Hybridity 2

'A green and sumptuous garden': authenticity, hybridity, and the Bali Tourism Project
Author(s): Robert Shepherd

Source: South East Asia Research , MARCH 2002, Vol. 10, No. 1 (MARCH 2002), pp. 63-97
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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6A green and sumptuous garden':
authenticity, hybridity, and the Bali
Tourism Project
Robert Shepherd
The Bali Tourism Project, begun in the mid-1970s as a joint effort

of the Indonesian central government, the World Bank, and the
United Nations Development Program, has generally been portrayed
as a success by the major actors involved in its implementation. Yet
running parallel to the story of success is another story, a story of
local residents' reactions to this 'master plan' and its attempts to
control tourism 'for the good' of the Balinese. Most significantly,
the logic of this plan - to create an enclave zone for wealthy tourists
on the previously barren Bukit peninsula, who could then be shuttled
around the island via a network of excursion roads that would allow
carefully controlled access to an 'authentic' Bali - failed to take
note of its own unintended consequences: what was (from a planning
point of view) unplanned development undertaken by local residents
as a means of gaining access to tourism benefits.
After coming to power in the aftermath of a 1965 military coup that

left hundreds of thousands of citizens dead, Indonesian President
Suharto's New Order government officially proclaimed tourism to be a
key tool of nation-building (Adams, 1997:157). This decree led in turn
to a 1971 World Bank-funded 'Master Plan' for the development of
Bali as an international tourist destination, a plan put into practice in
1975 as the Bali Tourism Project. Project planners took as their goal
two ambiguous objectives: to use Bali's reputation as a tropical paradise
and island of culture in the service of national development by promot
ing international tourism, while simultaneously shielding Balinese from
what were perceived to be the culturally destructive side effects of such
tourism. To do so, planners mapped out a tourist-local 'contact' zone
between the Kuta-Sanur beach area and the towns of Ubud and Gianyar.
Within this zone, a smaller hotel enclave was built at Nusa Dua, where
tourists could enjoy the conveniences of a Western lifestyle while not,
it was believed, bringing harm to Balinese culture.
South East Asia Research, 10, 1, pp. 63-97

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64 South East Asia Research
Viewed from a contemporary perspective, the Bali Tourism Pro

appears to have worked. Indeed, the key organizing forces involv
in this project, including Balinese provincial leaders and acade
the Indonesian Director-General of Tourism, and World Bank and
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) officials, have all
proclaimed the success of this project. After several delays, the first
international-class hotel finally opened at Nusa Dua in 1983. By 1996,
the enclave was home to twelve such hotels, with a total capacity of
4,585 rooms (Picard, 1996:71-72). All told, the island now has 102
starred hotels with a total capacity of over 16,000 rooms (Bappenas,
2001). Ngurah Rai Airport has been upgraded to handle international
flights and a new road system connecting places of interest across the
island has been completed. Despite recent political upheavals and an
economic meltdown, total tourist arrivals hover at around two million
per year.
In this article I provide a close reading of the Bali Tourism Project.
My purpose in doing so is not to point out how World Bank consultants
or Indonesian government officials 'got things wrong', in the sense of
bungling or mismanaging the expansion of tourism on Bali. Rather, it
is to ask how and why this particular project came to be seen as necessary
(cf. Ferguson, 1994:28). In other words, rather than simply critiquing
the purposes of this plan (a policy of using tourism as a development
tool) or crafting an analysis of its successes and failures three decades
later (by conjuring up a cost-benefit analysis), I wish to focus on the
assumptions behind this plan. Specifically, I want to focus on, first, the
assumption that Balinese had to be protected from international tourism
so as to preserve their culture, and second, that the most rational way
to do so was by imagining tourism as a separate entity, one simultane
ously existing on Bali yet outside of Balinese culture.
The 1971 Bali Tourism Master Plan was a direct outgrowth of
Indonesia's first five-year development plan. In this 1969 plan,
Presidential Instruction number 9 set forth the mission for international
tourism within state development plans: it would serve as a source of
foreign exchange, help improve the international reputation of the Re
public of Indonesia, and foster domestic harmony (Adams, 1997:157).
The first goal reflected a key policy shift by the World Bank during
this period. Following a 1963 United Nations Conference in Rome,
international tourism, and by extension 'culture', was identified as a
potential resource to be developed by newly independent states, in care
fully planned and controlled situations. Between 1965 and 1975, the

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A green and sumptuous garden' 65
World Bank funded twenty-four such large-scale tourism development

projects in eighteen recipient countries, including Indonesia (Lanfant,
1995:27).
The second goal reflected Indonesian political realities in 1969.
President Suharto had come to power following the events of 30
September 1965. The official Indonesian version of these events portrays
Suharto as a hero who prevented a communist-led coup, while critics
maintain that this claimed coup was either a pre-emptive strike by
conservative military forces against a leftist alliance consisting of the
Indonesian Communist Party, sympathetic military officials, and
President Suharto, or a failed attack against widespread corruption and
pro-American generals by populist military elements. Both versions
agree that the coup, by whichever group, eventually led to widespread
killings of suspected communists by private militia groups with military
backing. These killings, primarily in Central Java and on Bali, continued
through to the end of 1965 and into the early months of 1966 (Anderson
and McVey, 1971:36-63; Robinson, 1996:138-139). Estimates as to
the number of deaths that resulted have varied, but most observers agree
on a rough total of one million. Approximately 80,000 of these deaths
occurred on Bali, equal to 5% of the island's population at the time
(Robinson, 1995:1-2). It is against the backdrop of these mass killings
that the Suharto regime's focus on improving Indonesia's international
reputation must be considered.
As Adams has noted, the first two of these goals - to earn foreign
exchange and improve Indonesia's international reputation - have tended
to attract the most scholarly attention, particularly from foreigners. Yet
the third goal - the use of tourism as a tool for promoting increased
domestic social stability - was the key driving force behind New Order
state tourism policies. Again it is crucial to keep in mind the domestic
situation within Indonesia following the 1965 coup and overthrow of
Sukarno. In two decades of independence, the state had fought largely
ethnic-driven insurrections in the Molucca Islands, northern Sumatra,
western Java, and on Sulawesi. In addition, Indonesia had seized and
occupied western Papua from the Dutch in 1963 (and would shortly
occupy East Timor in 1975). A tourism policy aimed at domestic stability
sought, in effect, to limit ethnicity as an identity marker to artistic and
vague cultural displays, while simultaneously subordinating ethnicity
to religious identity, the goal being both to create and manage a pan
Indonesian identity. Yet, as we shall see, unintended consequences
resulted from these attempts - for example, the paradoxical fact that

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the central government-driven promotion of tourism as a tool of nat

identity-building necessarily led to the promotion of some ethnic gr
as more cultural than others, particularly, in this case, the Bal
(Adams, 1997:158).
Proposing paradise
Bali, the 'Isles of Temples and Dances', one of the more frequently used meta
phors, until now potentially undiscovered, is destined to be awakened and
integrated into the network of curiosities on a tourist-agent's travelog. (Inter
national Tourism Consultants, 1969:2)
As part of preparations for the first five-year national development plan

(Repelita I), the Bali provincial government published its own
development proposal in early 1969, emphasizing the importance of
tourism.1 This proposal, outlined in a 'Formal Announcement' signed
by the (Javanese) military governor of the island, advocated both an
intensification of tourism in existing tourist areas (particularly the Sanur
beach area) and what it termed an 'extensification' [ekstensifikasi] of
tourism in new areas (2-3). It also called for a focus on the restoration
of what it termed 'tourism objects' [objek-objek turist] as a means of
attracting foreign visitors, along with an increased emphasis on local
'values of life', which, it asserted, would counteract negative foreign
influences (13).2 Interestingly, this proposal defined these tourism objects
as a mixture of what are typically categorized as distinctly sacred and
profane (that is, aesthetic and common, valuable and value-less)
elements. Thus, it called for the restoration not just of temples and
ruins but also of recreation areas [tempat rekreasi] constructed by the
Dutch during the colonial era. In addition, it called for the maintenance
not just of artistic skills [seni patung and seni pahat] and 'original' arts
Pengumuman Resmi Daehrah Propinsi Bali [Formal Announcement of the Province

of Bali], published in the Provincial Public Gazette [Lembaran Daehrah Propinsi
Bali] 7 January 1969.
The report states: Kejakinan atas nilai-nilai kehidupan setjara otalitas dar masjarakat
perlu ditanamkan. Dengan ini pengaruh-pengaruh negatif akan dapat dihindarkan
setjara sadar oleh masyarakat dan setjara tidak langsung akan menambah daja
tarik dan penghargaan dari pariwisatawan [The belief in values of life should
consistently be implanted among the population. This will consciously help prevent
the spreading of the negative influences, and indirectly will increase the attractive
ness and appreciation towards tourism].

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'A green and sumptuous garden' 67
[kesenian asli] but also of handicrafts [kerajinan rakyat].3 All of these,

this proposal asserted, could be maintained through a careful policy of
education and regulation (26).
On 12 August 1969, the Indonesian Minister of Communications Frans
Seda sent letters to consulting groups in North America and Western
Europe, inviting proposals by 15 October 1969 for the design of a tourism
project on Bali to be funded by the World Bank. The terms of reference
set forth in this letter called for the large-scale development of inter
national tourism on Bali, in line with the goals of the government's
first five-year development plan, while protecting local culture from
outside degradation In order to accomplish these goals, a Bali Tourism
Development Authority (BTDA) was envisioned as a guiding force.
After proposals were received from consulting groups in Italy, France,
Britain, Canada, and the USA, the French group Societe Centrale pour
I'Equipement Touristique d'Outre Mer (SCETO) was chosen to carry
out the study. On 25 March 1970, a consultant contract was signed
between SCETO and government representatives. Following this, a for
mal plan of operation was agreed upon and signed on 13 April 1970 by
the Government of Indonesia, the International Bank for Reconstruc
tion and Development, and UNDP. SCETO completed its study by the
following April and formally published its recommendations in June
1971 as the Bali Tourism Study.
This neat time line, clearly visible through the stacks of project
documents now available through the World Bank archives, presents a
picture of rational, organized, linear planning. The organizing logic of
this story is, in a way, seductive: it appears to explain 'what happened'
in a concise and logical fashion. Yet, read differently, the neat organiz
ing logic of the plan's evolution appears less neat and less of a clear-cut
forward movement from initial idea to conceptualization to implemen
tation. Indeed, it appears to be almost the reverse: what SCETO proposed
The Malay word seni translates as both 'fine' and 'art'; patung refers to stonework
and sculpture, pahat to a chisel, used in this context to refer to both wood carving
and metalwork. Kesenian translates as 'the science of art', asli as 'original'. The
term kesenian asli ('the original science of art') refers here to dance, music, and
wayang kulit. While kerajinan [root rajin, 'industrious'] rakyat is usually translated
as 'handicrafts'; it refers specifically to crafts produced by a specific ethnic group or
people [rakyat]. It is used quite differently from the term kerajinan tangan (literally
'hand'), also translated as 'handicrafts', but used to refer to crafts not tied to a spe
cific people. The difference in these terms rests on who can do what: anyone can
learn to make kerajinan tangan, but only authentic people [rakyat] are deemed able
to make kerajinan rakyat.

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in 1969 and recommended in its 1971 report simply confirmed the star
assumptions of this project as set out in the Indonesian governm
initial terms of reference - in particular, that a supra-organizatio
Bali Tourism Development Authority) could manage the developm
of tourism on the island and regulate Balinese culture so as to pro
from degradation.
The Bali Tourism Study
The measures designed to attempt to introduce the excursion routes in

delicate mechanisms of Balinese life are intended to bring the two commu
the Balinese and the visitors, into contact with one another in previously
areas and in an especially prepared context. What will happen if one of t
rejects the other? (SCETO, 1971:1, 17)
In April 1971, SCETO issued its report in six volumes. Volume I pr

a general overview of SCETO's recommendations and proposal
ume II covered the Master Plan itself, and volume VI made
recommendations for the plan's implementation. Volumes III to V
covered technical aspects of the project, including road construction
(III), other infrastructure projects (IV), and economic projections (V).
SCETO took as its central goal the key objectives set forth in Minister
Seda's letter of nearly two years earlier: 'A Master Plan for the long
term development of tourism which anticipates the attraction and
accommodation of vastly increased numbers of tourists and, also,
provides for the protection of the Balinese community from indiscrimi
nate and destructive expansion and proliferation of tourism institutions
and facilities' (1:2).
The consultants began their study with a series of presuppositions
about how many visitors would come to Bali and what they would do
once on the island. First, they assumed that most visitors would want to
stay at a beach resort in a first-class hotel; second, that these visitors
would want to visit 'traditional rural life' (1:6); and third, that an accurate
estimate could be made as to the number of visitors over the first ten-year
phase of this project (1:11). The consultants confidently asserted that, by
1985, 730,000 tourists would arrive on Bali, stay an average length of
four days, and spend US$35 per day while doing so. On the basis of these
figures, they calculated that 9,500 hotel rooms would be needed to accom
modate these visitors, assuming a 64% occupancy rate. Based on these
assumptions, the consultants arrived at their guiding question: keeping in

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mind the stated desire to protect Balinese culture from contact with tour
ism, where should those 9,500 first-class hotel rooms be built, and what
infrastructure would be needed to support this accommodation (1:11)? Of
interest here are questions that go unasked in this study. Were Balinese
residents receptive to tourism? Did residents feel a need to protect their
culture from tourism? Were they open to a massive hotel construction
project on their island in a restricted spatial zone?
What stands out in the formulation of the guiding question for SCETO
consultants - how to accommodate large numbers of foreign visitors
while protecting Balinese from cultural harm - is the circular logic
used to arrive at this question. SCETO consultants were able to calculate
that 9,500 hotel rooms would be needed by 1985 only by first assuming
that these hotel rooms would, indeed, be built before 1985, thereby
creating a need to market them to potential tourists. In other words,
demand was first imagined, thereby justifying supply. Thus, the key
question in this case - the stated need to provide for large numbers of
foreign tourists while simultaneously protecting Balinese from cultural
harm - preceded the construction of economic projections that appeared
to lead to the question.
Having reached the conclusion that a large-scale construction project
would be necessary to accommodate projected visitors, the consultants
then turned to the question of cultural protection. A 'civilization', they
stated, was 'a living entity which exists and develops according to certain
organic laws peculiar to itself' (1:8). These laws, they asserted, were
based on 'culture' and 'environment' (ibid). They argued that the
introduction of large-scale tourism would interfere with these laws in
three ways. First, by initiating contacts between Balinese and the out
side world, tourism 'will make them [the Balinese] aware of a certain
alienation or estrangement'. In addition, by providing wage employ
ment for local residents, tourism would introduce salaries and individual
incomes into what the consultants portrayed as a communal, agrarian
society, thereby accelerating 'the formation of a consumer class'. Finally,
the introduction of 'specific infrastructures adapted to the Western way
of life' would pressure Balinese 'to comply with Western models',
particularly in regard to transportation and housing (1:9). Returning to
this concern in volume II of their study, SCETO consultants character
ized Bali as 'a society in which tensions dissolve, a society that is in
full possession of its equilibrium'; any disruption of this equilibrium
would, from a marketing perspective, negatively affect Bali's key asset,
its unique culture and society (11:10). This is because, the authors went

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on to assert, contact between outside tourists and local cultures can

have a 'traumatic effect' on hosts, due to a series of reciprocal
misunderstandings arising from an inherent contradiction between hosts
and guests: foreigners were intent on saving paradise while local residents
would be intent on emulating their visitors:
What happens is that the visitors arrive as individuals with a high standard of
living who are more or less frustrated in their own culture and then attempt to
idealize a civilization they can only appreciate superficially, identifying it with
a Lost Paradise they hope to see preserved. (11:97)
This illustrates the paradoxical mirroring effect of expert and academic

criticisms of tourism. Tourists are inevitably portrayed as at once simple,
superficial, alienated from their own cultures and communities, and
intent on finding a paradise. Leaving aside the question of how some
one can be superficial and alienated at one and the same time, we might
ask who exactly these consultants were describing: the sorts of tourists
who fly half-way around the world to stay for four days in a luxury
beachside hotel on a Pacific island promoted as exotic, or the Western
artists and intellectuals who had settled on Bali in the years between
the wars and proclaimed it a paradise on earth? That is to say, were the
potential visitors described by these consultants an accurate example
of the sorts of tourists content with a package tour of a purported paradise,
or was this description simply a copy of a certain type of visitor to the
'Other' - namely, the sort who specifically claimed not to be a tourist?
In short, the consultants reduced tourist motivation to a singular search
for a paradise on earth and Balinese residents' reaction to foreign tourism
to slavish imitation. Framed in this way, a regulatory body appears to
be of crucial importance, since without a mediating authority foreign
visitors would seduce local residents into becoming like them, thereby
undercutting the appeal of Bali as a tourist destination. Indeed, the
consultants asserted that an unregulated tourist presence would lead to
the destruction of Balinese society. It would do so by creating a 'fasci
nation' among Balinese for 'the Western way of life and its values',
particularly individualism. Once fascinated, young people would leave
their villages in search of material gains in the tourist industry. This
would lead to labour shortages in the rice fields, which in turn would
spark the dissolution of communal village social structures, thereby
undercutting the foundations of Balinese society (11:100).
By introducing the opportunity for non-agricultural income, tourism,
or so these consultants asserted, provided the seeds of individualism.

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They supported this claim by relying on a binary opposition between

personal gain and communalism: any increase in personal gains, they
argued, would lead to a weakening of 'communal tradition' (11:101).
This held true, they further argued, in all aspects of tourist-local contacts,
be these profane or sacred: whether an individual opened a food stall
or sold soft drinks beside a tourist centre, made trinkets or handicrafts
for tourists, or performed dances, music, or dramas at hotels or other
venues, the individual intent behind these activities would destroy the
nature of the village community (II: 101-102). In short, the sacred would
be made profane, the traditional would be disrupted, and Balinese culture
would be degraded and cheapened: what had been a unique culture
would become a collection of commodities.
Having first constructed this cultural dilemma - that is, a clash between
foreigners intent on consuming a unique and authentic Balinese cultu
and local residents intent on emulating foreign materialism and thu
susceptible to being seduced by individualism - the consultants could
then propose a logical solution, a master plan to control foreign-loc
contacts.
The consultants had asserted that extensive contact between (o

side) tourists and indigenous Balinese would lead to the creation
Bali inhabited by individualistic consumers, alienated from thei
culture and reduced to mimicry - in short, copies of fallen Wes
Man. To prevent this from occurring, contact between the two g
needed to be strictly controlled. Noticeably absent in these asser
is any reference to the former Dutch colonial presence on the isl
to the widespread political killings that had taken place in 19
Geoffrey Robinson (1995) has persuasively argued that Dutch co
policies, far from preserving a pure or non-Western Balinese so
had in fact introduced widespread changes, beginning with the
conquest of the island, the dissolution and later re-imagining of
royal courts, and the introduction of a wide range of taxes and
labour. Moreover, already by the 1930s, Bali was intimately bou
with both international tourism and nationalist politics. In additi
pointed out by Robinson, Benedict Anderson, Ruth McVey, and
scholars, the killings on Bali that followed the establishment of
New Order government, while far fewer in number than those on
were nevertheless far more devastating in relative terms. In th
of a few months, between December 1965 and early 1966, approxi
mately 5% of all Balinese were killed, mainly by their neighbours.
Viewed from this perspective, the SCETO consultants' portrayal of

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a Balinese population at risk of alienation, consumption, individu

ism, and slavish imitation of 'Western models' appears to be at least
partly a reflection of their own anxieties. More importantly, their see
ingly rational description of a problem (how to protect Balinese from
tourism while making Bali attractive to tourists) and solution (regula
contact between the tourists and the Balinese) required a series of
unarticulated presumptions that, once articulated, contradicted the very
basis of this logic-.
First, of course, is the assumption that a discrete and untouched thing
called 'Balinese culture' existed, and needed protection from outside,
corrupting forces. Just as importantly, however, in order for this argument
to make sense, one must accept the premise that a distinct economic
realm exists independent of an aesthetic, cultural realm. In addition,
one must also accept the premise that this economic realm stands in
opposition to, and hence is a constant threat to, the cultural realm. One
must further accept the premise that the economic realm is a threat not
only because of the violence it can do to the cultural (through
commodification) but also because of its attractiveness: it seduces with
its crass materialism. Finally, and above all, one must accept the neo
classical economic premise that market activity is, by definition, driven
by individual interests, and thus is intrinsically opposed to larger group
interests. That is to say, one must choose between Homo Economicus
and communal culture; between consumerism, alienation, and estrange
ment, and harmony and equilibrium; between inauthentic living and
authentic being. Choosing the former, according to this argument,
inevitably leads to the destruction of the latter. Therefore, people must
be prevented from making this choice.
Having defined a need for a massive build-up of tourism infrastructure
to accommodate projected visitors and having set forth the dangers
these visitors would bring, SCETO consultants proposed locating most
tourism facilities in a barren area of the island called Nusa Dua. From
their perspective, this was an ideal location. It was situated on the coast,
close to the airport, near what the consultants called the 'most typical'
Balinese areas of the island, and, most importantly, apart from any actual
Balinese communities (I:12).4 They went one step further than the
government's terms of reference, suggesting the creation not just of a
SCETO proposed building 6,950 hotel rooms at Nusa Dua. The remaining 2,550
rooms envisaged in their plan would be distributed between Denpasar, the island's
capital, and the existing tourist beach resorts of Sanur and Kuta.

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Bali Tourism Development Authority to manage and regulate the industry

island-wide but also a Bali Tourism Development Corporation (BTDC)
to develop and manage the Nusa Dua complex. Visitors would be able
to enjoy all the amenities they were assumed to desire within this beach
enclave while being exposed to Balinese culture on carefully controlled
excursion trips to tourist centres in places deemed culturally interest
ing by planning authorities. The consultants explicitly suggested that
these tourist centres be run by local banjars5 while being regulated by
the BTDA. Such a policy, they wrote, would 'reinforce and institution
alize the Balinese tendency to pay for services, dancers, for example,
to the banjar, and not to the individual' (1:9). In order further to protect
and preserve local culture and social structures, they also proposed
that visitors should receive 'sensitivity training' while local residents
should receive training on 'the significance of their own culture in order
to avoid degradation' (11:103).
To sum up, the SCETO consultants argued that only with tight con
trols over tourist and Balinese encounters would tourism benefit local
communities and protect existing social structures. The alternative, they
suggested, would be chaos and inequities. Let me return for a moment
to the quotation with which I began this section:
The measures designed to attempt to introduce the excursion routes into the
delicate mechanisms of Balinese life are intended to bring the two communities,
the Balinese and the visitors, into contact with one another in previously chosen
areas and in an especially prepared context. What will happen if one of the two
Balinese society, like that of Java, is organized around the desa, or village. On Bali,
each desa consists of anywhere from one or two to as many as nine banjar, a type of
neighbourhood cooperative organization ranging in size from one hundred to five
hundred members. All married men and/or male heads of households are obliged to
join their local banjar, while all other residents are affiliated with the banjar of the
head of their household. The chief purpose of a banjar is to provide assistance for
weddings, local festivals, and cremations. Each banjar has a meeting hall, temple,
gamelan orchestra, and dance costumes. Members have certain financial and labour
obligations; in return, they receive the help of their banjar during emergencies, as
well as for weddings and especially cremations. In addition, all farming families are
affiliated, via their heads of household, with a subak, a type of cooperative irrigation
organization. There are approximately 1,200 such subak on the island, averaging
two hundred members each. Members maintain the dams and canals that provide for
their water needs. A kepala subak (chairman) assigns duties, arranges irrigation sched
ules, and makes sure the subak's temple receives regular offerings. As with the banjar,
attendance at subak meetings and participation in activities is mandatory. In recent
years, some banjars have begun to accept cash payments by members unable (or
unwilling) to participate in its activities.

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
rejects the other? Tourists are generally naive and somewhat bothersome
their cameras and good intentions, and the actual economic benefits of the op
will go to too small a minority to compensate for the social nuisances cau
the project. (1:17)
The answer to this rhetorical question - 'What will happen if one

two rejects the other?' - was clear: there would be disaster. On t
hand, if left unregulated, local Balinese would quickly become m
of the foreigners they encountered - engaging in individualistic p
and competing against one another — thus leading foreigners to
Bali as a tourist destination. On the other hand, if Balinese rejec
tourism wholesale, their island would remain poor and undeve
The solution, then, would be a carefully managed tourism industr
established a mediating authority to oversee and regulate encoun
between tourists and Balinese. This, in the view of the consultants,
would bring the greatest economic benefits to Bali with the fewest social
nuisances. Even with careful planning, however, they frankly admitted
that, by the end of the first phase of this project in 1985, Balinese culture
would have become irreparably harmed by the degrading effects of
mass tourism: 'The cultural manifestations will probably have
disappeared, but Bali can still retain its romantic image and still be
thought of as a green and sumptuous garden.' (11:161).
The irony of these SCETO proposals is that one of the main effects
of creating an outside regulatory authority to monitor tourist-local
encounters was the concentration of economic benefits in the hands of
foreign investors and the guiding government regulatory groups (the
Bali Tourism Development Authority and the Bali Tourism Develop
ment Corporation) while restricting those supposedly being protected
(the local residents) to wage labour service positions.
Mining culture: the Bali tourism project

After SCETO had formally submitted its report to the Indonesian
government, the UNDP, and the World Bank in early 1971, its proposed
plan was approved by President Suharto in 1972 and the Bali Provincial
Assembly in December 1973. In the meantime, the report passed through
a round of further evaluations at the World Bank, both internal and
external. In a draft evaluation dated 27 July 1971, a World Bank official
recommended that US$55 million in International Development
Assistance (IDA) funds be made available for the first phase of what

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was projected to be a US$213.4 million project. The official also ex

plicitly noted that, in order to help the Nusa Dua complex attract foreign
investment, restrictions on further tourism expansion at Kuta and Sanur
would be needed (Simmons, 1971:2, 6).
However, in a highly critical external evaluation dated November
1971, an American consultant argued that SCETO's plan for the creation
of both a supra-planning agency and a government tourism corpora
tion would lead to an inherent conflict within policy making, regulation,
promotion, and development (Ritchie, 1971). Moreover, the plan would
create two tourism authorities on Bali: a local tourism department that
reported to the provincial governor and a supra-agency (the Bali Tourism
Development Authority) that reported directly to the president. In short,
he argued that the SCETO recommendations had less to do with actual
conditions on Bali than with the interests of the central government
and potential foreign investors.
Despite these criticisms, the SCETO proposal was accepted by the
World Bank and the Indonesian government, with slight modifications
based on further feasibility studies conducted by Japanese consultants
in 1972 and 1973. These included a 1972 Indonesian government decree
that set strict limits on the construction of international-standard hotels
outside the Nusa Dua site, and a decision to scale back the size of the
first project phase. Instead of SCETO's 5,950 room proposal, a 2,500
room complex at Nusa Dua was envisioned, along with a further 1,600
rooms at Sanur Beach and in the provincial capital of Denpasar. The
project required an initial outlay of US$36.1 million for the infrastructure
construction needed to attract private funding for the actual construc
tion of hotels. The Bali Tourism Development Board (BTDB),
established in March 1972, was placed in charge of the overall master
plan, while the government-owned Bali Tourism Development
Corporation (BTDC), established in November 1973, was given control
of the Nusa Dua site. The BTDB focused on maximizing the benefits
of tourism and minimizing cultural degradation, while the BTDC focused
on the technical aspects of tourism development.
The final appraisal of this project, based in part on further fieldwork
by both project officials and a consulting anthropologist, was issued
by the World Bank in May 1974 (IBRD, 1974). This one-volume evalu
ation runs to just 33 pages, while a series of annexes, charts, and tables
takes up 120 additional pages. Once again, notably absent is any mention
of the political upheavals, mass murder, or arbitrary arrest of tens of
thousands of political prisoners that had taken place in Indonesia

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(including Bali) over the preceding decade. Instead, the unnamed aut
noted the 'remarkable recovery of the Indonesian economy since t
mid-1960s', the continued dominance of the agricultural sector
the development potentials of tourism (1-3).6 Turning to Bali, the r
painted a glowing picture of a harmonious and static society rich
tourism potential:
Bali continues to evoke in the tourist's mind the ideal of a tropical parad
Bali's chief tourist assets are the natural and scenic attractions of the island
more importantly, its people and their culture. This culture, held in equilib
by a communal society and the Hindu heritage, permeates all facets of Bal
existence and expresses itself in a profusion of art, dance, music and sculp
(IBRD, 1974:4)
In addition to its unique culture, Bali was also strategically located on

air routes between Japan and South East Asia, and Australia and the
Asian mainland (16). However, the report asserted, the economic benefits
of tourism had been jeopardized by its 'largely unplanned and haphaz
ard' nature (4). To prevent such problems, the master plan accepted the
SCETO proposal to locate further tourism facilities at Nusa Dua. This
plan, the report stated, was 'designed to ensure the most economic
utilization of available land without detracting from the natural
environment, while being sufficiently flexible to accommodate the
preferences of potential investors in hotels and other facilities' (5).
Local residents would benefit in several ways, according to the report.
First, those immediately affected by the Nusa Dua project (primarily
residents in the villages of Benoa and Bualu) had already received 'the
immediate benefits of cash payments' in exchange for their lands (5).
In addition, an estimated 6,000 direct and 3,700 indirect jobs would be
created by 1983 (23-24). Most importantly, the Balinese as a whole
would benefit because the Nusa Dua project, by concentrating tourism
in a specific locale, would protect Balinese culture from contamination,
degradation, and Westernization.
Project evaluators employed a cost—benefit analysis to demonstrate
that planned tourism would benefit both Bali and Indonesia as a whole.
As they somewhat disingenuously stated, 'Assuming that the negative
effects [of foreign tourism] can be controlled, it is expected that the
positive effects - in terms of increased employment, incomes and foreign
The authors, without any mention of the events of 1965-66, simply state: 'Despite
its remarkable cultural and scenic attractions, Indonesia received relatively little
tourism traffic before 1967.' (2)

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exchange earnings - will result in an overall impact which, on balance,

is desirable.' (IBRD, 1974:25; see also annex XI)
The controlling logic of this entire project is neatly summarized in a
section of the report entitled 'Economic Justification' (paragraphs 5 to
5.39). After posing the question of what would result from the complete
absence of any planning, the authors reached four conclusions. First,
while conceding that tourism might still thrive in Bali, they neverthe
less argued that 'the pattern of this development would be dispersed,
and its planning generally uncoordinated and haphazard'. As a result
of this lack of coordination, more rice land would be diverted to tourism,
leading to increased social costs and 'greatly reduced government control
over the impact of tourism development which would substantially
increase the risk of both cultural and environmental damage'. Further
more, such 'unplanned and scattered development' would not guarantee
the construction of 2,500 international-standard rooms by 1985, raising
doubts about the achievement of foreign exchange and employment
targets. Finally, the authors argued that 'the continuation of haphazard
tourism development which this alternative represents could seriously
endanger the very assets which are the foundation of the tourism industry
in Bali' (23).
Justification for state control of tourism thus rested on a series of
assumptions that reinforced each other. First, planners assumed that
the only alternative to a centrally planned, regulated, and directed tourism
industry was the complete absence of any regulation at all. Such an
absence, they argued, would lead to complete development chaos and
anarchy. Yet this assumption flew in the face of the master plan's
proposed use of village banjar organizations as conduits for regulation
and control. That is to say, while justifying this project by asserting
that in its absence there would be no planning or regulation of tourism,
planners simultaneously proposed to rely on existing local regulatory
organizations to implement its provisions. This assumption also
contradicted how both SCETO consultants and IBRD evaluators had
portrayed Balinese society. On the one hand, they had described this as
harmonious and stable, rich with adat and agama. Yet they left
unexplained how this claimed stability and harmony - the twin goals
of central planning - had come about in the absence of outside planning
or regulation.
Planners also assumed that the absence of a centrally planned tourism
industry would automatically result in the absence of any coordina
tion. However, as Austrian economists Ludwig Mises and F. A. Hayek

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argued seven decades ago, the claim that the absence of a central
results in the absence of planning ignores the countless plans of
actors that are always in existence. It is therefore a fallacy to asser
without a master plan anarchy and chaos will reign. Instead,
innumerable plans of social actors engaging with each other and
existing social regulatory mechanisms invariably lead to the eme
of social order, one which better serves social actors than a plan
order constructed and imposed by planning experts.
From these planning assumptions by SCETO consultants and
planners flowed a series of related conclusions, all based on the gu
idea that only through central government control could Balinese
and the island's environment be protected from the disruptive e
of tourism while ensuring the continued growth of the tourism indus
In their analysis of the social effects of tourism, the World
experts listed three potential drawbacks to unregulated tour
connected to aesthetics, religion, and economic equity. First, they
that artists and performers who lived near tourist areas spent thei
producing and performing diluted versions of their products for
discerning foreign audience, while those in non-tourist areas main
'classical art forms' but received no patronage. Implied is a fear
classic, pure forms would eventually disappear in favour of com
cialized, corrupted forms. In addition, they noted local worries a
the disruptive behaviour of tour groups in temples. Finally, they
attention to the need to distribute the economic benefits of tourism
equitably so as to maintain local support for tourism policies (IBRD,
1974: 25-26; also see annex XII).
The Bali Tourism Development Corporation (BTDC) was charged
with responsibility for solving these social issues. It would do so by
maximizing the use of local labour at the Nusa Dua construction site,
drawing artists, dancers, and musicians from as many villages as possible,
and, through a state-funded hotel training school, make certain that
Balinese workers were 'suitably prepared for the job opportunities
generated by the resort investments' (27).
Once again, a form of blind logic is at work here. Indeed, it is ironic
to read of the planners' worries about a fair distribution of economic
benefits, in view of the fact that their planning policies would produce
an inequitable distribution by channelling tourism spending into central
government coffers and the pockets of foreign investors. Moreover, a
focus on producing trained hotel and restaurant workers to serve foreign
tourists in the Nusa Dua complex ignored the current realities of tourist—

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Balinese interactions, namely, the rapid expansion of private tourist

businesses run by Balinese and aimed at those foreign tourists ignored
by the master plan - backpackers and budget travellers.
Viewed from a planning perspective, the need for central control
appeared both sensible and utterly logical: Bali needed to expand its
economy in order to raise living standards, its key assets were its culture
and environment, foreign tourists were eager to visit the island and
experience these assets, and therefore a certain number of hotel rooms
isolated from everyday social life on the island would be needed to
accommodate these visitors. However, without a master plan, the quality
and number of these rooms would not be guaranteed, cultural and
environmental assets protected, or growth assured. Therefore, a guiding
plan was not only desirable but also crucial, since without it Bali would
slide into unplanned chaos.
Concerns about the dangers of cultural corruption (and, by extension,
commodification) that would result from the increase in tourism on
Bali were not restricted to foreign consultants. They were shared by
local elites, particularly anthropologists.
As part of the World Bank project evaluation procedure, UNESCO
funded a series of local studies of the potential and current impact of
tourism on Balinese culture, carried out by the Department of Anthro
pology of Udayana State University with the assistance of a French
anthropologist, Gerald Francillon.7 The results of these studies were
later published, in various forms, by Udayana State University, the
Indonesian Office of Planning and Development (Bappenas), and the
United Nations' own development journal (cf. Universitas Udayana
and Bappenas, 1972; Universitas Udayana, 1974; Universitas Udayana
and G. Francillon, 1975).
In its examination of the current role of tourism on Bali, the Udayana
team reached some rather revealing conclusions. They divided what
they called the social impact of tourism into three spatial areas: hotel
areas (such as Kuta and Sanur), historical and cultural sites (such as
Batubulan and Besakih), and art and handicraft centres (such as Celek
and Mas) (Universitas Udayana, 1974:29). In other words, they
categorized sites as places where tourists stayed, toured, and shopped.
Despite the presumed importance of fieldwork to the anthropological project, little

was apparently conducted for these studies. For example, Francillon noted in the
introduction to his 1975 article that, 'An important source of information consists of
the direct inquiries and personal contacts made during one week of June and nearly
four weeks of September 1974.' (Universitas Udayana and G. Francillon, 1975:721)

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In each of these locales, researchers noted evidence of what they v

as a decline of culture resulting from its commercialization. For ex
they complained that in temples tourists dressed inappropriately
took pictures, while some dance groups had secularized previously
dances by, among other things, performing certain dances at ina
priate times and cutting the performance times of others (33-35
addition, they noted that artisans had started to produce work aim
the tourist market, thereby leading to a 'degradation of quality'
and a decline in creativity (43). Finally, they complained of a gen
rise in what they repeatedly referred to as 'unhealthy competition
range of activities. For example, they complained that handicraf
owners gave a 10-25% commission to tour guides for steering for
tourists to their shops (a practice these researchers argued would '
the art/souvenir shops sooner or later to their ruins' (25-26) and
required strong government action). Homestay owners, they compl
gave similar commissions (35). Most worryingly, they noted that
banjars had begun to accept cash payments from members in lieu
labour obligations, thereby disrupting the foundation of the conce
gotong-royong, or mutual assistance, upon which Balinese society
(42).
Yet the researchers also noted the appearance of new types
organization, which they referred to in their report by the Indon
term yayasan, an ambiguous concept usually translated as 'establi
ment' or 'organization' (cf. Wojowasito and Wasito, 1982).8 These
What these researchers do not explain is that, following the 1965 military tak
by Suharto and the massacre of suspected communists and other assorted leftis
followed, membership of any organization that appeared to be related to the p
left was banned. Moreover, any hint of leftist activity could, in effect, black
person. Indeed, both the Indonesian Communist (PKI) and Socialist Parties
were outlawed and former-President Sukarno's left-leaning Indonesian Nati
Party (PNI) broken. In addition, labour organizations were amalgamated into a
national organization controlled by the central government (persatuan, transl
'society', 'association', or 'union'). In these circumstances, the yayasan becam
safest vehicle for non-governmental activity. Because of its ambiguity, the co
of yayasan could accommodate a wide variety of organizations. These would
tually range from the sorts of micro-groups noted in this research report
were, in effect, micro-unions or guilds - to President Suharto himself, who all
used his personal yayasan as a conduit for the channelling of tens of millio
dollars to family and friends. Today, while most Indonesian groups engaged in
activities describe themselves with the term lembaga swadaya masyarakat
munity self-help organizations'), others are organized as yayasans ('foundat
For both these groups, the sense of mutual cooperation implied in the way the ter
used in this report has been replaced by a individualized sense of conflict
governmental authorities.

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types of groups were organized not by neighbourhood (as were the

banjar) or by shared water rights (as were the subak), but by occupa
tion. They included groups for dancers, guides, artisans, motorbike
owners, street vendors, homestay owners, even beach hawkers (ibid.,
29-31). Significantly, these new types of groups supplemented rather
than supplanted established social organizations. Rather than being
replaced or marginalized, 'traditional' groups remained central
components of an enlarged web of social meaning.
This notion of supplementarity runs as an unspoken theme throughout
the Udayana report. For example, the emergence of a cash payment
system in lieu of labour obligations in some banjar could be interpreted
not just as evidence of increased individualism (as these researchers
interpret it) but also as a more complex system in which obligations to
do work were supplemented by the option of obligatory payments for
work. In addition, while acknowledging that new types of organization
had not displaced traditional organizations, the researchers observed
that within the traditional organizations, traditional purposes had been
supplemented by additional aims. For example, particularly among
banjar in heavily toured areas, gamelon and dance performances for
tourists generated cash income that could be used for such activities as
festivals and cremations (41).
Finally, the researchers pointed to a rapid rise in indirect employ
ment in the tourism sector. While arguing that tourism generated
relatively few full-time jobs (contrary to the projections of the Bali
Tourism Study), they noted that it had involved an increasingly large
percentage of the population in part-time work, including dancers,
artisans, and guides. In addition, it had spurred the appearance of just
the kind of micro-businesses that the SCETO study had warned against
- everything from soft drink vendors to crafty entrepreneurs who had
started renting slempot (a type of sash that must be worn inside a Balinese
temple) to tourists wishing to visit local temples (37). Significantly,
however, while repeatedly decrying the 'unhealthy competition' of
tourist-related business activities, the researchers also noted that new
organizations which had appeared in the wake of these new economic
activities had added a layer of cooperation to social activities, thereby
tempering the competition (38).
These researchers concluded that, while there remained on Bali 'a
consciousness among people of the value of art and culture', art,
particularly dance and sculpture, had nevertheless been degraded by
secularization (49). They were able to reach this conclusion by assuming

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that 'art', as a product of 'culture', exists within an intrinsically

and fixed realm of 'Culture'. Yet their own empirical evidence, a
in this report, appears to point to an opposite conclusion: that in
interaction with tourism and tourists, local residents sought to g
benefits from this encounter while maintaining and adapting ex
social structures and practices.
Shortly after the completion of the SCETO study and nearly th
years before the publication of the Bali Master Plan, a UNESCO
sponsored cultural seminar was held in Denpassar to discuss tourism's
possible impact. It was at this 1971 seminar9 that the term pariwisata
budaya [cultural tourism] was coined to describe the type of foreign
tourist deemed desirable - namely, visitors who, intent on learning about
Balinese culture, would by extension generate economic benefits for
this culture (Picard, 1997:182-183). This was because local social elites,
particularly researchers at Udayana State University, believed these
cultural tourists to be vastly preferable to mass tourists, assuming them
to be less disruptive, more interested in buying local souvenirs, and
more respectful of local customs and traditions (cf. Universitas Udayana
and Francillon, 1975:727). By focusing on the promotion of cultural
tourism, local elites believed that the overall tourist impact (what they
referred to as the 'challenge' [tantangan] of tourism) on Bali could be
managed and tourism kept on the margins of society (ibid., 724).
However, their UNESCO-funded counterpart, French anthropologist
Gerald Francillon, took a much more pessimistic view of the tourist
impact. In a conclusion to a review of a series of Udayana studies
conducted for both UNESCO and the Bali Tourism Development
Authority, he argued that there was no essential difference between
cultural tourists and other types of independent tourists, since all caused
cultural and social damage:
Other dangers arise with the development of cultural tourism seen by the scholars
and researchers of Udayana University as endowed with positive aspects and
consistently presented as preferable to mass tourism. While this comes naturally
enough to academics it is to be feared that they are deluded by the greater under
standing that cultural tourists show in their priorities, misled by their surer taste,
deceived by their discrimination in the search for authentic antiques, their questions
Officially entitled Seminar Pariwisata Budaya Daerah Bali, or 'Seminar on cultural

tourism in Bali', this conference was held at the Hotel Denpasar in September 1971,
a few months after SCETO had released its report. For an account of the conference,
see Geriya, 1996.

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about the purposes and types of ritual, their more overt wishes to participate in
true home life than the casual 'homestayer' for whom stereotype smile
communication is enough. .. .Yet the attitudes of cultural tourists consist not of
contacts but of penetrations, encroachments and interactions which must, in
every way, have greater impact than the four-day visit of the guided tourist. The
cultural tourist inserts himself deeper into the core of his object of interest, thus
disturbing it much more than would the superficial observer. (Ibid., 751, emphasis
added).
Francillon argued that superficiality is better in the case of tourism

because only by maintaining social relations at the level of superficial
ity and vacuousness can the core of the subject of the tourist's interest
be maintained in an undisturbed state. That is to say, a good form of
tourism, in his view, deliberately avoided any attempt at meaningful
communicative interchange; the potential for any dialogic encounter
should be consciously shunned in favour of banality; for tourists, he
argued, 'stereotype smile communication is enough'. Implied in this
claim is an assertion that any such meaningful communicative exchange
between local and Other properly belongs within the realm of the
fieldworker, who presumably is trained to move deeply into a society
without disturbing it. Yet one is then left to wonder: why might the
contacts of cultural tourists be 'penetrations' and 'encroachments' yet
not those of the fieldworker? If a cultural tourist disturbs by inserting
himself or herself within 'the core' of the Other, why would the efforts
of a fieldworker not do the same?
Viewed from the perspective of planners concerned about cultural
preservation, Francillon's argument in favour of superficiality made a
great deal of sense. His support for guided tourism hence appeared to
be a logical solution to the 'problem' of the touristic impact on Balinese
culture. Having already drawn up elaborate plans for the spatial
organization of tourism on Bali, it logically followed (following the
logic of planning) for Bali tourism project planners also to support the
complete organization and control of the tourists themselves.
In a rejoinder to this article, Peter Lengyel, then the editor of the
International Social Science Journal, rejected Francillon's argument
while also criticizing the local Balinese focus on cultural tourism
(Lengyel, 1975). Rejecting the distinction Udayana researchers (and
local Balinese officials) had drawn between mass tourism and cultural
tourism, he claimed that the assumption that Bali needed to accept mass
tourism was flawed, 'especially if such mass tourists [were] segregated
and discreet' (754). Instead, he argued that it would make better sense

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for Bali to restrict its 'tourist intake' to 'travelers who are espec
interested in what it has to offer and who might be particu
appreciative of the more intimate atmosphere which the abse
crowds of foreigners would preserve' (ibid.). In other words, Len
revived the pre-war Dutch colonial desire to maintain Bali as a li
museum for discriminating travellers.10
What both Francillon and Lengyel ignored in their arguments
the political context within which the Udayana researchers had m
their recommendations for a provincial tourism policy. In essenc
academic researchers were faced with a dilemma: on the one hand, a
central government plan to transform Bali into the tourist centre of
Indonesia and, on the other, their own concerns and worries about the
effects uncontrolled foreign tourism would have on Balinese society.
The Bali provincial government responded to this dilemma by
officially adopting a policy favouring cultural tourism [pariwisata
budaya] in 1974. Under this policy, proclaimed as Perda number 3
[Peratuan Daerah, or regional regulation], 'cultural objects' [objek
objek budaya] were identified as resources for the development of
tourism, with the resulting revenues to be used for the development of
culture. That is to say, cultural tourism, it was claimed, would support
and revitalize Balinese culture; in the words of the regulation, 'Cultural
What eventually emerged by the mid-1980s, as the standard World Bank and United
Nations position on tourism as a development tool, was a combination of the Francillon
and Lengyel arguments. This can be seen in UNDP- and World Bank-funded tourism
projects in such places as Tibet and Bhutan. In both, planning focused on cultivating
a select group of discriminating foreign travellers willing to pay greatly for the right
to tour a place essentially off-limits to mass tourism. In other words, by restricting
both visas to enter a country and the ability to travel freely within that country,
planners sought to tap a select demand, thereby making tourism profitable while
preventing cultural contact between local residents and foreign tourists. While aimed
at preserving what were claimed to be threatened cultures, these restrictive policies
also had the paradoxical effect of supporting oppressive regimes by giving them
access to new sources of foreign exchange. Moreover, these policies also worked to
ensure that the economic benefits of foreign tourism would remain in state hands,
thereby reducing local residents to the status of 'local colour'. In Bhutan, a small,
isolated mountain kingdom ruled by an all-powerful king, this policy has been suc
cessful, in the sense of reaching its goals: few foreign tourists are allowed into the
kingdom, and those few pay a premium for the right. However, in the case of Tibet,
cracks have appeared in the plans as local residents have sought to gain benefits
from the tourist presence, albeit not on the scale of those in Bali. In Lhasa, small
homestays, shops, and restaurants have appeared, catering to the tastes of backpackers
and other low-budget travellers who enter Tibet overland from Nepal or from the
adjacent Chinese province of Qinghai, or by air via Chengdu in 'paper' travel groups.

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tourism is the type of tourism that supports the development of the

cultural factor. This culture is the culture of Bali inspired by the soul of
Hinduism.'11 The resulting culture, held up as an object of foreign desire,
could also then serve as an identity marker within Indonesia, thereby
protecting Bali's status within a Javanese-dominated state.
However, as Michel Picard has noted, such a policy rested on a belief
that 'culture' and 'tourism' could be clearly distinguished, and thus
kept separate (Picard, 1996:129-130). Such boundary maintenance is
not only assumed but also required - between essence and surface,
authentic and commercial, pure and polluted, sacred and profane. Without
such a clear-cut division, one runs the risk of encouraging not cultural
tourism [pariwisata budaya] but a touristified culture [kebudayaan
pariwisata] (Picard, 1996:129). This becomes highly problematic in a
society such as Bali, one in which tourism, having been present for
such a long period of time, is best characterized as operating within,
not on, local society. Hence the question to be asked is not how tourism
has impacted on local culture but how it has helped, and continues to
help, shape it (Picard, 1997:183).
Within the World Bank's appraisal of the Bali Tourism Project, a
single paragraph stands out, not only for what it says but also for what
it implies. On page 25, paragraph 5.29, the authors briefly discuss the
social impact of tourism within the context of Balinese society:
In assessing the social impact of tourism, it is also necessary to distinguish between

tourism-related effects and the forces of change relating to urbanization - as in
the increasingly 'Westernized' appearance of Denpasar - and modernization,
per se - as reflected in the substitution of electric light bulbs and aluminum
offering bowls in the temples. The simple fact is that the Balinese culture, as
expressed in the way of life of the people, is not, and never has been, static.
Cited in Geriya, 1996, at p. 116. The translation is my own; in the original Indone
sian, the regulation proclaimed, Pariwisata Budaya adalah salah satu jenis pariwisata
yang dalam pengembangannya ditunjang oleh faktor kebudayaan. Kebudayaan yang
dimaksud adalah kebudayaan Bali yang dijiwai oleh agama Hindu. The position
that cultural tourism would stimulate a revival of local culture was also argued by
American anthropologist Philip McKean. However, this position rested on the
assumption that local social actors could unproblematically separate what was 'sacred'
(and not open to tourism) from what was profane (and hence open to commodification)
in terms of culture. McKean conducted fieldwork in Bali in 1971 for his 1973 disser
tation for Brown University ('Cultural involution: tourists, Balinese, and the process
of modernization in an anthropological perspective'). A revised portion of this work
later appeared as 'Towards a theoretical analysis of tourism: economic dualism and
cultural evolution in Bali', in Smith, 1989.

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Theirs is a living, dynamic society which has for hundreds of years adapted
remarkable flexibility to the forces of change. Tourism development repr
only one such force. (IBRD, 1974: 25; emphasis added.)
One is left asking why, given this acknowledgement that Balinese s

has been in contact with the outside world for centuries - has, inde
exhibited a 'remarkable flexibility' in dealing with outside forces
influences - was there suddenly in 1974 a need for a grand master
to regulate and control contacts between Balinese and foreigners?
over, given this apparent Balinese flexibility and talent for man
foreign influences, why was there suddenly a need on the pa
World Bank and Indonesian government authorities to protect Ba
residents from foreign tourists? Was a culture and society th
survived colonization and modernization suddenly at risk from p
age tourists? Or was this seemingly lofty goal of cultural preserv
designed and funded by World Bank, UNDP, and UNESCO staff
members and consultants, in practice a prescription for new forms of
social control?
What results is something of a riddle. Bali was held up as an example

of a society that had been able to maintain its sense of self, what
Heidegger would call Dasein, despite centuries of exposure to the 'force
of change'. Yet now, with the advent of tourism, this Dasein - Bali's
'Balinese' - was said to be threatened with disruption and decline.
New forms of control and regulation, in the form of elaborate social
planning, were deemed necessary to halt this slide. Otherwise, th
residents of Bali would slip into a state of inauthenticity, degenerating
into poor copies of the alienated visitors in search of an authentic paradise
the island was claimed to attract.
Authenticity - of self, of society, of culture - is thus the underlying
issue here; the risk of inauthenticity appeared to be a threat not only to
Balinese culture but also to the economic benefits tourism was projected
to bring, since, in the view of planners, a decline in the authenticity of
Balinese culture would lead to a decline in visitors, leading to the failure
of the Bali Tourism Project. Culture, therefore, had to be protected
from commodification, be this imposed from without (by the corrupting
effects of cultural contact) or from within (through the economic activities
of local residents). Balinese, in short, had to be protected from their
own desires.

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In the shadow of the plan

The expansion of the resort areas of Kuta and Ubud outside the regulatory
logic of the master plan is instructive in this regard. The Kuta beach
area, comprised of three desa adat, or traditional villages (Kuta, Legian,
Seminyak) was the site of the first beach hotels on Bali, those of the
Kokes and K'Tut Tantri in the 1930s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s
it gained a reputation on the foreign backpacker circuit in Asia as an
'undiscovered' destination. As the number of arrivals grew, largely
through word-of-mouth, local residents, mainly fishermen and coconut
farmers, reacted to this phenomenon by adding guest rooms to their
homes and opening small shops and restaurants catering to these
foreigners. As Joseph Scures has noted, local residents 'responded to a
flaw in Bali's development plan by quickly meeting the desires and
adapting to the needs of an unexpected wave of budget travelers' (Scures,
1994, unpublished: 95).
What was once a quiet fishing area with a few homestays12 quickly
began to grow. By 1976 the area had approximately 180 homestays
with a capacity of 1,100 rooms, along with 11 hotels containing 426
rooms. There were also 64 restaurants, 93 souvenir shops, and 122
toko [shops] and warung [stalls] (Geriya, 1996:10). Tourist arrivals
also rose, from approximately 6,000 in 1972 to over 18,000 in 1974
(Hussey, 1989:316). As the number of tourists increased, land prices
rose dramatically and the beach area began to expand. Kuta today is a
crowded ten-kilometre strip of bars, discos, restaurants, shops, hotels,
losmen, boutiques, tour agencies, shopping centres, and cafes that hosts
hundreds of thousands of tourists each year in at least 90 starred hotels
and over 1,300 non-starred accommodation establishments (van der
Giessen et al., 1999:53).
Critics of Kuta have pointed to its sprawl and chaotic growth as
evidence of the need for stringent tourist planning. They have also argued
that local residents have not actually benefited from this transforma
tion of a local community of fishermen and farmers into an urban tourist
space. For example, a 1976 Udayana University survey showed that
92% of Kuta's 9,515 residents were locally born, and 67% of homestays
Indonesian uses the term losmen and the English word 'homestay' to describe a
small-scale pension with basic facilities. The word 'hotel' describes Western-style
accommodation; a hotel bintang is a starred hotel (usually with such amenities as hot
water and air conditioning), while a hotel melati is a hotel that, while a step above a
'homestay', is quite basic and small.

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and shops were locally owned. A similar survey conducted in 1990-

revealed that, while the resident population had risen to 15,972, 90
of businesses were not locally owned (Picard, 1996:81; Scures, 1994,
unpublished:93). Viewed from one perspective, these numbers appear
to be evidence of a displacement of local residents by outsiders. How
ever, the situation is more complicated. For example, already by 1983
over 40% of local businesses were foreign-owned (Hussey, 1989:319).
In practice this usually meant that a foreign entrepreneur had invested
in a local business, thus circumventing regulations on foreign invest
ment and property ownership. Local residents benefited by gaining access
to necessary capital (albeit on a small scale) and, more importantly, to
the cultural knowledge needed to respond to the demands of their foreign
clientele. In addition, as land prices rose in the Kuta area, local residents
eventually shifted out of business operations in favour of leasing their
land to both domestic and foreign outsiders. The key point, then, is that
the 90% of non-local businesses identified in the 1990-91 survey
operated on land leased mainly from local owners. In other words, within
a generation a shift took place, as local residents moved from farming
and fishing to small-scale entrepreneurship and, finally, landlord status.
In Ubud, usually cited as the cultural centre of Bali, something similar
has occurred. Indeed, assumptions about cultural authenticity and the
superiority of the original over the copy lose all relevance in this 'artist's
colony'. Like Kuta, it was not part of the master plan. Quite the contrary:
Ubud was identified as a place that needed to be protected from
uncontrolled tourism, and hence was projected as a daily excursion
site. Its fame has rested on its identification as a centre of painting,
tied to the residence in the village of the German painter Walter
Spies and Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet in the late 1920s. Funded by a
local aristocrat named Cukarda Sukawati, they formed the Pita
Maha art society and tutored young Balinese painters in European
techniques.
As in Kuta, backpackers began to arrive in the area in the early 1970s,
leading to a boom in local accommodation. By 1994, Ubud and the
surrounding countryside had over 2,200 rooms in 350 non-starred
homestays, along with dozens of cafes, restaurants, and bars. Today
Ubud is filled with galleries and studios displaying examples of what
has come to be accepted as a distinctive Balinese painting school:
Balinese paintings of Balinese landscapes, based on the representa
tions of a German and a Dutchman. The Site, reproduced in copies of
the original (copy), is thus re-cited, reproducing itself in a blurring of

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
subjects.13 In short, both Balinese (from Ubud and elsewhere) and foreign
visitors now recognize the cultural 'aura' of Ubud - that is, the reality
of the fantasy of a timeless artists' community (Picard, 1996:89).
Both Kuta and Ubud, as well as other unplanned tourist areas on Bali
such as Candi Dasa, Batur, and Lovina, have thrived outside the master
plan because of a combination of high demand, low capital investment
requirements, and high local linkages (Picard, 1993:81). Just as
importantly, they have been able to develop because of the building
restrictions imposed by the master plan on areas outside Nusa Dua,
Sanur, Kuta, and Denpasar. That is to say, one unintended consequence
of the planning effort to assure the authenticity of Balinese culture by
prohibiting hotel expansion across the entire island was to stimulate
the development of a locally owned accommodation sector in these
'authentic' areas. Today, 100% of the 4,500 rooms at the Nusa Dua
enclave and 76% of the 3,200 rooms at Sanur are starred hotels. In
contrast, 37% of the Kuta area's 17,000 rooms and 95% of Ubud's
2,200 rooms are non-starred (van der Giessen et al., 1999:54).
Moreover, one of the crucial differences between these areas and the
planned tourist enclave of Nusa Dua is their pre-tourist existence as
communities, places existing within an evolving social web of mean
ing and community (as opposed to bureaucratic) regulation. Official
discourse in Bali (since 1974) and in Indonesia as a whole (since 1977)
has proclaimed tourism, when crafted and controlled by the state, to be
a tool by which traditional culture could be maintained while the state
implemented modernization. Yet the role played by tourism in places
such as Kuta and Ubud suggests that, while tradition, both in the sense
of culture and social structure, has continued to flourish outside the
In this sense, Spies and his school of painting is similar to the 'Wyeth School' described
by John Dorst in his study of Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania. Dorst examined Chadd's
Ford as a site in two senses - spatially (as a fixed locale on a map) and 'as an idea, an
image, a matrix of ideological discourses' - arguing that the 'Others' who inhabit
this site/Site are produced within it (Dorst, 1983:11). An example is his discussion
of Andrew Wyeth's famous paintings of the barn and fields of a local farmer named
Karl Kuerner. By painting this site, Wyeth framed this setting and its inhabitants; it/
they became a Site. This (Wyeth-framed) site could then be experienced by tourists
who sought out the (real) spatial site of Wyeth's paintings as a means of authenticat
ing his (painted) site. This site would eventually 're-cite' (reproduce itself) in the
person of Karl Kuemer's grandson, who became a 'Wyeth School' painter, reproducing
Wyeth images of his own family property (Dorst, 1983:58). Similarly, local artists
practising the 'Ubud School' of painting now produce images that reproduce Spies's
representations of Ubud. (See Dorst, 1983.)

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
protection of planned tourism development, the meanings embod

these traditions have continued to shift (cf. Scures, 1994,
unpublished:391-392). In other words, tradition, rather than disappear
ing, has evolved in unpredictable ways. What has emerged in the case
of Kuta and Ubud is an example of change that is resistant to sweeping
development planning, precisely because it is rooted in such evolving
webs of meaning. This rootedness, and the complexity it entails, renders
any attempt to plan out the future rationally largely impotent. This stands
in stark contrast to the Nusa Dua complex, where the planners' first
action was to displace the small local fishing communities inhabiting
the piece of land chosen as a tourist site, thereby providing a blank
slate on to which a plan could be drawn and implemented.
At tourist sites such as Kuta and Ubud, a spontaneous order has
evolved, one that actually replicates the claimed central goal of the
master plan — namely, to realize the economic benefits of tourism while
regulating contacts between foreigners and Balinese. However, in this
case at least, a majority of foreign visitors willingly segregate them
selves. They do so because, contrary to both the projections of tourism
planners and the expectations of provincial officials and elites, the
majority of visitors to Bali are not, and arguably never have been, cul
tural tourists. Quite the contrary: Bali for most visitors, whether to the
five-star hotels of Nusa Dua or the back-alley homestays of Kuta, has
been mainly a place for sand, sea, shopping, sun and sex (not so much
with the Balinese but with each other), albeit with a bit of 'culture'
thrown in.
Resistance and response

The most significant government responses to the spread of tourism
outside the confines of the master plan were, predictably enough, repeated
attempts to assert regulatory authority over what was labelled the
'informal'. The logocentrism of planning creates the conditions for a
suspect Other outside the confines of planned development. Once con
stituted, this Other can then be labelled as inferior to the ideals of the
plan itself. Hence activities that appear to resist or circumvent a plan
are described as informal, illegal, or as 'black'.
One example of this in Bali has been government efforts to regulate
and control the accommodation industry. As part of the effort to expand
tourism as a development tool, the Directorate-General of Tourism (later
incorporated into the Ministry of Post, Telecommunications, and

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
Tourism, or Kanwil Parpostal) instituted a star system for hotels. A

hotel was assigned from one to five stars, and fell under the regulatory
authority of the central government, while all other forms of
accommodation were placed under the regulatory authority of provincial
officials - in Bali, the Bali Government Tourism Office, or Dinas
Pariwisata Daerah Bali. Viewed from the perspective of the master
plan and the stated goals of government officials (that is, to focus on
attracting 'cultural tourists'), this system made sense. Most foreign
visitors would presumably stay in starred hotels, where central
government regulators could enforce fixed service standards in order
to meet the expectations of this 'better class' of tourist. However, as
tourism has expanded in Bali, so too have the number of visitors who
fall outside the projections of the master plan. These unplanned visitors
tend to stay in local accommodations, eat in locally run restaurants,
and remain on the island far longer than the projected four days of
cultural sightseeing. Yet provincial efforts to control businesses deal
ing with these unplanned visitors have been complicated by local efforts
to avoid control by using such tactics as under-reporting of rooms,
under-the-table registration of guests, and the use of cash for all trans
actions (cf. Dahles, 1998:88). This is compounded by the fact that
government officials have little way of knowing precisely how many
foreigners are on Bali at any given time, since they can measure only
the direct arrivals at Ngurah Rai Airport (in 1999, approximately 1.2
million) - a number that tends to downplay the actual number of visitors.14
The very success of the informal tourism sector in Bali led to a series
of measures designed not so much to formalize the informal but to
capitalize on its success. In 1988, the Governor of Bali proposed fifteen
new 'tourist zones' as part of a reorganized provincial tourism plan
that simultaneously recognized the value of the informal sector and
imposed new zoning and land-use regulations on it, the effect of which
was to open up new areas of the island to hotel construction (van der
Giessen et al., 1999:56).15 In other words, evidence of local development
success was taken as a reason to re-regulate and then expose these
Backpackers, for example, tend to travel through several countries on a single journey
and hence tend to enter Indonesia either through Jakarta by air or Sumatra by ship.
When arriving in Bali by ship or plane from another Indonesian province, there are
no counting mechanisms.
These new zones were Ubud, Kintamani, Nusa Penida, Ujung, Lovina, Candidasa,
Candi Kusuma, Bedugal, Tanah Lot, Medewi, Gliimanuk, Teluk Terima, Kedonganan,
and Jimbaron.

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
sites to outside capital, both Javanese and international, by allow

construction of starred hotels outside the Nusa Dua, Sanur, and Kuta
areas (Picard, 1997:203). Following this, in 1990 the central govern
ment signed an agreement with UNDP to revise the master plan, which
had expired in 1985. Finally, a new provincial regulation redefining
the concept of cultural tourism was issued in 1991.
It may be recalled that in 1974 the Bali provincial government
had described its official policy of cultural tourism as a strategy to
use tourism as a tool to support culture. This policy was based on
the (presumed) foreign desire to experience Balinese 'cultural objects'
[objek-objek budaya], which would, it was believed, produce revenues
for the further production, strengthening, and preservation of
these objects of culture. This decree specifically stated that the
relationship between tourism and culture was one-way, that is to say,
tourists could experience Balinese culture without Balinese culture
experiencing tourism — in other words, without culture being harmed
or degraded by the negative aspects of tourism. The 1991 decree
(Perda number 3, 1991) transformed this one-way relationship into a
dialectical one:
Cultural tourism is the kind of tourism that in its development [perkembangan]

and progress uses Balinese culture, inspired by the soul of the Hindu religion
[and a part of the national culture] as a dominant element; and within this rela
tionship there is implied [tersirat] one goal, which is that there is a connection
on both sides between tourism and culture, so that both develop [meningkat] in
a matching, harmonious and well-balanced fashion (cited in Geriya, 1996:117).16
In Indonesian this regulation reads: Pariswisata Budaya adalah jenis kepariwisataan

yang dalam perkembangan dan pengembangannya menggunakan kebudayaan daerah
Bali yang dijiwai oleh agama Hindu yang merupakan bagian dari kebudayaan nasional
sebagai potensi dasaryang paling dominan, yang di dalamnya tersirat satu cit-cita
akan adanya hubungan timbal balik antara pariwisata dengan kebudayaan, sehingga
keduanya meningkat secara serasi, selaras, dan seimbang. The noun perkembangan,
from the verb kembang, 'to flower' or 'to bloom', is usually used in Indonesian to
translate development in a botanical sense of 'unfolding', that is, as an evolutionary
process. This stands in sharp contrast to the word used in official government dis
course about development, pembangunan, rooted in the verb bangun, 'to rise up' or
'to awaken', which carries the idea of a state-directed process of development. In
contrast to the evolutionary, natural sense of emergence perkembangan carries,
pembangunan conveys a sense of building, construction, and foundation - a trans
formation or overcoming of nature. Finally, the verb meningkat, usually translated
as 'to climb' or 'to ascend' (from the noun tingkat, 'floor' or 'storey'), conveys the
notion of 'developing' in the sense of reaching a higher stage.

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
In other words, tourism was now identified by local authorities as a

partner in the protection of culture, and hence a stimulus to a cultural
renaissance. By identifying suitable objects for tourism, provincial
authorities claimed to be able to catalogue, in effect, Balinese culture.
These new efforts at harnessing the informal activities of tourist
local interaction can be read together as an attempt to impose further
development planning [pembangunan] on what, from a planning
perspective, was 'unplanned' development [perkembangan] - that is,
development that had emerged and unfolded from a particular set of
circumstances outside the confines of rational planning. To use the
language of Michel de Certeau (1984), this illustrates the tensions
between the strategies of experts and planners and the tactics of every
day life. For Certeau, a strategy (the planning apparatus of pembangunan)
claims its own [propre] place distinct from an object, one that serves as
'a basis for generating relations with an exterior' (1984:xix).17 This
can be contrasted with a tactic (the unfolding of perkembangan) that
erases borders between self and other. Lacking a fixed place, tactics
are always in search of new opportunities, in part by manipulating events
as a means of creating such opportunities. A 'guileful ruse', an 'art of
the weak', a tactic works on and via an imposed terrain and is deter
mined by an absence of power (ibid.:37). This notion of tactic describes
what the Greeks called metis (ibid.).18 However, there is one crucial
difference here. Certeau limited his use of strategy and tactics to the
relationship between producers and consumers. In this case, I would
like to insist on a more complex distinction: the objects themselves -
the people who together compose the product marketed as Bali - employ
tactics to gain access to the consumers (foreign and domestic visitors)
targeted by the strategies of development planners.
Paradise neither lost nor found
Paradoxes abound in contemporary Bali. The heartland of expatriate

living and anthropological fieldwork in the years between the wars has
become a tourist ghetto that sprawls across much of the southern half
As Certeau put this, a strategy 'postulates a place that can be delimited as it own and
serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority composed of targets as
threats . . . can be managed' (Certeau, 1984:36).
For further discussion of metis, see Scott, 1998. Certeau notes that this concept has
been discussed in depth by Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant (1974).

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
of the island. In Ubud, art galleries, craft shops and espresso bars compe
for business with French and Italian restaurants and bookshops stoc
the New York Times, while in Kuta, surf shops and all-you-can-dr
night clubs compete with pizzerias and the Hard Rock Cafe for
cash of drunken Australians and rebel Japanese (they get tanned). Sa
once the home of expatriate artists, has become a playground of t
international scene; Mick Jagger chose it for his latest wedding, w
Ronald Reagan loved it for its golf course. The former homes of m
pre-war Western expatriates have become hotels and tourist attract
in their own right, as have the tourists themselves: Kuta Beach is
regular stop on bus tours for domestic tourists, who wander the b
at sunset, staring at sunbathing foreigners.
Of crucial importance here is the place of everyday social relatio
ships in this process, in particular the place of personal identity in relat
to culture. As Michel Picard has argued, the main goal of planned
ism development in New Order Indonesia was the transformatio
culture into cultural display as a means of increasing state control o
the social relations that make up culture (cf. Picard, 1997:198).
just as tourism does not destroy an authentic, holistic culture, nor
a holistic culture so easily and neatly respond to state policies in t
ways in which policy makers desire. Instead, tourism marks a s
where local inhabitants (those who are toured) are able to reflect b
on who they are and how they relate as both self and community
world beyond this space (cf. Abram et al., 1997:10). That is to s
clear-cut dichotomy between international tourism as a tool of
development and as a site of cultural degradation does not hold up in
practice. Instead, such tourism is both a form of Westernization and a
stimulus to indigenous culture. In Derridean terms, local cultural
practices are constituted as local only in opposition to other practices
that can be defined as not local (foreign). What it might mean to be
Balinese only has meaning via contact with something and someone
not Balinese.
In the case of Bali, tourism has neither destroyed authentic Balinese

culture nor spurred its rebirth. Rather, it has made local residents self
conscious about a thing they possess called culture (Picard, 1997:60)
This being so, the issue then becomes not an assessment of the impact
of tourism on a local culture but rather how tourism, as one factor among
many, influences and helps shape the outcomes of social conflicts
(Richter, 1989:189). Rather than being an external factor shaping cultura
degradation, tourism, at least in the case of Bali, has been an internal

59.100.1.159 on Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:41:41 UTC
source of transformation, one that has transcended the boundaries

between the sacred and the profane (Picard, 1993:72).19
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multitude of replicating villages with a rich, but essentially homogeneous, culture'
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'A green and sumptuous garden': authenticity, hybridity, and the Bali Tourism Project

Author(s): Robert Shepherd

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23749986

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The Bali Tourism Project, begun in the mid-1970s as a joint effort

After coming to power in the aftermath of a 1965 military coup that

South East Asia Research, 10, 1, pp. 63-97

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Viewed from a contemporary perspective, the Bali Tourism Pro

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World Bank funded twenty-four such large-scale tourism development

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the central government-driven promotion of tourism as a tool of nat

As part of preparations for the first five-year national development plan

Pengumuman Resmi Daehrah Propinsi Bali [Formal Announcement of the Province

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[kesenian asli] but also of handicrafts [kerajinan rakyat].3 All of these,

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The Bali Tourism Study

The measures designed to attempt to introduce the excursion routes in

In April 1971, SCETO issued its report in six volumes. Volume I pr

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on to assert, contact between outside tourists and local cultures can

This illustrates the paradoxical mirroring effect of expert and academic

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They supported this claim by relying on a binary opposition between

The consultants had asserted that extensive contact between (o

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a Balinese population at risk of alienation, consumption, individu

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Bali Tourism Development Authority to manage and regulate the industry

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The answer to this rhetorical question - 'What will happen if one

Mining culture: the Bali tourism project

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was projected to be a US$213.4 million project. The official also ex

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In addition to its unique culture, Bali was also strategically located on

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exchange earnings - will result in an overall impact which, on balance,

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Balinese interactions, namely, the rapid expansion of private tourist

Despite the presumed importance of fieldwork to the anthropological project, little

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In each of these locales, researchers noted evidence of what they v

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types of groups were organized not by neighbourhood (as were the

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that 'art', as a product of 'culture', exists within an intrinsically

Officially entitled Seminar Pariwisata Budaya Daerah Bali, or 'Seminar on cultural

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Francillon argued that superficiality is better in the case of tourism

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tourism is the type of tourism that supports the development of the