Leave well enough alone.

So much for blogging about globalised advertising and marketing.

I have just witnessed, first hand, what a lack of marketing to can do for a tourist’s experience.

I am currently on Tioman Island, a small pearl shaped dot off the east coast of Malaysia, in the South China sea.

It’s marketed as an unspoiled paradise.

Admittedly this is the off season but so far it has lived up to the spin. There are no touts and no pressure to buy this or do that.

What has amazed us most is the way the animals cohabitate with the locals, and the tourist.

Apart from the numerous birds and butterflies there are somewhat larger critters like giant monitor lizards and families of monkeys.

What is so surprising about Tioman is that these animals are very happy to respect your right to be there if you just let them be.

This is in stark contrast to places like Bali, where the locals have made the monkeys so dependent on food, sold to the tourists, that the they have become a pest. The Bali monkeys have become so aggressive that people are now too scared to visit some of the original tourist attractions that made the island so famous.

The fauna isn’t the only inhabitant of Bali that is discouraging the tourists, the locals are doing a great job as well.

Touting on the beaches, in the bars and on the sidewalk has become so aggressive that many people are put off returning to what was once the paradise of South East Asia.

The over marketing, of the natural and human resources, has lead to a devaluation of what was the original attraction.

"Don't monkey with me"

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