Tourism oh tourism

This morning my husband and I were discussing about the place for our annual family vacation. Considering this year will be my last year in the UK, we thought of several places. Given our limited budget (otherwise we would love to travel to ALL places), we need to find a place which would give us the most value to the (limited available) money we spend, where the children and us can equally have a blast. In the end however, we settled for Disneyland Paris even though we went there 2 years ago.

For those of you who have been to Disneyland Paris, I'm sure you will agree that the place is super-fantastic and it has the X-factor (ie. the ability to make you feel, no matter how old you are, that you are in a fantabulous land and you wish you can stay there forever, well at least until your money runs out hehe). For those of you who haven't, then I can assure you IT IS :). And then there is Paris...the city of love *sigh*.

Now, if you apply the same rule to Brunei as a tourist destination, my question is what is our X-factor? What can we offer to a person who is spending his/her limited budget visiting our country? Or if I were the potential tourist, I ask WHY should I spend my hard-earned 700pounds (or any other amount for that matter) to come to Brunei?

Our quest to become one of THE tourist destinations in the South East Asia, in my opinion, is no easy feat. After all, look at our competitions in the region. However, I also think it is NOT impossible. Our main challenge is not that we don't have the factors that can make us THE tourist destination; rather it is the lack of will, determination and co-ordination among the relevant government departments.

Every time people bring up the issue of tourism, the first thing people talk about is that Brunei is a 'dry' country. The impression I get is that people seem to think that no alcohol= no tourists. What a lame excuse, really. It makes me wonder, do people really travel to consume alcohol (which they can find back home)? Now, before anyone argues FOR the changing of alcohol policy (I'm actually indifferent if the policy is reviewed), let us first look at what we can change without compromising our Islamic faith.

First, let's look at the beaches we have. We have beautiful beaches. Sadly however, the last time I visited them, they were dirty and not to mention the unspeakable state of the public washrooms. And for most of the time, nothing much was happening! Now, my questions are: 1) how expensive can it be to provide the service of beautifying our beaches? For goodness sake, you could even count the number of rubbish bins provided in each beach. For a rich country, I tell you, we are quite stingy! And 2) How difficult can it be to plan 12 types of happening activities for the 12 months of the year?

Next, we have our beloved old Kampong Ayer (Water Village) which is...simply old and dirty. I'm sorry I cannot help but 'smile' every time people mention Brunei being the 'Venice of the East'...Yes... that was aeons ago. Now, I'm not saying that we should just bulldoze Kampong Ayer. In fact, I am FOR preserving it. The challenge now is how to preserve it, beautify it and make it one of Brunei's X Factors. To me, this can only be done if ALL relevant authorities can put their heads together. This - the restoration of Kampong Ayer to its former glory, I believe, is the one project that actually deserves a foreign consultant. There are MANY issues to look into, among others are the sewerage system, an effective rubbish disposal, safety issues such as the fire-breaker system and the electrical system and last but not least, is the ways and means to make it into a desirable habitat of the 21st century!

And then, how about making Brunei into being THE family vacation destination? We used to have Jerudong Park. I tell you, it was the BEST! (At least in this region). Now, it has become a ghost park, which if the stories I heard were true, it really is a GHOST park (hehe). I wrote about JP some time ago (here) and my view still stands. Why aren’t we doing anything about it? Why are we wasting it? There is nothing you can do to UNDO the park so why don’t we make very good use of it? Honestly, I don’t understand. Really, if JP is restored, I think the tourism department won’t even have to spend another cent promoting Brunei.

Oh, and a PROPER Brunei Zoo, please! It is educational, fun and makes a natural (local and foreign) tourist destination.

Anyway, we have to accept the fact that Brunei can never be made into a 'wet and wild party' destination. But it doesn’t mean that Brunei can never be made into one of THE tourist destinations in the region. By declaring VISIT BRUNEI YEAR alone, doesn’t mean Brunei has become that destination. It needs combined efforts, strong will and obviously some spending. Otherwise, Brunei will forever be receiving this, this and this kinds of foreign tourists’ reviews.

Salaam.