Yet this ease of use and freedom to access the Internet hides a hidden danger – that of facilitating child-sex tourism in developing countries and remote areas which travellers are now able to access through new technology.

A new study, released by the Bangkok-based ECPAT International, based in Bangkok, highlighting “The use of information and communication technologies in connection with cases of child sex tourism in East and Southeast Asia”, points out the dangers inherent in the rise of technology and how the travel industry can help safeguard the region’s youths against this evil.

According to the study, “… the travel and IT industries have … witnessed an increase in sexual exploitation of children through the mediums they provide. The exponential increase in Internet-related child pornography is now well-documented, and the issues of contacting and grooming children via the Internet are receiving more attention as serious threats to children everywhere”.

It highlights “the increase in certain forms of sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, in particular through abuse of the Internet and new and developing technologies, and as a result of the increased mobility in travel and tourism.”

While it acknowledges that the relationship between mass tourism and the use of new ICT in tourism and its combined impact in advancing child sex tourism is “extremely complex and difficult to discern”, it notes that “technology can enable child sex tourism in more subtle ways”.

“Tourists can now purchase mobile telephones in airports once they have arrived in most destinations, allowing them greater freedom in organizing their excursions, where they stay, where they travel, who they interact with, and when and how they interact with these people.

“Mobile phones can be used to send and exchange pictures between tourists and children in tourism destinations or to record abuse and transport imagery.

“Tourism development and information technologies are also making remote areas … more accessible to tourists and in this way make children vulnerable to tourists seeking sexual contact with them.”

The study covered three tourist-sending countries – Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – and three tourist-receiving countries – Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, and tracked commercial sex tourism websites and forums with a focus on sex tourism.

It found that child-sex tourism specific features were more blatant in newsgroups and forums than on the websites.

“Clearly, commercially run websites are concerned with their own legal – as well as economic – survival, which would be greatly jeopardized by explicit reference to the involvement of young people and children in their operations.

“Forums and newsgroups on the Internet are “open” spaces normally not owned by the people that populate them and this has obvious implications in terms of the responsibility felt towards such public environments.”

It also identified Internet cafes as vulnerable spots and where web-cams can become an insidious tool.

During the period of the study, ECPAT said it received over 57 specific reports of suspected under-age teenagers engaged in “acts through web-cam chat rooms promoting Asian contacts”.

“Social websites such as Facebook and MySpace have been repeatedly mentioned as conduits through which an increasing number of users – including children – indulge in erotic or sexually exploitative online exchanges and it is certainly not by choice that over 3,500 accounts held on those two websites by convicted child sex offenders registered in the state of New York were recently terminated under the 2008 Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP).”

The study said that in South-east Asia, the Philippines is frequently mentioned in reference to this type of virtual interchange, and “the cybersex market seems to be considerably more developed there than anywhere else in the region…”

The study lists a series of recommendations that range from establishing a (ICT-Tourism) Social Impact Assessment Committee to review all major national ICT and/or tourism projects to strengthening legal framework.

For the private sector, it urged legitimate travel booking websites to be sensitized towards the issue of child sex tourism and get involved in the dissemination of information and awareness-raising material such as through the use of banners.

It said web hosting companies should provide more accurate checks and monitoring of the material they provide on their servers and firmly apply any rules relating to the publishing of illegal material.

Hotels equipped with wi-fi connections should grant access only to identified, registered customers and accurate logs of their access to their wi-fi network should be maintained.

The study warned that “a policy of development which fails to take into due account the need for a socially and environmentally sustainable advance of tourism, as well as the risks hidden in the unrestrained diffusion of communication technologies, to communities unprepared to confront those dangers, would pave the way for the exploitation of local vulnerabilities, especially with children, by ill-intentioned travellers.”