Tourism needs a reality check. My article in Times of India 9 June 2013

Tourism – when less is more

Click on this to read the newspaper article: https://plus.google.com/u/0/117435543637317707346/posts/3FUjUeGHdc5

Or read this word document:

No business like tourism business

Tourism worldwide is massive $ 4.5 Trillion industry (remember 1 trillion is a 1,000 billion) and results in around 250 million jobs. To give you a sense of scale, the software industry is only is $ 500 billion worth and creates 20 million jobs.  Several countries have learnt how to handle tourism successfully showing off their attractions while safeguarding their most sensitive sites from over exploitation. As a consequence tourism has become a major sustainable contributor to their economies.

India is finally waking up

By comparison the Indian tourism industry which is said to be around $ 9 Billion is a measly 0.02% by value and around 0.5% by international arrivals. No wonder that there is so much ignorance of the subject in our country. The Ministry of Tourism is aware of our country’s shortcomings in this industry. They realize that infrastructure, human resources and marketing are the top three priorities and plan to invest in these areas to improve the tourism business.  Central grants have been allocated for several states and our very own Vizag district will also get its share of the funding.

Vizag’s ambitions

This brings me to Vizag and its tourism ambitions. At meetings and workshops on tourism, ideas fly fast and furious about how to bring more-more-more tourists to (a) our beaches (b) to Buddhist sites and (c) to the Araku area - all already badly ravaged environmentally sensitive areas. And this is why I shudder when I hear some of the naive copy-paste suggestions at such meetings. For example “sun-bathing decks” for swimmers on RK beach. I had a flash vision of charred brown bodies in swim suits on our own Bay Watch & Bondi Beach and thousands of young men ogling with their tongues hanging out. Let me explain further.

Understand our domestic tourists

Those who have traveled to the more advanced tourist-friendly countries will know that we can never ever aspire to attract significant numbers of foreign tourists. That is because our population overloaded country is decades away from offering the type of infrastructure, facilities and social culture that those tourists are accustomed to. Now, one should not feel hurt when accepting this carved-in-stone fact.

The truth is that we are completely dependent on domestic tourists. Once we accept that fact we must understand who our customer is. I have not done a formal research on this but am quite sure that when it is done the Vizag domestic tourist can be segmented something like this:

·        At the top of the triangle are the business visitors who stay in 3 to 5 star hotels and keep aside a day or two for sightseeing after they have finished work. They generally travel in style and spend plenty of money.

·        The second segment is generally young male and female executives traveling in groups on a short company sponsored holiday or a seminar. They live in 3 star hotels and spend quite a bit of money.

·        The third segment is the budget family tourists who come in the cooler months mostly from Bengal and stay in economy guesthouses and lodges.  They travel in group sizes of 6 to 10 and are very budget conscious.

·        The fourth segment is the “plastic bag tourists” who carry much of their belongings in plastic bags.  They travel 50 to a bus, visit temples, refresh themselves at choultry type of arrangements, stations and bus stands. Most of these tourists can be recognized by their shaved heads.

·        And finally we have the largest group who can be called “local tourists”. They are from Vizag and surrounding areas. They are young, travel in small groups, stay with relatives and are often mistaken for outstation tourists. 

I can guarantee you that the bottom two segments are the largest in numbers and spend the least per capita.

More mess - less revenue

The most common characteristic of our domestic tourists, especially the lowest two segments, is that they have the propensity to mess up the areas they visit.  They are the ones that will not notice a garbage bin even if it hits them on their shaven heads.

At Buddhist sites they climb on the stupas, carve their names on the ancient bricks, eat their pulihara and ease themselves anywhere. Then they wonder what the fuss is about a pile of old bricks!

At Bora they deface the caves and litter their environment. We have seen how in a matter of 10 years our million year old beautiful Bora Caves has been vandalized beyond repair under the stewardship of the APTDC, who allowed lakhs of unsupervised paying visitors in, while turning a blind eye to the carnage inside the caves.

Monkeys in a glass shop

I ask you, would you allow a troop of monkeys (an illustration not meant to be derogatory) to play with your glassware? The sensitive sites that we want to convert to “tourist attractions” are like fragile glass displays. They will be destroyed unless they are handled with care.

Lower footfall – higher revenue model

If we are running an amusement park - the more the visitors you get the better. However when you show off an environmentally sensitive or heritage endangered site the policy mantra should definitely be “less visitors - more revenue”. For example, instead of 100 visitors spending Rs. 5 each yielding Rs. 500 and causing much damage, would it not be better to have only 10 visitors who spend Rs. 100 each, yielding Rs. 1,000 and not impacting the site adversely?  Would not this safeguard the sites better? Let’s think about that.