Postcard from Bishkek

When I first moved to London, back in 1978, having moved into my flat, I took two weeks off and went to explore the city.  I bought a “go anywhere” ticket for the tube and set off to see the sights: Buckingham Palace and The Tower of London; I sat in the public gallery of the Houses of Parliament  and the Old Bailey; watched planes arriving and departing at Heathrow; perused the galleries and museums; strolled through the parks.

I remember a couple of hours spent in Hyde Park.  Having  wandered around the park I ended up at Speakers’ Corner, where anyone who feels that they have something to get off there chest can do so – although they might have to develop a thick skin and work on tactics in order to handle hecklers.  Contrary to popular belief, there is no immunity from the law, nor are any subjects proscribed, but in practice the police tend to be tolerant and therefore intervene only when they receive a complaint or if they hear profanity.    I remember that, on that particular day back in the summer of 1978 it was quite quiet … Speakers’ Corner is normally most active on a Sunday when several of the speakers are quite well known personalities.

The usual image is of someone throwing down onto the ground a upturned “soapbox”, (a sort of wooden carton), and then standing on it and speaking in a load voice to attract a crowd to listen to them.  These days people have special stands constructed which display posters bearing a slogan to help attract attention.

In a way, ianbek is an example of the modern equivalent of a soapbox …  a virtual soapbox … among the  advantages that this new technology brings is that my “rantings” will be available as long as the internet remains operating and I remember to keep up the payments on my domain registration and hosting.

Some people may think that I never left my soapbox … and they regular readers of my postcards will recognize my  bête noir when it comes to statistics and their use, or mis-use.  I admit that it is a particular hobbyhorse of mine but, this time, I am glad to be writing about about somewhere other than Kyrgyzstan in this respect.

What started me off this time was a series of articles I came across in my regular trawl of news sites.  The first was about the most visited places in the world in 2010, (the figures for 2011 having yet to be published), at least according to the figures of the UNWTO, (United Nations World Tourism Organization).

Personally, I am not sure what real value there is in such league tables but they do provide food for thought even if you don’t accept them at face value.  This particular article gave the following comparisons for the number of international visitors to countries:

1	France	76.8 million
2	United States	59.7 million
3	China	55.7 million
4	Spain	52.7 million
5	Italy	43.6 million
6	United Kingdom	28.1 million
7	Turkey	27.0 million
8	Germany	26.9 million
9	Malaysia	24.6 million
10	Mexico	22.4 million

The first thing that struck me was the European predominance.  It wasn’t really a surprise – many of the visitors crossing the borers would have come from the relatively well off neighbouring European countries so would have the cash to spend on travel and also relatively easy journeys, whilst those coming from further afield would be attracted by the history and culture as well as the level of comfort and service.

The position of the United States was interesting, only second place – and losing out to France … mind you, as the American tourism industry seems to be continuously saying, the attitude of the authorities, (especially as a result of the security measures introduced as a result of 9/11), puts a lot of potential tourists off choosing to visit the “Home of the Brave and Land of the Free”.  However, I see that the Obama administration wants to address that and are introducing new measures to try and promote the tourist potential of the country.  That includes procedures to speed up and make easier visa applications for certain nationalities .  I hope that is noted by those Kyrgyz officials and others who say that visas are not a deterrent to potential tourists, discouraging them from choosing a potential destination and pushing them towards others which appear more welcoming.

China did well, jumping two places in the table from the previous year, outstripping Spain and Italy.  Malaysia was interesting, I wonder where those tourists came from, (Australia?, China?) and where was Thailand?  I wonder how many of those tourists were travelling the Silk Road – not that many if the figures from Kyrgyzstan are anything to go by … Travelling overland along the Great Silk Road almost inevitably involves passing through Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyz officials always pay great attention to Turkey, (especially when it comes to the question of licensing), and that’s easy to understand when you see that Turkey managed to come in 7th place with 27 million visitors.  However, Kyrgyzstan is not Turkey … we don’t have the history of Istanbul, the Topkapi Palace, the terraces of Cappadocia or the Mediterranean coastline which offer all year round potential.

The entry that caught my eye, however, was the last one: Mexico with 22.4 million visitors. That may have been because it was accompanied by a photograph of Chichen Itza – well worth a visit for anyone who is interested in more than just sand, sea and sun.

As an aside: I remember visiting Chichen Itza and amazing everyone because I got to the top of the pyramid far faster than anyone else.  The reason was simple … the steps up the side of the pyramid were very narrow making it difficult to climb them if you approached them as a flight of stairs.  Only half your foot could rest on a step making it very uncomfortable and putting a strain on your leg muscles.  I zig-zagged right and left, going up diagonally, (a technique I seen in an old Hollywood movie about the Aztecs), which meant that my foot could easily fit sideways onto a step – it was much more comfortable, easier on the legs … and much faster.   People saw me and copied the technique.

It wasn’t as much help on the way down, however, as the steps are very steep and vertigo set in.

I suppose that a lot of those twenty two and a half million visitors would have come from their neighbour,  the United States, but one thing that struck me when I thought about this was that Mexico has a mixed reputation … there aren’t many countries that have a website dedicated to warning tourists about the dangers of visiting them … such as Mexico vacation awareness.  If Mexico can do so well in this league table given this sort of background … then surely there is potential for Kyrgyzstan to overcome the negative publicity that we have experienced in the last few years, if only we can set up a suitable crisis management system in order to do so.

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Anyway … I probably wouldn’t have thought that much more about it except for the fact that virtually the next news story I saw was about how Mexico had seen record numbers of tourists over the new year.  It reported that, “according to figures published by the tourism ministry, 1,072,180 foreign tourists visited Mexico in December 2011, 13 percent more than during December 2010. ”  That seemed quite impressive … about the same sort of number that Kyrgyzstan gets in a year.

 Then my eye caught a link at the foot of the page: 10.4 million tourists expected to visit Mexico in final two weeks of 2011 … the final two weeks of 2011 ?! … that is, during the second half of December … but in December, “according to figures published published by the tourism ministry”, there were just over a million visitors to the country … so, what happened to the other nine million?

Oh, I can think of possible answers to that question … but it struck me as an excellent example of what I am constantly saying - Statistics often raise more questions than they answer!

What’s more, neither of these figures, one million and ten million, fit well with the 22.4 million visitors reported for 2010 … it seems that either Mexico saw an impressive increase in the number of tourists for 2011 – or else a pretty impressive decline.

I wonder which it was?

Tags: Reminiscences, Statistics, Tourism