A Stitch in Haste

This grips me more than would a muddy old river or reclining Buddha...
--"One Night in Bangkok"

It took nearly all weekend for me to get my arms around the great Reason-Instapundit-Blair debate over folks who are vacationing in the midst of the tsunami carnage. Some tidbits from various comment sections of assorted blogs:

--It's not a boycott, exactly. Just a sort of sympathetic shunning, I guess.

--"Hey honey... Let's go to Thailand. With all those rotting bodies filling [the] streets, they have cut prices in half! What a deal!"

--What['s] better for these people, some rice and blankets, or the ability to keep their jobs?

--[B]ooze it up on the beach while watching the corpses float by. Ah, the smell of rotting flesh and the cries of starving locals! It'll be a vacation to remember.

--You can forgive people for not visiting Bali after the bomb. They were afraid for their own safety. There is no reason at all not to continue to visit Phuket now, apart from the threat of disease which should quickly pass.

--An indignant Russian who arrived at the Novotel Phuket Resort on the day after the tsunami loudly complained that there was no champagne reception.

I think what these alternating remarks demonstrates is that there is more "talking past each other" than a bona fide clash of ideologies.

I once had a moment of potential disaster tourism -- when Prague was devastated by floods in August 2002 it shot up to the top of my destination list, though for a variety of reasons I don't do much traveling these days and never actually went. (I'm also currently trapped in a reverse form of the same phenomenon in that I very much want to visit Rome but I'm reluctant to do so out of fear that the Supreme Bigot will die while I'm there and the whole city will shut down and ruin my trip.)

In any case, I think the two opposing camps are both presupposing a ubiquitous image of the devastation that may or may be true everywhere in the disaster zone. There are almost certainly not "rotting corpses" everywhere, especially in tourist areas like Phuket. And I can understand someone with non-refundable airline tickets and resort packages making a reasoned decision not to cancel a trip (which is not the same as making an especial effort to travel to South Asia to "catch a bargain").

Still, one must keep in mind that this tsunami is sui generis, as is Thailand (i.e., many tourists are seeking something there besides the natural scenery). And to abstain from going to South Asia this week or this month is hardly "misguided compassion." It's respect for the dead and, one would hope, for one's own sensitivities and humanity. In other words, there's potential for both compassionate capitalism and ugly bargain-hunting.

But sweeping generalities on either side of the debate and extrapolating from other, comparatively smaller disasters, are unwarranted. South Asia tourists are entitled to some slack -- but not unlimited slack.

Not everything has to be black-or-white.

UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that the "compassionate capitalist" argument may be something of a red herring:

In the economies of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand and the other affected countries, the tsunami is likely to register more as a small wave, because the two industries most heavily hit -- tourism and fishing -- make up small percentages of the overall economy.
...
Thailand's economy is expected to grow about 6 percent in 2005, about the same as in 2004. Tourism in southern Thailand around Phuket, the only part of the country affected, accounts for about 1.3 percent of the national economy. Already, much of the Phuket tourism has been rerouted to other Thai resort towns, and the damaged beach towns could well see a construction boom as up to $2 billion is expected to be invested to rebuild beachfront hotels, homes and shops.

Also noteworthy: "The currencies and stock markets of Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka did not move significantly last week. Indonesia's Jakarta Composite Index rose Tuesday and Wednesday but fell slightly on Thursday." Interesting.

Related Posts:
Regarding Tsunami Donations
Tsunami Update: Be Prepared for the Burma Numbers