BANGKOK — Beaches are packed with sunbathers, coves are crowded with boaters and snorkelers, and trails are once again bustling with hikers and porters.
More than two years after the coronavirus pandemic shut down international travel, most Southeast Asian countries have reopened their borders to vaccinated travelers, with minimal requirements. Millions arrived over the summer, driven by an irrepressible desire to travel. The return of tourists has been a relief for an economically battered region, but it has come at a price.
The pandemic has crippled Southeast Asia’s $393 billion tourism industry, costing millions of jobs, but it has also presented an opportunity to restore many natural landscapes and heritage sites that have long been trampled and polluted. Now some government officials and local leaders are arguing against a return to unchecked tourism that scientists have warned for years is causing irreparable environmental damage. At the same time, those who rely on tourism revenues are desperate to welcome back as many visitors as possible.
Welcome to summer travel. Hell.
“The tourism industry is going through a period of great change right now,” said Liz Ortiguera, CEO of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable travel. While more governments and businesses are looking for ways to make tourism less destructive, Ortiguera said it’s “not surprising” that some environmentally damaging mass tourism practices will bounce back as the pandemic subsides.
A month after Thailand closed its borders in 2020, a group of dugongs, one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals, was spotted drifting silently in shallow waters off the southern Thai coast. In Phuket, leatherback turtles are replacing tourists and nesting on beaches at a rate that has amazed local scientists.
“In some ways, the pandemic was a perfect opportunity to show what would happen if humans were able to give nature a break,” Warawat Silpa-archa, Thailand’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, told The Washington Post.
Get caught up in
Stories to keep you up to date
In 2020, Thailand closed all 155 of its natural parks to tourists for the first time. Though they reopened in July, Prime Minister Dr. Varawatt ordered all parks closed for at least one month every year. He also banned single-use plastics in parks and said he would “not hesitate” to close tourist sites for long periods if tourists were causing chaos. He added that he had little concern about possible opposition from businesses.
“Frankly, it doesn’t really matter to me whether they agree or not,” Varawut says. “My job is to protect nature for future generations.”
Not all attempts to regulate tourism in the region have been successful. In June, Indonesian authorities proposed limiting visitors to the ancient Borobudur temple on Java to 15 people at a time and raising entrance fees for foreigners from $25 to $100 to fund conservation efforts, but they faced local opposition. Hundreds of tourism workers went on strike after the government announced plans to increase entrance fees at Komodo National Park in East Nusa Tenggara. Fee increases at both sites are currently on hold.
“The problem is there’s so much sunk investment,” said Stephen Schipani, a tourism industry expert at the Asian Development Bank.
Annual tourist numbers to Southeast Asia doubled between 2010 and 2019, peaking at 137 million just before the pandemic. That growth is expected to continue until at least 2030, largely due to the region’s growing middle class. Companies and governments across Southeast Asia are investing heavily to prepare for and capitalize on these visitors. Much of the infrastructure, including airports, hotels and sewer systems, is still in place, Schipani says.
Asia is slowly reopening to travelers. Here’s where you can go.
“We have the capacity to accommodate 140 million people,” he noted, and there is “enormous pressure” to ensure that capacity is met.
In 2018, then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte closed the white-sand island of Boracay for six months, saying it had become a “cesspit” due to overtourism. Since reopening, the island has maintained certain sustainability measures but is currently testing them. Over Easter weekend in April, Boracay’s daily visitor numbers exceeded its cap multiple times, officials said.
Nowy Potenciano, 44, owns several restaurants and a boutique hotel on the island. He says tourists who have returned to Boracay in recent months are literally “hungry for new experiences.” He says they’re ordering more food than before. He’s happy to see tourists back, but doesn’t think “business as usual” will return even after the pandemic.
“That’s something we’re all still figuring out,” Potenciano said. “How do we maintain visitor numbers without upsetting the delicate balance across the island?”
Nearly 40 million tourists visited Thailand in 2019, many of whom spent time along its dazzling southern coast. Research has found that between 2017 and 2019, at least two locations in the south – Patong Beach and Maya Bay – regularly exceeded their “carrying capacity” – the number of people a location can reasonably accommodate without causing damage to the environment or local communities.
Somyot Sarapong, who works for an ecotourism agency in Bangkok, lived and worked on Ko Phi Phi in the 1990s but left in 2003 when developers from outside the island began building high-rise concrete hotels along the beach, replacing locally run resorts. When he returned to the island in 2019 to visit a friend, Somyot, 56, no longer recognized what he once thought was his “little corner of paradise,” and the brightly colored fish that were once abundant there were now hard to spot.
Somyot returned to the islands earlier this year, before Thailand reopened its borders to international tourists, and while swimming in the ocean he spotted a school of blacktip reef sharks, which had become increasingly rare in the islands before the pandemic.
“It felt like my first day on Koh Phi Phi,” he said.
China holds the key to saving the planet from climate change, but it can’t quit coal.
Somyot wants the government to do more to curb overtourism, but some sustainability experts are skeptical the government will take the necessary steps.
Thailand is known for its hospitality and relied on tourism for 11% of its gross domestic product before the pandemic. Experts say Thailand lacks the zoning, land use regulations and hotel licensing systems to allow the government to effectively manage the impact of tourism, even if the political will was there.
But Thong Thamrongnawasawat, a marine scientist at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, thinks there is reason to be optimistic.
“When you’re driving really fast, it’s hard to slow down. With COVID, it’s like your car engine shuts off,” he said. “Now it starts again and you can drive slowly and carefully.”
The pandemic has allowed more Thais to rediscover the beauty of their country, he added, and now, when it comes to protecting it, “we have a much better chance than before.”
Regine Kabat reported from Manila. Wirawan Watcharasakwet reported from Bangkok.
