VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

Everyone wants"beach tourism". Yet there is no way we can protect our beaches from trash. This year the UNWTO theme worldwide was "Sustainable Tourism - a tool for development". Yet despite so many reminders to our tourism department that this was an important time to work on sustainability, there was complete disinterest from officials and from the industry. We went about doing the usual masala song and dance events on our beaches. Any responsible tourism department interested in the long term sustainable development of the industry would have seized the opportunity to prepare a strong policy on cleaning up and maintaining our tourist spots including those inland and in our ghats. Now we are "developing" Yerada and other spots asking our beach. GOD HELP US!

Good time to extract our heads from the clouds and get back to basics.  Five crores spent on Balloon festival, net result? Perhaps a hundred real extra tourists on one day at ARAKU!  Cost per tourist?  You work it out. Five crores divided by 6 lakhs earning citizens of Vizag. How much did each of us contribute through our tax money for that balloon Fest? You work it out! Big noise about heli-tourism now gone phut! Interpretation centres - Rs. 1.5 crores each already spent on Thotlakonda and Bavikonda  in 2015- 2016, lying incomplete and unused for 2 years! How much loss of interest in non usable assetd? Our money squandered. Which official is responsible for this? Meanwhile no functional loos at any of our premium Buddhist sites Thotlakonda and Bavikonda! An apology of a loo at Bojjanakonda. ARAKU is a rubbish dump, road sides full of defecation, tons of garbage and plastic everywhere. The dirtiest of eastern ghat towns! Time now for govt to ...

Our local events make sure that the performers and the audience are kept well apart. VVIPs and VIPs occupy the entire space near the stage. Performers hate this, they cannot connect with the audience. The crowds hate this because they cannot communicate their appreciation to the performers. The VVIPs are busy folk and often do not turn up keeping the front white sofas and seats vacant. It is disheartening to see excellent performances not getting audience response because they are simply too far away. This my friends has been going on for a long long time. It is surprising that those professional event managers who are paid tons of money to deliver a good show just toe the government line and keep following this old established official political format. We understand that security is an issue when VVIPs are there. That is why we should not mix business with pleasure when it comes to events. Now Visakha Utsav is around the corner, crores of our tax money will be spent on...

The United Nations World Tourism Organization  (UNWTO) has declared 27 th September as World Tourism Day. The day serves to remind us that in this modern world, tourism is one of the most important human activities by way of numbers of persons employed and revenue generated. Every year countries throughout the world celebrate this day with great fanfare and rededicate themselves to improving their tourism industry. The theme for this year is “1 Billion Tourists, 1 Billion Opportunities” . 1,000,000,000 international tourists Now, keep your calculator, pencil and paper handy … we are entering number land. In 2012 for the first time a billion people packed their bags and went travelling internationally.  Take a moment to understand this number. One billion is equal to a 1,000 million, or 100 Crores. This is 20 times the population of divided Andhra Pradesh and around 80% of our nation’s population. With a world population now a shade over 7 billion people this mean...