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Travel & Tourism

Global hotspots are vying for tourists

Travel & Tourism

07/02/2009Global hotspots are vying for tourists

From strife-torn Zimbabwe to the military-run Myanmar, countries with troubled reputations are increasingly looking to position themselves as attractive to tourists.

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Rogue states that are better known for their repressive regimes, political unrest and weapons programs are increasingly competing for visitors with well-established tourist destinations, travel experts say.

This burgeoning trend was highlighted by the Fitur travel fair, which took place in Madrid at the end of January. Myanmar, the country that has been ruled with an iron fist by a military government since 1962, took part in the fair for the very first time.

Among the other global hotspots represented at the event, one of Europe's largest and most important travel fairs, were the Palestinian territories, Libya, Zimbabwe and Iran, whose nuclear ambitions are the subject of deep suspicion in Washington and many other world capitals.

Tony Wheeler, the co-founder of the popular “Lonely Planet” travel guides said that the trend reflects travelers' growing desire to visit places where few others have been before. "Lots of tourists want to be the first through the door," said Wheeler, who has written or contributed to more than 30 “Lonely Planet” titles. Rather than acting as a deterrent, for many people, negative media reports about a country only fuels their desire to visit so that they can draw their own conclusions, he added.

Wheeler recently published a book on his travels to nine rogue nations that he labeled "bad lands."

Andrew Swearingen, a Danish linguistics student Oxford University, said he decided to visit North Korea in 2005 out of "morbid curiosity," after former President George W. Bush said the country formed part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran.

Lonely Planet travel book founder Maureen Wheeler (L) talks during an interview with Agence France Presse (AFP) in Hong Kong while her husband Tony (R) looks on. Maureen and Tony Wheeler have backpacked around the world several times over but for them there is no such thing as a holiday. AFP PHOTO / Laurent FIEVET

"North Korea must be one of the most totalitarian regimes on the planet,” said the 38-year-old. “It is the world's first communist dynasty. I wanted to see such a place first-hand."

While tourist travel to North Korea is only possible as part of a guided tour, the number of foreign visitors to the country rose to about 4,500 in 2008. This number was up from just 600 in 2001, a year before Bush's "axis of evil" speech, according to North Korean government statistics.

Being in the media spotlight for the wrong reasons does make it harder to sell a nation as a vacation spot, said Ross Kennedy, the president of Africa Albida Tourism. Kennedy’s group operates a string of safari lodges in strife-torn Zimbabwe.

However, correcting misconceptions about the situation in the country and highlighting its attractions can go a long way to allaying fears and convincing foreign tourists to visit, he said.

Palestinian artist Walid Ayyub makes the final touches on a portrait for US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at his shop in the West Bank city of Ramallah on July 22, 2008. Obama will pay a lightning visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank for talks tomorrow, where he will seek to prove his foreign policy mettle in one of the world's hotspots. AFP PHOTO/ABBAS MOMANI

The tourism group, which is taking part at Fitur for the first time this year, posted a four percent rise in visitors last year -- despite elections in Zimbabwe in which President Robert Mugabe was accused by human rights groups of using violence and intimidation to keep his grip on power.

"You certainly can't write off an entire destination because of the choices or behavior of a few individuals," said Kennedy.

Also increasing travel to so-called rogue states is the fact that travelers are not as put off by government warnings against visiting a country as they were before, said Ken Shapiro, the editor of TravelAge West, a magazine for travel agents. "In the last few years, people have become very savvy in terms of how some of these warnings have been perceived to be more political than they are necessarily or truly about safety concerns for travelers."

More than 13,000 companies from 170 countries and regions participated in the Fitur tourism tradeshow, which was attended by more than 8,000 journalists from around the world last year.

Daniel Silva/AFP/Expatica