Incredible Indias Inroad Into World Tourism Map
Travel and tourism has gained a neverbefore momentum over the last decade. And India except for some areas to be heeded has been keeping pace to the moneymaking and development drive. Initiatives taken up by India through various measures including publicprivate partnership are much visible now. 2007 witnessed over five million tourists to India and the trend continues in 2008 with 12 growth in foreign traffic and 29 growth in forex earning in the first four months of the year. Setting up of a tourism office in Beijing gave forth a new avenue as far as tour to India is concerned. But India still has miles to wade through in terms of offering better tourism products and worldclass infrastructure. Incredible India campaign has been a major success of the past few years. But it doesnt cause us to be poised enough for our neighbor china boasts of 50 millions foreign visitors and we have the required potential.
The campaign has been triumphant in capturing highend tourists spending more time in India. And even though countries like Indonesia Thailand and Singapore have larger number of tourists arrivals the foreign exchange earned per foreign tourist of India is much higher which is 1920 compare to Indonesia 905 Singapore 835 and Malaysia 520. This is because India is able to provide quality products better service and improved infrastructure. Ambika Soni Minister of Tourism and Culture in a recent interview highlighted many areas that are being taken care of for us to be hopeful of Indias economic growth. The minister said Medical Tourism has got a boost and over one lakh fifty thousand patients arrived in India in 2004 from across the globe for medical treatment. Ecommerce platform has been put on the portal of Incredible India. This service has got many online companies like yatra.com makemytrip.com etc. together thus enabling the customers to avail competitive price.
In an effort to put India on the global tourism map we have witnessed BBC and CNN to have produced number of TV commercials for Incredible India campaign both in domestic and international markets. This time around the world MICE market is estimated to be around 280 billion of which Asias share is 30 billion. Initiatives are also being taken to develop 127 rural sites into tourist destination to flaunt their local culture heritage cuisine and art. This is how things have started to take off.
Herein lies the rub. As of now efforts being taken are more of branding exercises than working for the ground realities. Unless India makes it to offer quality tourism products and worldclass infrastructure branding exercise alone cant turn up returns. In a country like India tourism is largely a regional phenomenon while some areas are flourishing with activities; some are unexplored yet even as they have potential. Tourists still gather at the conventional sites of some prominent cities of India like Delhi Agra Mumbai etc. Given the range of diversity; and heritage pool we could have adopted measures to disburse foreign tourists to each corner of the country.
Our land is already a touristssavvy one. All we need is a strategy involving public and private participation. There is acute shortage of hotels and manpower to deal with escalating number of tourists. Floor Area Ratio FAR in many cities is still inadequate. France has little to flaunt in terms of cuisine geography and culture; and a country six times smaller than India can attract 20 times number of tourist that India did.
India is insecure. The cases of tourist murder are being reported every month the tragic murder of scarlet recently has added to the woes of foreigners. Foreigners are fleeced everywhere. Many hotspots in India are connected unacceptably. It is high time for India to embark on a mission to develop the unexplored sites across India connect them properly; increase the number of hotels; provide infrastructure; offer security to foreigners and finally to wake up Indians to work jointly to make our country the best travel getaway of the world. Mere branding efforts wouldnt work.
About the writer: Despite some people take writing as their acquired taste I believe writing gets its due justice when it is an inborn passion. Had a stint of writing for web of five years. Moving forward I joined Cyber Media as Asst. Editor to PCQuest Indias leading IT magazine. Job being very technical cum challenging gives me enough space to introspect learn and communicate. Challenge is the real fun. Want to take up the job least liked bothered. An offscreen worker. Life is a challenging art and requires us to make way through the crush. My lifes austerity has no definition but has ample spaces for creative ideas adventurous works and a work culture. To say it right and to write it right matter to me a lot. In a world much cutthroat your skill set is instrumental to give you goahead I believe.
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