Travel to the Land of Chinggis Khan
Tourism development in Mongolia
By Helmut Weber
As a land-locked country between its giant neighbours Russia and China, Mongolia was isolated from most of the world for nearly seventy years until 1990, when democratic forces ended the centralized political system. After the breakdown of the former planned economy, the Mongolian authorities began implementing a wide-ranging programme of monetary, fiscal, and structural reforms designed to reduce the role of the public sector and to promote rapid development of the private. Facing an enormous amount of economic and social problems, the national government places special emphasis on international tourism as a promising strategy to be used in its national poverty alleviation plan and in its attempt to reduce the chronic imbalance between national income and expenditure.Despite all efforts to boost tourism in recent years, the number of international arrivals is steadily declining instead of growing. Between 1990, when some 147,000 visitors come to Mongolia, and 1995 the country noted a drop of around 25% (110,000), and until 1997 the figure dropped again to some 82,000 international arrivals. In sharp contrast to the declining tourism demand, Mongolia has experienced a booming supply side. The number of tour operators and travel agencies, monopolized by only one state-owned company until 1990, increased up to more than 300 licensed small-scale companies in 1998. We find a similar trend of mushrooming growth in the accommodation sector, including the traditional Mongolian felt tents which are used as countryside accommodation. The growing imbalance between supply and demand necessarily leads to a highly competitive market situation with a sharp polarization favouring a few strong enterprises.
As a relatively new tourism destination, Mongolia has to deal with various natural and historical disadvantages. The geographical position between the Siberian part of Russia and the Gobi Desert with a harsh continental climate keeps the tourism season, with about four months per year within very narrow limits. Furthermore, the long political isolation from the Western world has resulted in an obvious lack of professional skills in and experiences with the 'rules' of the international tourism market. The tourism sector (including the government authorities) is still dominated by 'displaced employment'. The breakdown of the Soviet system left behind a high number of well educated specialists from various fields jobless, and many of them considered the international tourism sector as a chance for a new future. But because of the fact of limited professional skills, the way in which they carried out their business was in many cases based on a 'trial-and-error approach', instead of sitting down and designing a feasible business development strategy. Here we can identify an important reason for the failure-cum-stagnation of many companies and the tourism sector as a whole. Complaints from travellers and the international counterparts of Mongolian enterprises are rifle and lead to a declining reputation and an eclipse of the attractiveness of the tourism sector.
Responding to the negative trends, several projects have been implemented in recent years in order to restructure the Mongolian tourism sector and to improve human resources and marketing. Since 1997 two international teams (the Japanese International Co-operation Agency - Jica - and the Tacis Programme of the European Community) have been working simultaneously on two (!) comprehensive master plans for tourism development in Mongolia, including the identification of potential target groups, legal aspects, investment needs, and human resources issues. In 1995, a private company established the first Mongolian college for professional tourism management which has been supported by the German government since 1998. In early summer 1999, the first graduates will enter the tourism labour market. Another promising example is an attempt of the 'Mongolian Society of Ecotourism' to define a comprehensive concept of environmentally and socially acceptable tourism to suit the Mongolian reality. This project, supported by the German 'Technical Co-operation Agency' (GTZ) and the German Ministry of Economy and Technology, includes the establishment of environmental protection measures for sensitive areas; the protection of the traditional nomadic culture, and the increase of the benefits for local people; and the implementation of individually designed training programmes for tourist enterprises to improve their professional skills.
Helmut Weber is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography and Tourism Sciences, University of Bielefeld, Germany; since January 1998 he is also 'Integrated Expert for Human Resource Development' and Deputy Director at the Institute of Tourism Management, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, supported by the 'Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM)/ German Technical Cooperation Agency' (GTZ).