Information from the World Vision Tardif NGO, reveals that Thailand has been providing shelter and assistance to girls and women for a period of 4 decades. Thai government agrees that 20,000- 30,000 female children are involved in the commercial sex industry indeed is shocking for such violation of human rights, but in addition the World Vision Tardif statistics estimates that underage girls that have been treated who were victims of child trafficking and sex tourism ranges a bout 90%. Therefore is it alright here?
Tourism policy is related to traditional set up where society was naturally polygamous and have a mai noi (minor wife) was normal. The current society has seen the changes in the hospitality industry and in particular the tourism sector. Such that tourism has changed significantly from the ecotourism as the traditional perception to drug tourism and the booming on largely the sex tourism. The most areas that are worst hit are the Asia continent as Thailand and Bangkok.
The tourism industry currently is seeing decline in the ecotourism towards the drug tourism but the most rapidly marketable is sex based tourism. Therefore, later development has seen men and women that are involved in tourism activities are also interested in sexual relations and it is influenced by the commercial relationship. Therefore, the dissertation looks into these emerging issue, how its being executed its organization, effects to the society and the possible measures to tame it so that it can be of minimum consequences to the society of tourism industry.
Hospitality management is a discipline that dials with the study of management of hotels, travel and tourism as a business enterprise in order to minimize the expenses and maximize the profit within the hospitality industry (Bailey 2002). Most of the areas covered is the traveling of the guest who most are tourists and their welfare in hotels where are received (Chawla, Romila 2006). In this sense there’s a diversity of areas, such includes lodging operation, food, global tourism, sustainable tourism and tourist attraction management.
But today hospitality in tourism is the hotels and place of leisure and catering operations of different kinds. The Hospitality industry is a dynamic sector that is affected and influenced by the external factors. Therefore, there are many issues which arises and conflicts the original scope of hospitality such includes labor supply, environmental constraints, economic recessions, divergent of tourism scope, methodology and sales techniques.
However, in the recent days in world tourism is large source of revenue to many countries. But the issue behind tourism is however, the one to be considered. As the one of leading concerns in tourism the perceive attraction changes with year. This attractions includes development as buildings, infrastructure, art, beaches, wildlife and physiography of the landscape. But today as it turns out to be in many tourism destinations it turns out to be most tourisms are attracted by sex. This the particular case with the South East Asia, United Kingdom and America.
For instance in South East Asia sex tourism is major concern in hospitality industry that is attributed to forms of prostitution that involves children. This has the average age involved is from 12 years to 40 years. The prostitutes are considered to be fresh and tender feast when they are young. But this is not good reason why the tourist flock to this Asia destination, the mentality of tourist to experience pleasure with other breeds apart from their own in their country of which they will have no attachment but just to have pleasure with young women and many sexual partners (Chatterjee 2005).
The sexual industry is advertised openly and at no time is looked down upon as it gives income to the young girls. The fact that the analysis reveals that one woman has a capacity of being involved with five thousand (5000) tourists who visits the country are high forces to some extend a daughter and her mother end up selling their body in fact to one tourist to earn food for their entire family. This is not justification for the sex industry that is highly commercialized.
The concern is the resulting effects such as high rate of pregnancy and STD, addition there’s high women exploitation and the forced children prostitution of which children rights are violated and woman at large (Bailey 2002). On the other hand the governments cannot easily put on a leash to the sex tourism because its already a crime that hurts nobody and secondly looking at it from an economic point of view it cant let go 7% of the income of the government that is assuredly increasing annually.
Therefore, this is a concern to the hospitality industry in a sense that hospitality deals with generosity and well being of the people’s welfare and the conflict of interest within tourism that causes harm to the Asia community, high income to the government and whether there’s need for intervention for this crime. This conflict are violence put to women and its repercussions as pregnancies and STDs high rate, Tourists flocks in number to that fetches money that contributes to foreign exchange, to the countries while offers alternative employment to women from age 12-40 years that requires no qualifications to enter only body the issue of a third force intervention so that it can manage effectively the tourism industry to maintain productivity of the industry without interfering with the either side of the issue divide (Jim 2007).
The booming sex tourism industry in Asia is highly productive to the hospitality industry and therefore, the management have to address the upcoming challenges associated with it. Its evident that the management have engaged in looking for six workers in their hotels which can serve as attractions magnet to the streaming tourists that seeks sex with Asian girls.
In order to achieve a favorable and conducive atmosphere the management team in hospitality have to work in a way so that they can beautify their hotels as good destination for the meeting points and be romantically appealing. The managers usually work competitively in selecting and ferrying girls to have a grip of the market. In this regard sex workers looked or searched for are usually young girls below the age of 17 years to attract as many clients as possible (Jim 2007). Sex workers are trained specifically on the dress codes as to how to put on to arouse customers and type of clothes to use in the night club such as jewelery dresses.
Sex industry is organized well and the managers interlink with the suppliers of prostitutes to work in their motels. The managers of sex tourism sector are responsible for recruiting and enrolling girls in their firms which is a highly competitive entry that have a well developed structures from top management to the sales and promotion departments (Chawla, Romila 2006).
The sex industry are responsible for sourcing the girls to be involved offers then accommodation, food and clothing with general makeups. Later distributes them to the various meeting points within the Asia community but in return the prostitutes are not paid by their customers directly but rather obtain their money from their firm which is paid by the hotel management who are cashed the money, at the end to reach the children prostitutes it is minimal or even sometimes are not given any money at all. In this sense the business strategies changes from time to time (Bailey 2002). This is with respect from the firms objectives because the environment is constantly changing therefore the objectives designed may not be effective in the current hospitality industry and its environs.
The management have to undergo tourism business environmental scan that includes the firms internal analysis, its task environment and the external macro environment such as the external force that are coming in from the legal force, international bodies as NGOs Human right activists. Through scan the management can identify opportunities, threats and strengths by using the SWOT analysis as far as the hospitality industry is concerned. This is an undertaking that is really fetching good returns on the investment therefore the manger using the information he has obtained from the scan in the business should match the strength of the organization to the unveiled opportunities while address how to treat the threats and weakness in its strategy formation therefore the management should work towards getting the best deal for the business entity in the market. As this is a conflicting and emerging trend in the travel and tourism trends (Chawla, Romila 2006).
The strategy that is formulated should be implemented by making of the clear procedures, programs and well budgeted so that to avoid possible failures in the execution of the programs that will translate to failure in the entire business. The key aspects here the managers should see costs in various department form advertising, networking and relations within the market that can allow access to what his organization needs. This should be compliance with regulations of the state and the other interlinked firms that supplies goods and services in relation to their cost, so that the running can be cost effective that allows the realization of maximum profit (Chawla, Romila 2006).
Once the strategies are working in the system there is need to review them in sense that the industry like any other is dynamic and never static. Therefore, effective strategy should accommodate the changes for good management practice to realize the goals and growth of the company. (Frank 2005). This is mainly to the managers and hospitality industry that it can be flexible by responding to the needs of the customers through defining parameters to be measured, defining the target value of the parameters, perform measurements, the manager then should compare and measure the results to the defined standards then makes necessary managerial changes to accommodate the dynamism.
Then because the business environment being competitiveness once the management engages in a forecast based strategic planning then the entire industry experiences efficiency and good returns necessary for the firms survival. Therefore, the managers within the tourism industry ought to work hard so that system can respond to the needs of the market since the market changes to greater extend as time goes due to new levels of humanity evolution accelerated by technology. In addition the managers within hospitality have the informed intelligence, communication intelligence, critical intelligence creative conclusion, decisive conscious, group emotional in order to come up with the best decision that can suit the market and industry at large.
The managers much concern in the sex tourism industry in Asia is more of organizational of their hotels and motels to attract more clients through employing the proper strategic and management tools so that they can realize the maximal output out of the industry (Parsons 2005). The other issue here is that managers should work hard and flexible to encounter challenges within the industry because many agencies seems to be against the idea of booming sex tourism yet it fetches good returns to the industry.
Therefore, the managers have to consider arising issues from the ECPAT (End Child Prostitution in Asia), NGO s and Human Right Activists (Frank 2005). This gives the management complicated options to take because there are more new destination opening up for sex tourist who seek underage sex, and if they comply fully with the regulation it means they are out of market while the law requires them to comply and not to engage children in their right club motels and hotels for a prostitution. Yet is the perfect option that has seen the industry over the economic crisis in world that made availability of more and more young girls to the business and increased number of pedophiles traveling to the region. This implies that sex oriented attraction is major attraction in the tourism sector to the Asia. Whereby it calls the managers to device options of maintaining the industry with the available options but make it less harmful (Jim 2007).
The brothels, bars (go-go bars) managers need to manage well their resources that includes bar girls, men (gays) in case of the gay bars and Kathoey’s who are the bar dancers or to serve the customers with drinks and foods. In addition there’s the service link between the bar prostitute and the bar with the help of mamasans, the short time room services that takes into account of 40,000 to 50,000 girls in a club to carter for customers and serve men sexually (Parsons 2005). In return they pay minimum of 1,500 baht to 2,500 baht for the short and long time services respectively.
The industry too have the element of girls offering one services to the tourists for the period of their stay within. The managers usually work hard to realize profit within their competency business environment because salary is as per the performance ranging from the 2,000-10,000 baht with additional commission for the number of drinks sold in the bar each at 30 baht (Frank 2005). Therefore the managers device methods as strip dancing to attract the customers (Chawla, Romila 2006).
But with the emerging issues in the sex tourism sector its a threat to the managers to deprive them off their opportunities in the market and industry is bound to loose. Because for the case of private member clubs which are owned by foreigners at extend of 49% through partnering with that may definitely shift their business investment to other countries where it can gain much profit. But there is always alternatives and opportunities in the event of loss incurring. The industry could also explore the other alternatives and properly plan for the legitimate sex business that would keep the sex tourism booming at the same time harmless to the society of Asia in terms of socio-economic effects.
For instance the annually realized income of about US dollars 4.3 billions which constitutes 3% of the overall Thailand economy that makes the industry booking, important and prosperous. (Chatterjee 2005). The big loser will be the government that is why the activities for human right criticizes the government of being reluctant to fight the child sex prostitution that is emerging to be new booming industry in tourism and hospitality.
As a result of sex tourism business the globe suffers with the social injustices that includes children abuse that are involved in the booming business (Frank 2005). These is in terms of children and women trafficking that hampers the victims their human rights that worsen because are put in the sex slavery and violation of their rights that in this regard poses great challenge to both management and industry in hospitality (Parsons 2005). Human trafficking too violets immigration laws of the international legal framework pertaining as far as the cross border laws are concerned. In this respect the influence of the sex tourism can be seen to be harmful.
The other resulting issue is the HIV/AIDS prevalence in Asia especially Thailand and Bangkok where there is these tourism based on sex rather than environmental, adventure. The co-health attachment to the HIV/AIDS is the essence of resulting high rates of pregnancies and STD s in the Asian community that is dominant amongst sex workers. In the recent years there have been AIDS advocacy that aims at promoting safe intercourse but because the victims are children hence less bargaining power it makes the vulnerable and use of mechai viravaidyce or commonly known as condom difficult. This implies that industry is an avenue for the health effects to the community which is clearly seen from statistics that condom use had risen to 90% but declined to below 20% by the year 2005 and today its worse due to lack of the public support managers included. The managers within the industry should therefore advocate for the safe intercourse in their girls because they have to be future conscious.
Sex business has resulted in the big scene of crimes such as drug tourism that goes hand in hand with the vulgarity of the sexual practices (Parsons 2005). In addition the sex tourism has too influenced crimes as theft and murder of both prostitutes together with their visiting tourists. In many incidences drug trafficker sales in this night club which triggers criminal acts from simple conflicts to the complex ones as the robbery and murder. These key issues are stampling blocks that make it the tourism industry be readdressed its all policies (Chatterjee 2005).
In summary in hospitality industry there are a number of contemporary issues that are emerging within the hospitality industry especially the tourism sector that are globalization of competitions, changing tourism trends, change in the strategies that are used in the business, environmental impacts on the sector. however pertaining the booming sex industry the issues are a bit specific that need the attention of the managers and all stakeholders within the hospitality industry. they from the the economical to socio- economical. such issues includes social related issues as the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, high rates of pregnancy, children sex slavery and general violation of human rights as children trafficking. managers therefore, can employ a number of strategies to manage the industry.
This tools of design ranges from use of technology as digital media and the website in marketing their products and explores the other areas of tourism such as ecotourism that explores nature as geographical landscape, wildlife, sceneries to try and minimize the perceived sex oriented tourism (Chatterjee 2005). The management can embark to renovations and invest in their hotels either by renovating or reconstruction of new outlook of the motels or hotels that will include security measures to avoid criminal activities within the industry. These will see elimination of the many criminal offenses that are involved in the tourism.
The managers should too embark on the health oriented measures that will see the sex tourisms industry community safe through advocacy of safe intercourse between the sex workers that will make the resource involved be safe. This will reduce high rate of HIV/AIDS, pregnancy and STD s prevalence within the industry therefore enhancing healthy and safe practice that will be economically sustained because it will have a future. This should include an initiative to empower sex works within managerial level of prostitution industries or firms that supplies and source prostitutes to have them informed choice in matters relating to sexuality that will make them embrace safe sex.
Aspects like social responsibilities of he night clubs such that will be factored in the management process and fully adhered to ensure that only right age girls are involved in the business. To avoid the conflict of influence that results into activism on children prostitution. To achieve these the red light areas should be strictly for the adults as its organized settings. But however, the big issue doesn’t lie with the managers but rather the pedophiles who forms a wider syndicate operating globally not only in Asia. Therefore, the managers roles can gun up to push for the anti-children trafficking to clean up their names and Asia industry. Therefore legislation can be a good idea that incorporates both internal and extraterritorial scope.
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