More than 25 outfits
operate the trips--
and it's legal
By Toddi Gutner in New York
Ron Corben in Bangkok
Business Week, June 17, 1996

The people who run the sex tour agencies deny they are fixing up customers with minors.

as long as there
is demand, there will
be supply

Since the end of the Vietnam War, organized sex tourism to Asia's steamy cities has mostly lured Germans and Japanese. Now, Americans are getting into the organized sex tour business.

More than 25 companies, based in Miami, New York, and San Diego, among other cities, offer 10-day to two-week group or individual tours for $1,800 to $2,500 per person. The price includes round-trip airfare to Bangkok or Manila, hotel, ground transportation, a local guide, and "introductions to lady companions throughout your stay as desired,'' as a brochure from New York-based Big Apple Oriental Tours puts it.

Trips are advertised in magazines such as Soldier of Fortune and Oriental Women. Tour customers are generally men from 30 to 60 from fields as diverse as law and carpentry.

SIGHTSEEING

During the day, they visit the cultural sights of a capital city and surrounding areas, such as the temples of Thailand or Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines.

"We do the legitimate stuff in the afternoon and save the eroticism for evening,'' says Mac Horn, a Santa Monica (Calif.) operator who sends tourists to Bangkok through PVS Enterprises. At night, the guide directs customers to bars in red-light districts, acting as a translator and matchmaker and making sure no one gets ripped off.

Despite the sordid nature of the business, it is not against U.S. law to organize a tour for the purpose of exploiting erotic nightlife in foreign cities. What is illegal is the sexual exploitation of children. A provision of the 1994 crime bill addressed this issue, making it a felony, punishable by fine and/or up to 10 years in prison, for an American to go overseas for the purpose of having sex with a minor. Germany, Britain, Sweden, and others have passed similar laws.

Of course, the people who run the sex tour agencies deny they are fixing up customers with minors. "You won't see any child prostitutes,'' says Horn. "That's a myth.'' However, Ellis Shenk, the U.S. coordinator of Bangkok-based End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT), estimates there are a million children subjected to prostitution in Asia. And among their patrons are sex tour customers who seek out young girls under the mistaken assumption that they are less likely to carry sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

To address this growing problem, ECPAT, UNICEF, and the Swedish government are sponsoring the first World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children this August in Sweden. A big focus will be stamping out child prostitution worldwide.

"We're not taking on the sex-tour industry, but we do hope to improve law enforcement against the problem,'' says Shenk.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

In Thailand, a recently passed Prostitution Prevention & Suppression Bill mandates two to six years in jail for customers who are convicted of buying sex from children under the age of 15. But the problem is lax enforcement, and as long as there is demand, there will be supply.

"We have to stop those kinds of men traveling abroad,'' says Amihan Abueva, ECPAT's executive secretary in Bangkok.

Some tour operators in the U.S. have changed the way they market their trips for fear of attracting the attention of prosecutors. Itineraries have begun to feature golf and scuba diving activities along with wet T-shirt contests and lingerie shows. Still other agencies simply claim to be matchmaking services for men seeking Asian wives.

"We emphasize romance and long-term relationships,'' says Norman Barabash of Big Apple Oriental Tours, which contends that 25% of its customers find mates. But clearly, sex is what sells, and despite American moralism, it's a thriving business.

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