“Tourism is not a dirty business, neither is it a dirty word”

One of the things I remember most about Michael Jay, my principal and English language teacher at the hotel school is two very important points he always tried to make to the Maldivian public. Whenever he got the opportunity to speak to the public he would say these two things “Tourism is not a dirty word – neither is it a dirty business”. He was trying to address the negative image the public had of the industry. The perception was that tourism was against our religion and culture. Not enough was done to change this perception then and not enough is being done now.

Every time I am asked to talk about attracting youth to the tourism industry here in Maldives, I think of the harassment I personally suffered ever since I enrolled at the hotel school because fundamentally, the perception of the society has not changed in the past 26 years. Partly because most of the people who could have made a difference didn’t really care or were too preoccupied with their own self-interests that they forgot about the general reputation of the industry.

I can’t remember how many times I told and retold this story but it still has a lot of significance today. I was 15 years old when I enrolled at hotel school in 1989, the third year of operation for the school. Two of my neighbours, Moosa and Haathim were my classmates and we walked from Machchangolhi saharaa to Sosunge every morning. Back then the Institute for Teacher Education was at Boduge Maafannu. We met a group of trainee teachers daily on our way to school. They were all girls, about 5 of them. Every day, these girls would give us a sarcastic laugh and say “Bodu kakkaa” or “big cook”. Every time I visited friends and family, they would ask me what I do and when I told them that I go to hotel school, they would say “Varah meeru echchehi kakkan engey dho mihaaru” “so now you know how to cook delicious food”.

Sometimes it’s too frustrating to explain that we don’t only learn to cook but learn a host of other disciplines as well and cookery was only one part of it.

Today, 25 years later, my colleagues, resort executives admit that they wouldn’t encourage their daughters to work in the industry because of the perceived stigma attached to people who work in this industry. I am not shocked and I wouldn’t call that being hypocritical at an individual level. Changing public opinion can be a tall order but it can be done. We have had many government authorities since the department of tourism who failed to address this issue. Associations such as MATI and MATATO should engage more with the community. We have over 100 resorts and many more boats, hotels and guest houses who are directly involved in this, we account for more than 27% of the GDP and are the biggest employment sector in the economy, yet employment in the industry is frowned upon in the society. Now, that is the sign of mass hypocrisy!

Taxes from tourism are not used equitably for the purposes they are collected. While we revered the hen that lays golden eggs, academics warned that the hen also dirties or messes its own nest. If we have dealt with the messy stuff early on, we could perhaps have made it a lot more equitable and socially acceptable. We could perhaps have avoided the gender disparity or reduced the amount of daylight between the number of expatriates and locals working in the industry.

These are just thoughts and thoughts alone won’t yield any results. We need action. We need more discussion and dialogue with the public. The industry needs to open up address these issues. Successive governments have failed to address these issues and have deliberately left gaping holes in tourism regulation to allow resorts to cheat the system and employ more expatriates. This only perpetuates the vicious cycle because resort managements never had a need to reach out to the public and try to change their opinion while the level of frustration of locals seeking employment just grew.

More of us need to dedicate time and effort to this cause. If we let it continue, the tipping point will be just around the corner. Too often we now see NIMBYs voicing their opinion against the industry on social media and elsewhere. These are young men and women who benefit directly from this industry. Not every person who works in this industry is an alcoholic or a womanizer. Neither do we throw wild parties and we do not encourage anti-social or anti-religious behavior.