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TSVC | Tourism Students Virtual Conference

Tourism Mobility and War: South Korea and Cambodia

Tourism Mobility and War: South Korea and Cambodia
Author: Madeleine Hodges
2 Commentries
Tourism has been related to economic development within countries and some destinations rely on regular tourism expenditure in order to keep businesses up and running. Within the last few decades, people have started to realise the benefits from tourism however, there is countries that have had little or no benefits from tourism expenditure at all. This is mainly due to the destinations being affected by war and conflict (Butler & Suntikul: 2013). This study has focused on two destinations that have suffered with this, Cambodia and South Korea.

South Korean airlines began marketing to tourists after the foreign currency started to lose value post-war, claiming that tourists will make it more valuable. The country’s economic development relied on tourism to gain extra income and keep the country comfortably stable. Developing the destination into a ‘tourism destination’ would help to economically stable the country, although tourists have avoided it, due to the reputation according to Lee (2006). As of today, tourism is one of the newest growth sectors within South Korea. South Koreas neighbours, China and Japan, have influenced this growth due to cheaper international travel.

The pull factor for the tourists to visit South Korea is definitely the country’s cultural and natural assets which have helped develop the tourism industry within the country. The government has taken an active role within this in order to preserve not only the natural assets, but also the tourism. It is reasonably easy to travel in and out of the country, with no warning of terrorism and most visits being trouble free.

Cambodia has also been affected by war between the Thai and Vietnamese and also the end of the civil war resulted in 2 million deaths through genocide and starvation. In 2001, Cambodia was declared a ‘least developed country’ and currently, similar to South Korea, the focus of Cambodia is to stimulate development in the tourism industry (Ellis and Sheridan: 2014). Ecotourism is a strategy in which Cambodia has taken in order to gain further tourism, although most of the tourism visitors travel to see the ancient cultural history. Community Based Tourism has also been undertaken by Cambodia, this is a strategy which involved community engagement in sustainable tourism which enables the community to have a say in how to encourage further tourism.

Cambodia’s tourism arrivals have increased significantly to 4,210,165 in 2013. South Korea also had 12,175,550 in 2013 which is a 9.3% growth from the previous year. It is obvious that the tourism strategy has worked and will bring in further tourism however; there is always the fact that the countries have been affected by war and conflict thus preventing the maximum amount of tourists that could be interested in visiting the countries. The tourist arrivals for Cambodia are noticeably less than that of South Korea, apart from the difference in population; Cambodia has areas that the government would advise against travelling. This factor indicates that numerous people would avoid going for this reason if there is a risk that anything could happen, also, the travel advice advises that everyone that visits takes the highest holiday insurance (comprehensive).

In order to gain further information on the subject and to view different tourist’s perceptions, a small survey was conducted from 53 people to find out what they thought about the two destinations in question. From the outcomes, only 51 people had previously visited either of these countries, proving that they are not popular and well-advertised destinations. The two participants that had been to these destinations had volunteered to help people living in South Korea or Cambodia. This proves that the participants did not choose to go to in terms of a two week holiday with sun and sea, but to help people that are suffering in a consequence from war. All of the participants mentioned that the destinations are not advertised enough and their perceptions of the destinations are ‘war and poverty’, two factors that are not encouraging for a holiday.

Overall, it is clear that war and conflict in particular countries do affect the amount of tourists that visit. From the previous research that has been conducted, tourists have only recently started venturing out to countries that have once been affected by war. This is because the countries have realised that the tourism industry is a huge industry that can bring a mass amount of capital into the country. Cambodia and South Korea have both invested in numerous strategies in order to bring in tourism and from the statistics found, this has been proven to work. However, from the survey conducted, it is clear that both of the countries still have issues in which some people would choose not to go, some being a safety factor and another being that the countries are not advertised enough for a tourist to gain enough information about that destination.

Butler R & Suntikul W (2013). Tourism and War. Oxon: Routledge. 17-189.

Ellis S and Sheridan LM. (2014). The legacy of war for community-based tourism development: learnings from Cambodia. Community Development Journal. 49 (1), 129-142.

Lee YS. (2006). The Korean War and tourism: legacy of the war on the development of the tourism industry in South Korea.. International Journal of Tourism Research. 8 (3), 157-170.
Countries with high tourism potential, but severely affected by the wars' consequences
Author: Stefania Oancea
First of all: a good choice of a conference paper topic, so well done! I have personally written about a similar topic, however my case study was Kosovo; and same as your conference paper, mine too focuses on wars and national security issues in which particular countries have been involved (in your case: Cambodia and South Korea) and consequently have experienced a significant and immediate fall of the number of tourists travelling to these places.
You have mentioned about South Korea that one of the pull factors motivating people to go there, is that South Korea has a great natural beauty and a great culture and this has helped in the last couple of years, not only further development of tourism attractions and facilities, but bringing tourists in too, which is always a plus, since, if course, it brings money.
Unlike Kosovo's Government (Kosovo too having a great potential from a tourism point of view, thanks to its natural beauty), South Korea's National Authorities/Government, as you mention in your summary has had many contributions and has involved in tourism projects or simply in developing the tourism industry,while in Kosovo's situation, the Government did not do too much and Kosovo is still recovering today and people are still perceiving Kosovo as a country of "unsafety" and a country that has been in war and still having trouble with their Serbian neighbours. Those with negative opinions are wrongly informed , since national security issues or the war is not affecting the country anymore since the end of the Balkan war, back in 1999, however due to the less positive media reports and general "promotion" of Kosovo, the people are continuing to not travel to Kosovo due to the lack of knowledge regarding its current situation. Similarly, you have mentioned about South Korea that it does not have security issues anymore and that it's safe to go there, this is the case with Kosovo too, however, as I have mentioned previously, the difference is that media contributes to a negative image and the lack of knowledge regarding the current situation of Kosovo, people are still thinking that Kosovo is a problematic destination and as a consequence many of them are not travelling to Kosovo, fact that, of course, does not help neither the country's tourism, neither the economy. Now moving onto the perceptions that people have about countries with strong connections to (national) security issues, particularly wars, I believe that, same as in Kosovo's case, people tend to think that the countries they are about to visit are not unsafe simply because they have been involved in wars, but as you state in your summary, this is not the case anymore with South Korea, since its developments have the ability of bringing tourists in, therefore South Korea is capable to make a profit from the tourism industry, while Kosovo's national authorities are still corrupt and still not taking too much action regarding their country's development and tourism industry.
Commentary on 'Tourism Mobility and War: South Korea and Cambodia'
Author: Charlotte Seddon
I have chosen to comment on this paper because the title seemed interesting especially with the focus being on two key examples of Cambodia and South Korea. The paper examines the effect having negative connotations on a country can have on the tourism consumption, something very similar to a conference paper I produced, with their main focus being on the effects war and conflict can have on tourist destinations. This paper goes into detail about both countries tourism before and after war and the strategies put into place in order for the countries to gain large benefits from tourism consumption. They go into detail about the view tourist have of the countries and how having a slightly negative view can cause catastrophic downturn in the countries economy.

The main area of this paper that interested me was that the researcher undertook their own primary research conducting questionnaires to tourists asking them first hand their point of view of war stricken countries and their liability to travel to certain destinations that may be deemed as 'unsafe'.
The conclusion of the research reiterated the argument of the paper and gives supporting evidence to the writers conclusion: that war and conflict within counties has a negative affect on the amount of tourists that visit.

The main similarity of this conference paper and my own is that my conference paper talks about the uncertainty that surrounds tourism consumption and the levels of risk we take in travelling to unknown destinations. Overall it can be seen that negative connotations of a country effect tourism drastically alongside that of personal choice. To compare, my paper found that some tourists remain key travellers to war stricken destinations to play to the fear factor that some unsafe destinations present. The paper concluded that advertisement of war stricken countries is very low and that there is not enough information about war stricken destinations in order for tourists to make informed decisions. This is similar to my paper which looks into the role the media can play on hyping up the uncertainty of safety within countries in order to create media popularity rather than understanding the effects negative press can have on a countries economy in terms of tourism consumption.

The paper is written well and focused, showing a strong understanding of the tourism world using key examples in order to reiterate their points. It showed that with well implemented tourism strategies tourism consumption increases but there will always be a strong effect of war on the amount of tourist visitors, due to a perceived high risk factor. Meaning undeniably a countries hardship will remain to have a constant affect on the country for years afterwards, even with tourism focused strategies.