ABSTRACT
In the regional business rivalry between Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore the tourism industry occupies an important place. Like the media, tourism is a cultural industry where image often counts as much as substance. Like the media again, tourism gives its consumers a virtual form of reality and often creates dubious images of ‘authenticity’ to guarantee customers that they are seeing the ‘real’ Thailand or a Malaysia which is ‘truly Asia’. The creation of an attractive and especially a safe image of tourist destinations is usually done through promotional campaigns in the media, so there is a nexus between media images of Thailand or Malaysia and expectations
about what those destinations are really like. Yet tourism promotions frequently distort popular memory through the reinvention of traditions. What also becomes questionable in times of potential threats to tourists’ security – whether from possible terrorist threats, inadequate infrastructure protection against natural disasters, or epidemics such as SARS – is to what degree the media promoting those destinations can be relied on.
