Unek-unek

27th December 1998 …. ten years ago we met in joy only to part in 27th Dec 2001. You, the only one I would expect the least to turn your back to me, were the one who turned it first. You, who were my cornerstone, flipped me upside down, blew me away. It didn’t really need another factor to scatter me in pieces. As you turned your back, the house of cards of mine collapsed.

However, I treasure those three years (and many years afterwards). I don’t hold any grudge against you. I don’t blame you. I thank you truthfully as that event gave me plenty of chances to change. To reflect, to learn, to become aware of.

I treated you badly. I wish I could undo the worst of the past and did more of the best of the past.

Words I wish I never said to you.
Deeds I wish I never did.
Attitudes I wish I never had.

You have the very right and reason to part.

…
……

Beautiful jade, it is time to say goodbye.
It is time for me to end the chapters about you.
It is…… finally the time to close the window of the past
and look for doors of the future.

I dreamt of a journey
The destination is reached
only to find that you are not there

I have waited seven years
No more I could bear

Beautiful jade, I learned many things from you during the course of our time and especially afterwards. You indirectly and directly crafted me. I forever am grateful for that.

Yet, it is time to say goodbye. It is time for the new craft. As you said it before, it is for our own goodness. Time for me to embark on a new journey.

If we crossed path someday, I wish to see your sincere smile, twinkling eyes and lovely laugh.

~27th December 2008, Manchester-UK~

The ghost of the past reappears again. Cliche, yet the pain remains the
same if not intensifies. If time really does heal anything, then there
won’t be any “more precise” time than now to have that “healing power”
works on me.

Six full years of emptiness….
Any diamond can’t exchange the lost beautiful jade. Truly the love of my life she is.

Yet, it seems, i repeat the same mistake over and over again. Foolish
me. I only realised this extra-very-huge loss when it was just too late.

Though this is the best for the beautiful jade (and -hopefully- maybe
for me too), though i fully understand that i should let the beautiful
jade go and let my heart finds its peace, though i really had prayed, am
praying, and will pray for the beautiful jade’s goodness and happiness;
yet, it is just not as simple as what have been said/suggested. The
throbbing heart always shatters away.

The sincere smile
the loving eye
“haunt” me.
The ghost of the past never die
but hide.

At frozen nights, i wish time rolls back so that the jade could hear my whisper … 我的心不改变，我是真的爱你.

Ironically, the “anthem” had predicted it:
真心无奈 多心都为了爱 我坐在这 傻傻的发呆
我仍依赖 你纯纯的爱
我心还在 爱你的人还在
苦苦等 想哭哭不出来
无心伤害 你应该明白
爱太多空隙 受伤容易 互信互爱才是唯一
对你的付出 都放在心里
我始终这样珍惜 我怎么会忘记

真心仍在 与你永不分开
这一生 只愿和你相爱
与你同在 只为你等待
爱是纯真 爱是无恨
不在乎怎么会 痛苦万分

我真的太笨　不懂心疼

I never meant to hurt you. Not even in the darkest hour and deepest valley of “our journey”.

In 22 February 2005, i wrote this ‘poem’ in the diary:
——
Enam tahun bersama,
tiga tahun bermimpi

Saat tubuh ingin bangun,
jiwa menolak
Saat memandang kedepan,
terkenang masa lalu

Menjerit ingin hidup dalam mimpi,
sadar jua saat kan tiba

Berat melepas hati
——

Beautiful jade, 你明白吗？

Wish:
- happiness, goodness, and meaningful life for the beautiful jade.
- time really does heal anything.
- the ghost finds its peace.

The
Kyoto Protocol offers three platforms to mitigate the climate change
problems i.e. emission trading (ET), joint implementation (JI), and
clean development mechanism (CDM). The protocol is a cap-and-trade
system where every ratifying country is given emission limit (the
“cap”) and then each country can trade their emission rights. ET is a
market mechanism (similar to stock exchange market) to host emission
trading, while the JI is a mechanism for industrialized countries to
get emission credits by investing in emission reducing projects in
another industrialized countries. The CDM is similar to JI only that
CDM participants come from industrialized and developing countries.

The
protocol implies that countries (and ultimately, firms) have to invest
in cleaner production method either in the countries itself or in
another countries and to invest in emission reducing projects such as
forestation. Firms, under neoclassical approach (and to some extent,
other non-neoclassical approach) are profit seeker and therefore firms
see climate change initiatives as investment projects.

Investment
analysis involves concept of Time Value of Money (TVM). In brief, the
TVM implies that money value is changing over time where present money
value is greater than future money value (unless deflation happens
continuously over time, which is very unlikely to happen). The future
benefits and costs are discounted to the present in order to get its
net present value (NPV).

In a simplified mathematical form:

Where: t = time; B = benefit; C = cost; r = discount rate.

By analyzing the mathematical formula, we know that the NPV
is depended on three factors, i.e. the amount of benefits and costs,
the time, and the discount rate. While costs are in present time
(sometime it is simplified as ‘initial investment’), net benefits are
in future time. Therefore, the effect of discounting mostly affects the
net benefits. The effect of discounting is composed by t and r. The longer the time period (t), the bigger is the discount factor. The bigger the discount rate (r), the greater is the discount factor.

Although
the TVM is perfectly acceptable in evaluating pure economic investments
however, its usage in evaluating environmental investments should be
questioned. The first reason is that the property of environmental
investments is not only of economic value but also non-economic value
such as quality of life and human life itself. The fundamental debate
in using discounting for environmental projects is how we measure
non-economic value (e.g. a human life) to an economic value (e.g. is
life for sale?).

To
put it simple, suppose we know that a forestation project will prevent
a land-slide to small village with no economical benefits to a logging
firm[1] whilst without the forestation, the land-slide will kill some of villagers.[2]
The firm seeing the project as not profitable (only as cost) may then
reject the project implementation. Having arrived in this point, we
conclude that according to the firm the value of some villagers’ life
is much less than the forestation costs. The debate then shifted into
whether this behaviour is acceptable.[3]
Anther simplified example is that under discounting principle, the
present value of 100 lives in 10 years time and 1% discount rate is
only 90 lives. Ten lives are discounted and ignored. Is this behaviour
ethical?The
discounting principle is a delicate matter to apply in climate change
initiatives also due to initiatives’ transboundary nature of benefits
and costs. The main question is what is the proper discount rate in
evaluating climate change initiatives that applies globally? Up to the
moment there is no commonly agreed discount rate for this matter.
Different countries and companies have their own discount rate.[4] It is logical that an emission reducing project is rejected in a country while it would have been accepted in another country.

The
second reason is that the property of environmental problems is the
irreversibility. It means that some environmental damages cannot be
undone e.g. species extinction. Meanwhile, most of damages or benefits
happen in the future (hence the temporality of the problems) and its
possibility to occur is uncertain (hence the uncertainty of the problem
risks). Therefore we should treat the discounting principle with care
especially when compared to precautionary principle of Agenda 21
(Principle 15).[5]

Therefore,
any environmental project evaluation should involve an integrated
analysis of social-environmental-economical benefits and costs. The
analysis must seek a balance of those three aspects. Failure to do so
may lead to a further damage in longer period. For example a pure
forest conservation (thus putting attention only on environmental
benefit) may marginalise villagers (as they cannot access to the forest
products, and thus worsening social aspect) and may ignore economic
value of forest products.

Although
the essay does not advocate a novel approach to deal with the problem
of discounting in climate change however, it encourages the usage of an
integrated analysis to give a more comprehensive picture of the climate
change initiative’s value. Furthermore the essay argues that a pure
discounting practice may become unethical in assessing environmental
projects.

———-

REFERENCES:

Houghton, J.T., Ding, Y. , Griggs, D.J., Noguer, M. , van der Linden, P.J., Dai, X., Maskell, K., Johnson, C.A. (2001) Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, Contribution
of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Cambridge University
Press.

Right on the chinese new year’s eve, I read an article about chinese-indonesian who lives poorly.(1) The article features several stories about how poor chinese-indonesians struggle to live especially on how they "celebrate" chinese new year. It ain’t fancy foods and luxurious things for sure, they are grateful enough when they can provide "simple" foods as offering for their ancestors. The stories go further in showing that they can live with "only" 250.000 - 300.000 rupiahs/month (20-26 euros/month) and about their daily life (surely, they have also been discriminated). Actually poor chinese can be found everywhere in Indonesia. However it is a deeply rooted believe that every chinese is rich. A wrong view indeed.

Although, this is not my first time reading those kind of stories, yet it still "slaps" me. I am not, don’t want to, and never will see me as a hero who can "save" and help them out of their poverty.  It slaps me by first reminds me  on reasons why I’m pursuing my higher education. Second, my "extravagant" daily life. Third, my lack of gratefulness. Fourth, my "responsibilities".

First, I am (may be "was" when you read this blog) continuing my study here by a scholarship because I dream of contributing some betterment to societies in Indonesia. I choose to involve in socio-political way of life regardless how "strange" it was then. Honestly speaking, as a chinese-indonesian, it is common that my goal is to live in richness. Socio-political life is something that "should be" avoided by chinese-indonesians due to trauma on past events. It is still freshly lingering in my memory how angry my parents when I said "Pa-Ma, I just joined a strike on streets" (during 1998). They were so worried on my safety and they didn’t want any of their children to get involved in such activities. It took me a long time to explain to them (on my safety, etc) and fortunately enough, political situations were a little bit changed and that changes had helped me to get "permission" from my parents. Up to today, they fully supported my activities. Back to the article, it is the "social unjust" that challenges me to do something. And I was thinking that I have to study deeper to enhance my "contribution". If I want to get involve, I want to prepare myself totally.

Second, my "extravagant" daily life. I have to admit, that I have been a big spender. For example, the chinese new year’s eve dinner that was prepared by me (and zhenggun) costs around 80 euros in total (11-12 euros/pax). Not to mention my other "parties", "dinners", and "wine-dining". I think, consciously (or unconsciously), I have failed in living modestly and humble. How am I going to bridge between my dream and my extravagant lfve? It’s truly ashame of me.

Third, my lack of gratefulness. For quite a while, I have been a "spoilt child". I mean, I complaint to God during most of my difficult times. I see others as luckier than me, happier than me, etc. My friend once advised me "When you are satisfied with your life, look-up and see that you can be even better if you want to try. When you are down with your life, look at them who is not as fortunate as you are, and realise that you’ve been blessed by many things that others may could only dream of, be thankful for your blessings". Ahhh…. again, I think I failed in internalising his advice.

Fourth, my "responsibilities". Recently, I engaged in a brief discussion with Yanuar (whom I regard as my mentor) about the article. According to Yanuar, we who can enjoy access to clean water (and other things) are one of every four persons in the world. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that we can access it because it is our "right". Moreover, We can access it at the cost of three persons. So, it is really our "debt" to them. It’s an interesting and intriguing view offered by Yanuar. And I quite agree with that view. Everything that we have comes at the cost of others. Therefore, it’s really our "responsibility" (intended action) not our "altruistic deeds" (unintended consequence) that we should contribute something to the betterment of societies. Donating money an sich is good, but not good enough.

At the end of that day, I knelled down asking for "forgiveness" and "guidance", and give thanks for every blessings that have been poured unto me.

I am thankful for the article as it reminds me on many things. And, yes it’s true, there are many things that i have to learn and to improve myself more. And, yup, to borrow Lisa’s word, "I am still as ’sontoloyo’* as I was". I have to change!

————————-
* "Sontoloyo" is an Indonesian slang for stupid, lazy, fool, and childish. It is to describe a situation where one is incapable of doing things properly.

(1) Iwan Santosa, 17 February 2007, Sepiring Nasi di Meja Abu Leluhur [A bowl of rice on an Altar], Harian Kompas, Accessed on-line in http://www.kompas.com/kompas-cetak/0702/17/utama/3328684.htm

This paper aims at discussing CO₂
emissions as the result of market failure and some alternatives to deal with
it. In details, I firstly demonstrate why climate change is caused by market
failure through greenhouse gasses emissions (GHG) and CO₂ emissions.
Secondly I outline and briefly mention several policy instruments available to
deal with such problems. Thirdly and lastly, I discussed each instrument’s
advantages and disadvantages.

The market usually does not function
very well when it comes to public good as the public good has no price in it. Price
can be assigned when there is property rights attached to the goods. That is
exactly what is happening with public good, it lacks of property rights or is
having ill-defined property rights. Imposing property rights means that we give
the right to utilize the goods to some one/entities/clubs. Meanwhile, the characteristics of public good
are non-excludability and non-rivalry. Non excludability means that it is
impossible to exclude some one from utilizing the good. Non-rivalry means that the
consumption of the good by an individual does not reduce the available amount
for others to consume.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) and
other GHG are emitted to the earth atmosphere. Meanwhile, the atmosphere itself
is a public good. It is non-excludable as everyone in the earth can emit
anything to it or breathe the air from the atmosphere. It is non-rivalry since
my emission does not reduce others’ rights to emit. It does not have price and
thus no available market mechanism. In the end, when everyone emits GHG and CO₂
to the atmosphere, then there will be excessive stock pollutions in the
atmosphere. Moreover, it is subsequently causing climate change.

However, as the awareness of the
danger of climate change arise, countries started to seek out solutions to this
problem. The climate change is a complex problem since it is a transboundary
problem –i.e. climate change happens in everywhere and is caused in every place-
and the existence of spill over –i.e the abatement of one country is enjoyed by
other countries, so does the pollution of one country is affecting other
countries too-.

There are several policy instruments
available that can be used to mitigate the climate change problem. The policy
instruments are grouped into three categories that are institutional approaches
such as voluntary bargaining, command and control such as emission regulation,
and economic incentive instruments such as taxes, subsidies, and tradable
emission permits. The underline idea in economic incentive instrument is to
give price to the emission so that profit-maximizing firm will also taking into
account the opportunity cost of emission into their production plan.[1]

A profit-maximizing firm produces
goods at optimal output level of maximal profit. Profit is maximal when
marginal costs of firm equals to marginal benefits of firm (MC = MB). However
when firm pollutes and the pollution is not priced, it creates social costs/damages
to the society. The damages are called externality and are often not calculated
in product price. By giving price to the damages –either through subsidies,
taxes, or emission trades- the pollution then influences the cost function of
the firm. Thus the firm internalizes the externalities.

Environmental taxes or known as
Pigouvian Taxes is a practice of assigning taxes to pollution emitted by firms.
Taxes are assigned to pollution as it will be less efficient if assigned to
inputs or final products.[2]
Pollutions are to some extent allowed as in an economic point of view, it is
never about achieving zero pollution, and instead it is about balancing the
benefits and costs. There are three steps to find the balance between benefits
and costs –i.e. the optimal pollution level- that is identifying firm/industry
profit function, the social damages function –that is the externality effects-,
and the optimal pollution level.

The optimal pollution level is the
point where the shadow price of social benefit is equal to the shadow price of cost.
The shadow price of social benefit is the reduction in social damages due to a
reduction in product produced, while the shadow price of cost is the loss of
firm profits due to a reduction of a unit produced. In order to find the shadow
price, we should calculate the marginal function –i.e. the first derivative- of
firm’s profit function and social damages function. The next step is to
equalize the marginal social benefit and marginal abatement costs.
Environmental taxes then are applied to this level.

Subsidies work similarly to
environmental taxes as at the optimal pollution level both mechanism –the
environmental taxes and subsidies- are levied or paid at the same rate.[3]
However, as Perman (2003) noted “the two
instruments are different in their effects on income distribution”. Taxes
caused firms to lose income while subsidies caused firms to gain income. In the
short-run and at the optimal pollution level both mechanisms are similar;
nevertheless, as subsidies are given in form of lump-sum payment, subsidies may
give different long-term effects.[4]

Another mechanism of economic
incentive mechanism is marketable emission permit. The idea is that government
set an overall industry emission level and let the firms distribute the
emission level independent of government intervention. In general, the
mechanism works as follow: first, the government set a targeted industry
emission level; second, an initial emission permit is distributed to each firm;
third, firms sell/buy permit to another firms. This mechanism is also known as
the cap-and-trade mechanism. Firms are able to sell or buy permit as they are
different in their profit function. A firm may find it more profitable to emit
more while other firms may find it more profitable to emit less and sell the
excess allowances. Thus, an increase in one firm is compensated by decrease in
other firm/s. Tradability is an important characteristic of marketable emission
permit that grouped it into economic incentive instruments, otherwise it will
be categorized as a command and control instruments.

There are several indicators to
compare between above mentioned mechanism that is cost-efficiency and
monitoring-administering-and-enforcing-compliance costs, long run effects,
double dividend, and equity/distribution. It is obvious that command and
control instruments are least cost-efficient compare to economic incentive instruments
as compliance costs are usually high. European union emission trading for
example estimates that the cost of emission trading is between 2.9 billion
euros and 3.7 billion euros compare to 6.8 billion euros compliance costs
annually.[5]
Among economic incentive instruments, emission trading is the most
cost-efficient compare to other instruments.[6]
However, command and control may create greater long-run effects in term of
technology advancement compare to other instruments as it provides incentive
and guidance for technology research. I think that emission trading will give
the biggest “double dividend” as it creates a lot of job opportunity. As of
distribution issue, taxes may cause bigger effect for consumer –i.e. consumers
bear the cost- regardless of polluter pays principle especially when market is
of monopoly or oligopoly market.

Furthermore, in the presence of
corruption, I think the emission trading will give best results compare to
other instruments. The reason is that emission trading will minimize the
involvement of civil servant in its operation and thus minimize the possibility
of corruption.

Based on above comparisons, I think
the best instrument is the emission trading.

————————————

 REFERENCES

European Commision. (2005) EU Action
Against Climate Change: EU Emission Trading - an Open Scheme Promoting Global
Innovation, Belgium.

Perman, R., Common, M., Mcqilvray, J., Ma, Yue. (2003) Natural Resources and Environmental Economics, 3^rd
edition.

Introduction
Indonesian’s most famous
tourist destinations for domestic tourists are Bali, Jogjakarta-Central
Java, Mount Bromo-East
Java, and Bunaken-Manado. Bali is famous for its beaches and cultures. Jogjakarta is famous for its Javanese Kingdom (Kasultanan Ngayogyakarta),
mount Merapi and the well-known Borobudur, one
of the seven wonders of the world. Mount Bromo offers the most scenic sun rise on a mountain. Whilst Bunaken lures
tourists using its beautiful coral-reef.

Indonesia is a land of diversity. It is rich in its
tradition, culture, folklore, landscape, and culinary. This diversity can be
utilized as a selling point in domestic tourism. Each tourist destination in Indonesia thus can offer a unique experience for tourists.
However, most of tourist destinations rely heavily on scenic view such as
beach, mountain, and country side. Culture is only treated as a minor
attraction.

The paper aims to show
that culture can be offered as a prime attraction of tourist destinations. A
marketing strategy along with short explanation on idea of Lombok’s cultural tourism is briefly discussed in the beginning of the
paper. In assessing this possibility, the paper uses the theoretical concepts
of myth, culinary tourism, remembered experiences, tourist as a child and modes
of experience. Furthermore, the paper also discusses the importance of image
construction of tourist destinations especially in the dangerous area. In accordance
to Indonesia’s geographic condition, the role of
infrastructure in supporting domestic tourism is elaborated in the paper.

The
Product
The island of Lombok (Spice island) is located east of Bali. Lombok’s tourism consists of beaches, a volcano – Mount Rinjani, and snorkeling in three Gili Islands (Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air). Lombok’s residents are mostly Sasak (85%). A tribe that is culturally and
linguistically close related to Balinese. The main cultural attractions are the
traditional village, the making of various handicrafts, weaving, traditional
culinary, and the famous myth of Bau
Nyale.

Bau Nyale is a myth regarding Princes Mandalika. Once upon a time, there was a
beautiful Princes called Mandalika. She was forced to marry a prince that is
not of her choice. Feeling so much in despair, Princess Mandalika then run away
from the kingdom. Poor Princess, the prince chased her until a sea cliff.
Princes Mandalika in the end choose to jump into the sea below. Suddenly, not
long after she was drown, there are colourful ‘Palolo‘ worms (Eunice Fucata)
come out from reefs.

According to Sasak’s
believe, the worm brings luck, fortune, and safety. Every Sasak will try to
catch as much worm as possible during the Bau
Nyale day. The quantity of catchments represent how succeed the catcher
will be in that year. The worm itself is edible and indeed there are some local
cuisine based on this worm.

Marketing
Strategy
Marketing strategy composed
of segmenting, targeting, positioning, and differentiating (Holloway, 2004). Segmenting
is the process of ‘sub-grouping the total consumer market whose members share
common characteristics’ (Holloway, 2004). Based on costs consideration, the
segment is middle-class income level. The Indonesian’s high class income level
-rich- is usually focusing more on international destinations. Targeting is the
process of selecting the customers that we intent to serve (Wikipedia, Target
Market). The target market of Lombok cultural tourism is youth generation especially
young professionals and students. They like to take adventure, exploring exotic
places, and undertake new experiences.

Positioning is the
technique by which ‘marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds
of their target market for its product, brand, or organization’ (Wikipedia,
Positioning). As the target market are youth emphasizing on young professionals
and students, thus the appropriate positioning will be “adventure into new
realm”. “Adventure” indicates that they will be involved in several activities
that may be different with their daily activities. “New realm” gives a notion
of mystery, uniqueness, and exotic. One predicts that young generation likes to
be active and exploring new experiences.

Product differentiation is the
modification of a product to make it more attractive to the target market (Holloway,
2004). The product differentiates in experiencing the tradition. Tourists are
invited to join the traditional-yet-simple dance, to catch the worm, and to
weave famous Sasak’s woven. Upon special arrangement, tourists can experience
to live in one of two conserved traditional village.

Youth magazine, MTV, and
youth clubs will be used as marketing channels. Approach to teachers and
schools may serve well as marketing channels. Activities such as study tour and
graduation farewell trip can be proposed to high schools. Weekend outing is
tailored for the young professionals. Whilst longer vacation period – there are
three long vacations in Indonesia, namely Christmas, New Year, and the Eidul Fitr –
is offered to young families and honeymooners as well to young professionals
and students.

Story
Telling
Myth plays an important
role in tourism as myth is a story made of mythological language and every tourist
attraction is based on myth (Selwyn, 1996). Stories are constructed and are introduced
to tourist from the beginning of their journey. Several advertisement campaigns
are carefully developed and are carried out capitalizing on myths. Images such
as traditional houses, Sasak’s dress, the Sasak, and ancient landscape; movies
– advertisement clips – presenting part of Sasak’s legends, dances, and daily
life; and sounds of Sasak’s songs and traditional instruments are sent to
potential tourist through marketing channels, brochures, and advertisement on
national-wide mass media and are put thoroughly in strategic places in Lombok’s
area such as airport, seaport, primary tourist attractions, hotels,
restaurants, and roads.

Tourist attractions are
arranged to give enchantment using body, nation, object, image, and space
(Selwyn, 1996). Tourist mind is seduced by symbolic figures such as statues,
signs, and artworks so that tourist feels a “get away” from their daily life
into a new realm. Product-knowledge trainings are given to tour operators, guides,
and tourist information centres. The trainings cover on Sasak’s history and
legends, art performances – dances and songs - and its symbolic messages,
mythical places, and Bau Nyale’s
ritual.

The prime offer is Bau Nyale’s festival which is celebrated
annually and is intensely advertised in national-wide mass media. It takes
place in February until March – the worm itself appears only one night around
that time. Activities such as traditional dance competition, Princess
Mandalika’s story telling and drama contest, concerts of traditional music, and
beach-sports are scheduled in a continue phase so that tourists will always
have chances to enjoy the festival. There is a performance of Princess
Mandalika in every weekend in the Cape Aan near Kuta Beach during the festival seasons. Performers are taken from previous year
winner of story telling and drama contest. For the whole period of festival
seasons, the Island of Lombok is transformed into a vivid and mythical ambiance.

Culinary
Tourism as a Subset of Cultural Tourism
Dining is among the top
three favourite tourist activities (Wolf, 2002). Furthermore, Wolf (2002)
argued that cuisine is the art form that involves all five senses and it gives
a sense of exploration too. According to Kivela and Crotts (2006) ‘gastronomy
plays a major role in the way tourists experience the destination,
and indicate that some travellers would return to the same
destination to savour its unique gastronomy’. Obviously, culinary
richness becomes one of the attractions in Lombok’s cultural tourism.

However, culinary
tourism is not only about dining out. Culinary tourism offers experiences to
tourist by involving them in several activities that are related to culinary
aspects such as cooking class, excursion to local eateries, learning stories
behind traditional foods, and sampling local cuisine. As a starting point, Lombok has already two well-known signature cuisines for domestic tourist
that is Ayam Taliwang (grilled
chicken with chilli sauce) and Plecing
Kangkung (water spinach in a hot chilli sauce). There is already a belief for
Indonesians that “one has not yet visited Lombok before savouring Ayam Taliwang
and Plecing Kangkung”.

In accordance with Bau Nyale, an excursion will be arranged
for tourists to catch Palolo worms in
the night and then learn to prepare it into a delicious cuisine. The excursion
is ended by having a supper on the beach. A high standard of
hygiene is advocated thoroughly in Lombok’s
eateries. Trainings and inspections will be run periodically by health
department to ensure food safety in all Lombok’s eateries. Certificate is issued to eateries that passed the
inspection. This is done in order to reduce the risk of food poisoning. Although
tourists feel safer at home, food safety is an important issue that can
influence potential tourist’s decision on which destination to choose (Larsen
et al., 2005).

Predicted,
On-line, and Remembered Experiences
There is a positive
relation between experience and behaviour as people repeat experiences that
they enjoy (Wirtz et al., 2003). Furthermore Wirtz et al. (Ibid) found that predicted
and remembered experiences are both more positive/negative than on-line
experience. They concluded that the remembered experiences that best predict
future choice rather than online experiences. However, as the vacation ended,
vacationer forgets the disappointment (Mitchell et al., 1997; cited in Wirtz et
al., ibid) and reinterprets vacation memories in ways consistent with original
expectations (Klaaren et al., 1994; cited in Wirtz et al., ibid).

Giving adequate
information to potential tourists through web-sites, brochures, and tourism
representatives are carried out to shape nice predicted experiences. Cheerful
greetings at the arrival gate – airport and harbour –, warmth services on
tourist needs, and cordial farewell to tourists are always encouraged in Lombok. Timely assistance is provided to troubled tourists. Not to mention in
keep maintaining a good relationship with tourists via newsletters containing
special offer and recent improvement in Lombok’s tourism; and via personalized
greeting during special occasion such as birthday, new year and other religious
festive. One predicts that those attitudes will provide good remembered
experiences that tourists want to repeat.

Tourist
as a Child and Mode of Experiences
Tourists should be dealt
with as children (Dann, 1996). There is a need from a child- tourist to seek
comfort, protection, attention, and nurture from a mother-provider. Thus
provider – i.e. tour operators – should provide adequate information for
instance accommodation brochures, places to visit, and tourist’s map; and
prompt services to clients – i.e. tourists. Tourist information centres will be
erected in strategic places – airport, harbour, and Kuta beach – around the
island to feast tourist’s hunger of information.

Lengkeek (2001)
reformulated Cohen’s mode of experiences into amusement, change, interest,
rapture, and mastering. Cultural encounters are set to meet up with various
tourist experiences from the amusement of seeing Sasak’s dance to sense of mastering of living as the Sasak.

Image Construction
There was a riot in Lombok in 2000 between ethnic groups and religions which had devastated the
image of Lombok as a safe destination for tourists. This flashbulb
memory is long-lasting, extremely vivid, and connected with unexpected
emotionally laden events (Myers, 2003; cited in Talico and Rubin, 2003). To
prevent such memory from deterring domestic tourists visit to Lombok, security system has to be tightened. Assurance on the tourists’ safety
should be given by government and community leaders.

Tourism is about image
building (Pitana, 2006). Learning from Bali’s case – i.e. the Bali Bombing I and Bali Bombing II – the image of
reconciliation between conflicting groups and peaceful nowadays daily life must
be transmitted to domestic tourists. News and short documentary movies about
peaceful daily life and security assurance will be advertised in national-wide mass
media. By doing so, Lombok will once again have the image of a safe tourist
destination.

Infrastructures
as supporting facilities
Infrastructure such as
transportation and accommodation influence the number of tourists visit.
Touristic destinations with adequate transportation infrastructure attract more
visitor rather than destinations with poor transportation capacity and
infrastructure (Tisdell and Wen, 1991; cited in Zhang et al., 1999). Up to the
moment, the island of Lombok can be reached through Selaparang international airport, and boat or
ferries from Bali. The airport serves frequent flights to Denpasar
(Bali) and Surabaya (2^nd biggest city in Indonesia), single flight to Jakarta (capital of Indonesia) and Yogyakarta,
and international flights to Kuala Lumpur–Malaysia and Singapore. The airport should be improved so that it can
serve more flight connection to other cities in Indonesia and bigger airplane. Roads within the island will
be improved or at least maintained at its present condition. This is a large
investment; priority will be first given to the primary road in the island.

Potential
Conflicts
Tourism creates conflict
of access to public goods such as water, roads, and food. Moreover, there is a
potential conflict between the need of society advancement – for example, new
house’s architecture – and the preservation of antiquated atmosphere – that is
the ancient house. More importantly is the problem of economic leakage that is
the condition where host (Lombok) only gains small portion of money distributed in
the tourism industry. Leakage takes place as the biggest proportion of vacation
costs lie in the transportation and hotel-network.

Greater employment
opportunity for Lombok’s inhabitant, credit facility for small-medium
enterprise, and management consultancy are provided for Lombok’s population. A careful island planning has to be carried out
outlining future property development and preservation of cultural objects. In
all process, public participation from Lombok’s inhabitant is crucial and thus highly encouraged.

Conclusions
Culture is feasible enough to be a main selling
point of a tourist destination. Adequate supply of information plays important
rule in supporting cultural tourism. In a cultural tourism, myth should be told
or created to lure potential tourists. Local’s oral history (legends,
traditions, and beliefs), symbols and signs are good base for making a cultural
tourism attraction. Tourist’s experiences can be created through excellent and
friendly services that nurture all tourists’ needs and tourist involvement in
cultural activities or attraction. Infrastructures as supporting facilities
must be maintained to its fullest.

However, it is not clear enough on how big is the
proportion of cultural-oriented tourists in Indonesia. Thus researches on tourist behaviour and
identification of characteristic of cultural-oriented tourist may become
interesting topics. Another interesting research topic is on synergizing Bali’s tourism and Lombok’s.

——————————————-

REFERENCES

Holloway, J.C. (2004). Marketing for Tourism, 4^th edition, FT Prentice Hall.

Kivela,
J., and Crotts, J.C. (2006). Tourism and Gastronomy: Gastronomy’s Influence on
How Tourists Experience a Destination. Journal
of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 30(3), 354-377.

Larsen,
S., Brun, W., Øgaard, T., and Selstad, L. (2005). Subjective Food-Risk
Judgements in Tourists. Fifth International Conference on
Culinary Arts and Science Global and National Perspectives. Food Service Technology, 5 (1), 47-54.

Lengkeek, J. (2001). Leisure experience and imagination:
Rethinking Cohen’s modes of tourist experience. International Sociology, 16(2), 173-184.

Myers, D.G. (2003). Psychology. NY, NY: Worth Publishers; cited in Talarico,
J.M., and Rubin, D.C. (2003). Confidence, not Consistency,
Characterizes Flashbulb Memories. Psychological
Science, 14(5), 455-461.

Pitana, I.G. (2006). Tourism and Terrorism in the Case of Bali. Study
materials for Leisure, Tourism, and Environment: Social Change and
Globalisation, Wageningen University, Wageningen.

Selwyn, T. (1996). Introduction. In The Tourist Image: Myths and Myth Making in Tourism. pp. 1-32.
John Wiley and Sons.

Tisdell,
C. & Wen, J. (1991). Foreign tourism as an element in PR China’s economic
development strategy. TourismManagement,
12(1), 55-67; cited in Zhang, H.Q., Chong, K., and Ap, J. (1999) An analysis of
tourism policy development in modern China. Tourism
Management, 20(4), 471-485.

Wirtz, D., Kruger, J., Scollon, C.N., & Diener, E. (2003) What
to do on Spring Break? The Role of Predicted, On-Line, and Remembered
Experience in Future Choice. Psychological
Science, 14(5), 520-524.

Wolf,
E. (2003). Culinary Tourism: A tasty
Economic proposition (available on website http://www.culinarytourism.org).

Few days ago, I decided to add a new category in this blog that was "Selected Short Essay". The aim is simple, to publish my essay assignments on the web. It ranges from environmental issues, development issues, to tourism-leisure issues. Perhaps you will find something interesting, or even rubbish :p.

You can have it for personal and non-commercial uses (nevertheless, education/information is for all isn’t it?). However, I really don’t recommend you to use these essay, or even cite it, for your academic work (essay, paper, etc). The problem of citing these essay as your source is simple, how are you going to refer to it? Of course you also have option to give no citation/reference. Then it means you are a plagiat by so doing. And you know that plagiarism is an unforgiven sin hahahahhaha :). Respect others, respect yourself :).

Comments and discussions, instead, are warmly and eagerly welcome. You can say anything freely and then we can engage in an interesting opinion exchange :).

I also put my essay specially in my "formal" blog in here. Please visit there should you only interested in my essay (and other academic works). My Friendster blog will mostly host my hobbies, reflections, or other personal thoughts/matters.

One way to internalize externalities is by
introducing environmentally related taxes. It is also effective and efficient
instruments for environmental policy.[1]
However, I think that this idea is not suitable –or have to be prepared more
carefully– in the developing countries and less developed countries –in this
paper, I use Indonesia as an example- where corruption is innate. I firstly
discussed briefly the problems of tax collection and of tax-generated revenue usage
in the context of third world countries. Secondly, I argue that tax may further
increase environmental damage through increase in natural resources extraction.
Thirdly, the problem of marginalized people dependency on
cheap-yet-environmental-harmful products and services is brought into the
paper. Fourthly, I discussed the effect of environmental taxes to the national
competitiveness. Lastly, considering those four reasons, I argue that social
responsible approach is better than environmental taxes in the third world
countries.

Taxes contribute 66.59% of Indonesian’s National Budget
income in 2006.[2]
Whilst, the not-taxes incomes are earned from natural resources-related income
and state-owned enterprises profit. However, despite of tax administration
reform started in 2000, the taxes mentioned above are only collected from 1.71%
of Indonesian population.[3]
It shows how big the scale of tax evasion in Indonesia is. In my opinion, there
are two important issues regarding this matter, which is social trust towards
tax collectors and the perceived benefit of paying taxes.

First issue, the public trust regarding tax
collectors –and to other civil servants- are low. Taxation department is seen
as the dent of corruption. Corruption is initiated in two ways that is of tax
collectors and of taxpayers. The first way, it is believed by public that tax
collectors always calculate higher tax than of taxpayers’ calculation. The main
reason of doing so is so that taxpayers choose to bribe tax collectors, instead
of going through the time-consuming court settlement of tax dispute. The second
way, taxpayers deliberately offer tax collectors some amount of money in
exchange for lower tax calculation and thus saving some money. Another
“advantage” for taxpayers of doing so is time-saving. Second issue, in
Indonesia, paying taxes has long been perceived as not giving direct benefits such
as social securities to the taxpayers. To some extent, this perception
discouraging taxpayers from paying taxes.

From the point of view of welfare analysis, there
is a dead weight loss created from three effects of environmental taxes which
are budget gained from additional tax revenue, consumer’s loss as price
increased and quantity consumed is decreased, producer’s loss as quantity
decreased and the taxes burden (i.e reduced firm’s profit). Yet, there is environmental
benefit gained from less environmental damage as quantity is decreased. The net
welfare is positive as long as environmental benefit is bigger than dead weight
loss, vice versa.

However, taking the corruption into account, I
think that a positive net welfare is harder to achieve. My reasoning is that the
environmental taxes revenue will not fully receive by state, as it is distorted
by corruption, and thus lowering the budget gain. Meanwhile, the producer’s
loss and consumer’s loss remain same and thus the dead weight loss is bigger. Therefore,
introducing environmental taxes in heavy corruption countries may further harm
the net welfare. Furthermore, environmental taxes, in these circumstances, will
give incentive to corrupt more and hence increase the rate of corruption.

One of the environmental taxes goals is to
conserve environment through reducing consumption and reducing natural
resources extraction. The consumption reduction is achieved due to price
increase. As consumption is reduced, logically speaking, the production is also
reduced and thus the need of raw material is decreased. However, Chichilnisky
(1994: 855) argues that “taxes can lead
to more extraction of resources, defeating their original purpose”.[4]
The logic behind it, first, is as the demand for raw material decreased, the
resource’s price is decreased, and thus the extractors’ income is declined too.
Second, the extractors –many of them are subsistence workers- will extract more
in order to arrive in the same income level. Why is this not happening in
developed countries? The reason is that natural resources are capital-intensive
goods while they are labour-intensive goods in third world countries.[5]
Thus, the environmental taxes can be a backfire to environmental conservation. This
is another drawback of tax.

Additional tax means additional cost to consumers.
In the marginalized community where income is low, a cost increase is harmful. If
the community is dependent on those products and services –signalled by
relatively inelastic demand and high consumption rate-, then the harmful effect
will be magnified. The government often tries to keep the cheap price as the
products and services are of basic needs such as fuel (gasoline, kerosene, and
gas), water, electricity, and food. To some extent, price increase can cause
social distress and political instability and then it increases social costs.
Again, there is possibility that environmental taxes are harmful to the net
welfare. Of course, the effect of price increase can be compensated by
returning taxes to the community through subsidies. However, we have to bear in
mind that different goods have different utility functions. Thus the
compensation may not always be able to replace the cost.

Imposing environmental taxes can lowered the
national competitiveness especially in the region where there is not
standardized environmental policies among countries. Environmental taxes are
hurting both the country and the company. It hurts the country as tax decrease
the country’s investment attractiveness compare to other countries that are not
imposing that tax. It can even –to some extent- induce company relocation.
Instead of giving “double dividend”, environmental taxes can lower employment
in that country. Environmental taxes hurt the company as it increase product
price and make it less competitive in international or regional markets. In my
opinion, when this kind of taxes is going to be imposed, then it should be
imposed and standardized in the closely related geographical region and trade partners
such as in EU and NAFTA agreement.

In summary, I argue that imposing environmental
taxes in third world countries such as Indonesia may have drawback that can
exceed the benefit of environmental taxes. I give four reasons that is
corruption, intensifying natural resources extraction rate, increasing social
distress and political instability, and weakening national competitiveness. Considering
these drawbacks, I prefer more to the social responsibility approach. First, it
minimizes interventions from state and thus reducing the corruption
opportunity. Instead of having “double dividend” from increasing employment,
the “double dividend” of social responsibility is the decreasing corruption
rate. Second, the approach tries to ensure ethical business practices. One of
the ethical principles is to pay adequate salary to the workers and to buy
accountably extracted raw materials with equitable price. Third, the approach
usually caused less cost to the company compare to the cost from complying
regulation. It implies that product cost may not increase higher than if it is
taxed and thus it does not hurt company’s product competitiveness. In addition,
it may open new markets for the social responsible products. Moreover, the
approach does not influence national competitiveness as it is usually a
voluntary involvement. However, social responsibility approach needs public
control and facilitating bargaining from the country.

The
cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in my opinion is a powerful tool in assisting a
decision making process. However, it may not be the best tool available in
assessing several environmental protection programmes. In this paper, I
discussed about the strength and weakness of CBA. There are two strength points
of CBA that is it increases efficiency and it provides an objective and
transparent decision making process. The weaknesses are the problems of
quantification, overstating costs, broadening inequality, and discounting
practice. In the end of the paper, I include my reflection on empirical
decision making practices in my country –Indonesia- where political interest
often neglects the CBA results, and thus I think that in the country such as
Indonesia, it is not the question of what is the best strategy for public
welfare but which strategy is yielding greatest benefit for power holder (i.e.
political party, president, ethnic group, etc).

The
cost-benefit analysis follows economic principles that resources are scarce and
they should be utilised wisely to increase net welfare. The cost-benefit
analysis increases efficiency –at least theoretically- through better
allocation of scarce resources –that is mostly concerning public funds- into
projects that yield greater benefit among other various project opportunities.
How is it happening? The basic idea is to value all projects by the same
measurement that is in monetary term. In each project, the CBA quantify and
monetize costs and benefits of the project and calculated the net worth /
(loss) of the project. The CBA compares every project afterwards. The project
that gives greatest net worth is usually selected and financed. By bringing the
project’s effects into one measurement, the CBA makes it possible to compare
projects social costs and social benefits.

It
also provides a theoretically objective comparison among projects as it use the
same standards. The CBA also requires analyst to reveal all the assumptions
used in the analysis and thus making it a transparent process. As it makes
decision making process more objective and transparent, then the CBA improves
the accountability of decision making process.

The
quantification of costs and benefits besides being CBA’s strength, it also in
the same time becomes its’ weakness. In my opinion, there are two issues
regarding the quantification problems that are the assumptions used in
quantification and the unquantifiable of several benefits and costs.

In
quantifying social aspects –no matter as costs or benefits- assumption is used
in two ways, which are when we weighted the aspects and when we valued the aspects.
The weighing is judged on preferences and these preferences can differ among
groups in society, analysts, regions, and time frames. Thus, I think that
judging something based on preference is not fully trustable. In valuing the
social aspects, analysts may use several ways such as “willingness to pay”
(WTP) or “willingness to accept” (WTA). However, I think not every social
aspect can be valued correctly for example the life. This brings me to the
second issue in quantification that is the unquantifiable of several benefits
and costs. It is unquantifiable due to its natures (i.e. uncertainty and lack
of information) and ethical considerations.

The
second weakness is costs overstatement. It can come from the way the costs are
estimated, the size of the projects or action needed, and the cost factors (i.e
to include costs that are irrelevant to the project). Empirically, the costs
and benefits can be overstated [1]. As
it can be overstated, it means that inaccuracies happened and thus CBA’s result
should be treated with caution.

Like
the neoclassical concern that is optimization, the CBA deals only with optimal
allocation of scarce resources, yet it does not taking into account the
distribution problems. For example consider two projects that are to provide
drinking water to poor people and to clean a park in rich people dwellings; both
projects give the same net worth. If government makes decision based only on
CBA, then it may select the cleaning project instead of drinking water project.
CBA calculates the benefits and costs aggregately, so that it does not matter
who bear the costs and who enjoy the benefit. Another example, suppose
government has a plan to build a new railway passing through poor neighbourhood
where the beneficiaries of the new railway are rich people. It can be that the
project creates benefits for the rich at the costs of the poor neighbourhood
–such as moving out their house or noise pollution-. Thus, CBA, in this case,
is broadening the existing inequality. Meanwhile, any public policy should
ideally take equality as an important aspect. The problem also occurs in
calculating WTP or WTA as the rich may have higher WTP –they have more money-
than of the poor to get rid disadvantaging projects from them.

The
last CBA’s weakness that I discussed here is regarding the discounting practice.
The idea is developed from an economic perspective that money value changed as
time changed taking into consideration the inflation, economic growth, and
opportunity costs. I agree that we should use discounting to evaluate
investment opportunities. However, I think that environment projects should not
be treated as investment projects in term of profit seeking motive. Environmental
problems are delicate as they are mostly irreversible and need a long-term
recovery process. Furthermore, by discounting future benefits and costs, it is
as if we regard future generation as less important than of present generation.
For example, the value of providing health services is 100 babies –I do not use
monetary value for the sake of intensifying my reason- in the next year, with
“r” is 10% the present value of health services is 91 babies only. It means
that we value 100 babies in the next year equal to 91 babies in this year and
thus 9 babies are discarded. Then the ethical and rhetorical question is “are
future beings less valuable compare to present beings?”

For
the last argument, I want to relate CBA and real life conditions such as in Indonesia. Indonesia in
brief has ill-defined property rights and corruption is eminent. Although CBA
try to internalise externalities (i.e. pricing the “non-marketable goods”), it
usually collides with corruption practices such as bribery and favouritism.
Projects had usually been agreed / selected without even having run any CBA.
Furthermore, CBA result is often neglected in decision making process especially
when the CBA’s suggestion is in contrary to political/power-holder interest. For
example, a project to build a bridge may be selected because the area where the
bridge is build is the region that supports him/her to be in power, not because
the bridge provides net worth to the greater society. In Indonesia,
the common practice of “repaying support” is by building infrastructure such as
asphalting the roads and erecting a mosque/church/temple. It is hoped that by
doing so, the inhabitant will be loyal to him/her and choose him/her again in
the next election. In my personal reflection, CBA is defeated by
political/individual interests in my country. The CBA itself is not trustable
as the analyst can be “bought” (i.e. ordered to write in favour of the client instead
of society) by anyone.

The
cost-benefit analysis is indeed a powerful tool, yet it is not a panacea or
one-solution-fit-all for environmental problems. It has to be treated with
caution. Especially in developing country, CBA is only a formality and thus
CBA’s result is not trustable.