The New Seven Wonders – who cares?
This week, Vietnam’s media has been full of self-congratulatory articles about Halong Bay being named as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. People genuinely seem to believe that the award will lead to a huge spurt in tourism and really put Vietnam as a whole on the world tourism map.
But some people, myself included, have smelled a rat. Firstly, Halong Bay’s status on the list is only temporary, with the final list to be announced next year. Why? Well, if tourism officials in the Maldives are to be believed, the whole campaign is just a moneymaking scam for the organisers. Following their own nomination, the Maldives claim they were asked to cough up the following:
•$350,000 for a platinum level sponsorship licensing fee,
•two $210,000 requests for gold level licensing fees,
•a $1million license fee to put the New 7 Wonders of Nature logo on planes,
•a $1million license fee for their national telecom operator to participate for allowing phone voting and,
•a request for a ‘World Tour’ stop in the Maldives for the New 7 Wonders delegates to party and enjoy the country at a cost of $500,000.
That’s over $3m, just to be on a list that isn’t even officially recognised. I wonder if Vietnam, with its annual tourism marketing budget of just $1.5m, is going to shell out that kind of money? I hope not.
And what’s that about it not being officially recognised? Well, UNESCO certainly don’t think so and have distanced themselves from it, claiming it’s just about media hype rather than actual environmental protection. Will any of the above money be put back into infrastructure & preservation schemes? I doubt it.
Thirdly, Vietnam itself resorted to various shady tricks in order to get Halong Bay on the list, with one company in particular (see pic) requiring its staff to send 100 SMS votes each, threatening them with the sack if they didn’t vote.
So, basically, who gives a damn? The campaign doesn’t seem to have generated that much publicity outside the participating countries, and clearly has very little credibility. Vietnam would be better off spending its time, money & effort on cleaning up Halong Bay, educating its local people about business ethics, pollution & environmental preservation, and closely monitoring safety standards on its boats, rather than engaging in pointless cosmetic exercises like this.
