The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [215]
Of these, the two most developed for tourists are Mauritius and Reunion. Madagascar still seems only for the very adventurous, or those interested in 'ecotourism', where more is expected than just white sand beaches and fawning 'natives'.
Mauritius benefits from the fact that French is still widely spoken, even though France lost the island two hundred years ago. Nearly half the arrivals are from France. A total of 422,000 arrived in 1995, and 487,000 the next year, and they spent close to $US1,000 each. Mauritius has opted to aim at the top end of the market, unlike say Malindi or Goa. There are no charter flights, though this situation may change as competition increases. At the Royal Palm Hotel 'a team of ladies attired in brilliantly-coloured saris scrub the coconuts on the trees to a shine, rake the sand, vacuum palm leaves from the bottom of the pool and snip the grass into patterns with tiny shears.' Tourism and how to interact with foreigners is an important part of the curriculum in local schools. There are positive and negative elements to the boom. On the one hand, most of the industry, unlike elsewhere, is locally owned, but then profits are held back by the necessity to import food and other 'necessities' for the tourists. The island is only about 2,000 km2, so there is pressure on the disposition of sewage, on the water supply, and on the relatively small number of good sandy beaches.71 Reunion predictably draws nearly all its tourists from France. Its lack of good beaches is compensated by its many good hotels, popular places for conferences and meetings. The Seychelles have little else but tourism in the way of assets, especially once the end of the Cold War resulted in the USA closing down a satellite tracking station in 1996, which meant the loss of the annual rent of $US4.5 million. Again the European up-market tourist is targeted. Arrivals rose from 86,000 in 1989 to 110,000 in 1994.72 So also in the Maldives, where only about 200 of the total of 1,200 islands are inhabited. The government has tried to locate tourist facilities on those previously uninhabited, creating about fifty enclave resorts popular with western honeymooners. Visitors usually go straight from the airport to their resort, having little or no contact with local people. The local population is rigorously Muslim, so alcohol is available only on the resort islands, and is served by foreigners imported so that no Maldivian has to handle this forbidden product.
It is easy for elites to sneer at mass tourism, and to stress the negatives, some of which have just been outlined. Some would see first world tourism to the third world as analogous to sweat shops in Thailand making expensive shoes and clothing for a rich overseas clientele. Certainly there is a danger that what attracts westerners to the coasts of the ocean will soon be lost. Beaches are increasingly polluted, palm trees are cut down to make way for new hotels, the coral reefs are disappearing thanks to uncontrolled access to them, polluted waters, and souveniring of bits of them. The comments of the authors of a previous book in this series on the Sea in History are apposite and generally applicable: 'it behoves thinking, as people flock to the shores in ever-increasing numbers, how fragile is the line between our need for recreation, peace or spiritual sustenance from the sea, and the effects of our recreation on the sea itself.'73
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Tourism is an obvious part of globalisation, but there are other implications of these increasing connections. We pointed out that Aden was for a time left behind while ports in the Gulf, nearer to oil, flourished. More recently the dominance of Dubai has been challenged by Salalah in Oman, and Aden in Yemen. Maersk and Sea-Land, two big shipping companies, have bought stakes in Salalah, and the Port of Singapore Authority is running Aden. Dubai has an agreement to manage Beirut port.74 The links spread far and wide. So also with people. Thanks