pacific and elsewhere have shown that the policy of tourism policy all too often is out of step with tourism practice, and the quest for economic advantage is accom panied by the erosion of cultural identity. Melanesian man in his Ni-Vanuatu manifestation will do well to avoid that

contingency.

The clutter of Chinese stores in Pasteur Street and Carnot Street, Port-Vila. Fruit and vegetable sellers line the

footpath.

Workboats, coasters, trawlers and Inter-island ships make a confusion of craft on the waterfront.