boracay as the next phuket?

The New York Times featured Boracay as possibly the next Phuket (thanks for the heads up, Teens!), and although the label, not to mention its marketing mileage, is arguably short of an award, I have misgivings about it.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading on sustainable tourism lately, and the mindset is that mass tourism (aka the party-loving crowd of Boracay) is not sustainable, which also translates to not profitable, for everyone involved.   More and more the trend should be moving towards high value tourism, which naturally has high entry costs, for both the businessman and the tourist, and high returns, for the businessman, the tourist AND the local population.

The Balearic Islands of Spain–Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza–keep coming up as models of sustainable development, and their story is worth looking into, especially given the dangerous edge that Boracay is finding itself close to. The key ingredients in the Balearics’ return to “profitable” tourism? Dialogue and tourism policy.