ABSTRACT
Tourism has become one of South-East Asia’s foremost industries. Although the region receives less than 11 per cent of the world’s international tourist trade, the members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations are experiencing a boom in both foreign and domestic tourism. The phenomenal growth in tourism in South-East Asia, as elsewhere in the developing world, has been associated with a number of factors and processes. Along with the growth of the tourism industry in South-East Asia, there has been an increasing awareness of the need to understand its dynamics, the development processes engendered and their consequences for the region and its peoples. Social scientists with an interest in culture have often treated research on tourism as ‘spin-off research’ – something of a second order activity – and therefore the various relationships between tourism and culture have tended to be overlooked.
