Mega-airports and a plastic blizzard

EVERYONE wants one. Now even tiny Siem Reap – home to Angkor’s majestic jungle-shrouded temples – has a big one.

The Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport started operation on Oct 16, in one fell swoop catapulting the operation into the largest of its kind in Cambodia.

Costing US$1.1 billion and financed by a Chinese state-owned company on a 55-year build-operate-transfer (BOT) lease, the new airport is 40 kilometres from the historic ruins. The old airport has been closed. The first phase of the opening allows for narrow-body flights and around seven million passengers annually while the second phase by 2030 will see the introduction of wide-body aircraft such as A350s and B777s with a capacity for 12 million visitors.

The argument that moving away from the old airport (far too close to the monuments) is ecologically sound has been overshadowed by the massive capacity increases. There are two obvious problems in this scenario. First, any savings on aviation pollution will be a pittance compared with the carnage wrought by an envisaged 50 million tourists with more and bigger planes by phase three (2050).

Secondly, a US$1.1 billion price tag is a millstone around the neck of any country, especially one with a gross national product in 2022 of a little over US$28 billion. Admittedly the operator shoulders much of the burden. But, depending on the terms of the BOT, the government could lose out on tourism-generated airport revenues for an extended period of time. BOT arrangements usually average around 25 years.

Nepal too celebrated Jan 1, 2023, with the opening of the China-built Pokhara International Airport. There were no celebrations thereafter for six months until the first international flight arrived from Sichuan (carrying athletes, not tourists). Despite bullish forecasts of 280,000 passengers by 2025, as at writing (October 2023) there were no scheduled international flights from anywhere to this facility. Yet, this airport is built to handle an estimated one million visitors annually. What is going to finance this beast? Meanwhile, the old airport continues to serve small aircraft flying to adventure destinations such as Jomsom.

Potential white elephants like this – including Indonesia’s US$7.3 billion “Whoosh” high speed rail (launched Oct 2) – are proliferating in Asia. These are often ego projects predicated on inflated passenger forecasts. Some operations may well find their passengers in time and sort out P&L but many places are feeling the pinch of overreaching ambition.

Threat to fragile ecosystems

In countries where tourism dollars are readily available to fund mega-projects there is a cost to the land and fragile ecosystems. In Angkor, over-pumping of water has resulted in a dangerous lowering of the water table to a point where the ground is subsiding under the Unesco heritage site. This raises the frightening spectre of irreversible damage to a unique centuries-old cultural accretion.

The question governments should be asking themselves is whether smaller destinations need the sort of massive tourism influx these projects require to be viable? Small is beautiful but not when overrun by hordes.

Destinations threatened by unchecked tourism include some glamorous names such as Venice (now charging for entrance to the city and with cruise ships banned), Santorini, Krabi’s fabled Maya Beach (from Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Beach that was closed for four years), Bruges, Amsterdam, and even Mt Everest, now a serious killer trap for inexperienced hordes clambering up its flanks.

Bhutan sensibly opted for caution and has staggered visitor intake through a combination of seat capacity and pricing. But even in the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon, times have changed. On Sep 1, 2023, Bhutan slashed its tourist charge for sustainable development in half from US$200 per day per adult to US$100. The earlier fee of US$65 had been raised to US$200 as the country reopened post-Covid.

The kingdom would like to see more high-spending travellers though Paro International Airport handles under 300,000 passengers a year. Fortunately, there are serious constraints on capacity with the flight path through narrow valleys limiting access. Only clear-weather daytime visual landings are permitted.

Lesson from Bali

Purportedly to help preserve the environment and local culture, Bali will be charging foreigners (not Indonesians) a tourist tax of US$10 per entry into the island from February 2024. This is a simple revenue grab for the local government and will not combat issues such as public fornication, bared bottoms, and nudity at temples that is outraging residents.

Levity aside, tourism is both a breadwinner (making up almost 70 per cent of the local economy in Bali) and also a huge source of waste. The Jakarta Post writes: “Tourists themselves produce 3.5 times more plastic waste per capita than locals.”

The Post ominously concludes: “Bali’s tourism-dominated economy has caused a shift in local lifestyles around the use of plastic. From the rise of convenience stores with shelves of plastic products to the replacement of the traditional banana leaf with the plastic bag, Bali has embraced a version of modernity synonymous with waste.”

There is a lesson to be learnt here.

The writer is a Hong Kong-based journalist, newspaper columnist and the editor of AsianConversations.com and SmartTravelAsia.com