II How significant was the support?

Activity 5 continues.

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TOURISM

Activity 5 (continued)

c Which groups were working to take over the land for tourist development?

d State the environmental and social impact you think the proposed'development might have on this island, once viewed as being a peaceful unspoilt paradise.

e What chance do the people have of retain­ing their traditional- roles as tourist-service providers?

f Describe, in your own words, the aforemen­tioned struggle between the rich and pow­erful and the poor and powerless.

g State how the nature of tourism and the type of tourist coming to the island might change if building of the resort goes ahead.

Pangkor Island, Malaysia - new developments

What conflicts are involved in the issue?

What impacts would each one have?

Figure 3.28 The Pan Pacific Resort, Pangkor

Pangkor Island - see the maps in figures 3-4 and 3.29 on pages 67 and 79 - is a small island off Malaysia's west coast, about 170 kilometres north west of Kuala Lumpur. The people of Malaysia use it very much as a holiday island, and it has only one large resort, the Pan Pacific Resort, Pangkor - see the photograph in Figure 3-28 - used by many international tourists and a few well-off Malaysians. Other accommodation fa­cilities are available for more budget-conscious tourists and Malaysians. Because the island is so popular and easily accessible by ferries from the town of Lumut

and by local charter boats, the cost of staying there is higher than at other Malaysian tourism locations. Its tourist resorts are located on the eastern side and the northern peninsula.

The island's attractions are its beautiful beaches, evergreen forests, fishing villages and mangrove ar­eas. Emerald Bay, on the small nearby island of Pangkor Laut, attracts tourists who wish to go scuba diving and deep-sea fishing. Jungle walking is also popular, due to lack of regular transport and poor-quality road maintenance. The island has very few cars, and its main forms of transport are bicycle, local bus, motorcycle and taxi. Tourists tend to hire bicy­cles, motorcycles and taxis. The local bus route is from Pangkor village directly across the island to the far end of Pasir Bogak Beach.

The Pan Pacific Resort, Pangkor

The Pan Pacific Resort, Pangkor is self-sufficient, and guests are permitted to bring in neither food nor drink. Few guests ever have to venture from it, because it has large swimming pools and a nine-hole golf course and is located on a private beach. Although the beach becomes heavily polluted with plastic containers and bags, it is cleaned daily by local women using straw brooms. Many of the resort's staff members are Malay Indians. A gift shop, souvenir shop and bank are located there. Most international tourists - predomi­nantly from Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan - arriving on package tours from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur are driven by bus from there to Lumut and are then ferried to the is­land; from the jetty, they are transported to the resort by small bus. The resort's rubbish is dumped about a kilometre from it in a cleared section of jungle and is set alight occasionally. Monkeys scavenge among it. Fishers in a small local fishing boat catch fish for the resort's restaurants - one of the activities the tour­ists can become involved in every afternoon.

Security guards are on duty at all times in order to ensure that the resort remains exclusive. Local Malaysians are not permitted to enter the grounds unless they are employed by the resort. Resort work­ers live in accommodation near Kampung Teluk Dalam, about a kilometre from the resort. Other tour­ists visiting the island or daytrippers from the main­land can use the resort's facilities for a daily fee of thirty Malaysian - or twenty-five Australian - dollars.

The airport

Due to the increasing popularity of tourism both in Malaysia in general and at the Pan Pacific Resort, the Malaysian government is keen to promote new de­velopments. In early 1992, this promotion policy took

THE IMPACT OF TOURISM

Figure 3.29 Pangkor Island, west coast of Malaysia; inset: Pangkor Island's location in relation to mainland Malaysia and Singapore

the form of construction of an airport for Pangkor Island -see the photograph in Figure 3.30 on page 80 - that will service both international and domestic flights. Increasingly noticeable throughout the world's tourism areas, particu­larly in Asia, is construction of airports relatively close to large tourist resorts, in order to enable international tourists to fly directly from their home country without having to stop over in the larger cities.

Pangkor Island's airport is in the island's northern sec­tion, only a few kilometres from the Pan Pacific Resort. Its construction necessitated bull­dozing of the jungle and sev­eral large hills because that end of the island is very steep and covered in rainforest. All the site's building materials were brought from the main­land by barge, and manual labourers were employed for constructing concrete culverts and drains, using a small con­crete mixer. Also, Kampung Teluk Dalam - see the photo­graph in Figure 3.31 on page 80 - was razed, and a new vil­lage was constructed on the airport's perimeter. The fish­ing fleet located in the bay had to move because the bay be­came progressively filled in, in order to form part of the run­way. The kampung (village) residents, mainly fisherfolk, lost their livelihood or moved elsewhere. Although the new homes, constructed in neat rows, were an improvement on many of the residents' pre­vious homes, many left the kampung during the lengthy reconstruction period. Some of them gained employment in building the new kam­pung and on the airport-construction site.

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TOURISM

Figure 3.30 Pangkor Island's airport-construction site, showing the concrete drains made by local workers

Figure 3.31 Kampung Teluk Dalam in 1992, before being relocated

Activity 6

a i Locate the places mentioned in the pre­ceding text on the map in Figure 3-29 on page 79-

ii What other attractions are shown on the map but not mentioned in the text ?

iii What is the highest point shown on the map?

b i State the ways in which Pangkor Island's new developments have brought about changes to the local kampung residents' lives. .

ii State whether the residents have any­thing to gain from construction of the airport and from other tourist infrastruc­ture that will presumably follow.

c Describe how construction of the airport and its associated works has interfered with the natural environment and the island's aes­thetic appeal.

d Have a class discussion on the environmen­tal impact of development aspects i to iii as follows.

Development aspects

i Land clearing and vegetation destruc­tion

ii Infilling of part of the bay

iii Relocation of watercourses in drains as hills were flattened

e State the social and environmental conse­quences for the local residents of the like­lihood of there being increasing numbers of tourists. Consider, for example, issues related to water supply, sewerage, airport noise, traffic and access.

f After having a class discussion on issues questions i to viii as follows, briefly answer the questions.