World Tourism Day 27 September 2016

World tourism day 2016

Times of India dated 25 September 2016

On 27 September, the world will celebrate World Tourism Day. You must wonder if this is just another one of those silly days like friendship day, cell phone day, ice cream day, pet day, beer drinking day, open defecation free day and so on. Does World Tourism Day have any real significance? If it does, what does it mean for us here in Vizag?  

What UNWTO does

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has 157 countries as members plus several associate members, Affiliate Members representing the private sector, educational institutions, tourism associations and local tourism authorities.  They are responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable tourism worldwide. As the leading international organisation in the field of tourism, UNWTO promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmentally sustainable tourism. The organisation generates data, assists with tourism policies, and assists with tourism education and technical assistance. One would expect that Indian tourism industry would take full advantage such a body but a visit to their Indian website has only the mention of the minister of state for tourism and the rest is as empty and dry as the Sahara desert. For a country that gets a miserable 0.7% of the world’s 1.2 billion tourism traffic we would expect greater engagement with organisations such as this. But you know how we are … “we know everything and we don’t need this “phoren” organisation’s help”.

World Tourism Day 2016

The World Tourism Day celebration was started by the United Nations World Tourism Organization in the year 1980. It is celebrated globally every year on 27^th September. Each year a theme is selected and promoted throughout the world. In 2013 it was “Tourism & Water, protecting our Common Future”, in 2014 it was “Tourism and Community Development”, in 2015 it was “1 Billion tourists a Billion Opportunities” and this year the theme is “Tourism for All, promoting Universal Accessibility”. These themes are not selected on a whim. Much thought goes into it and it reflects the priorities of that time. It will be desirable for India also to rally behind the international theme.

So what does “Universal Accessibility” mean?

Say your elderly grandma, who is in her 70s comes visiting from Bengaluru. She has a knee problem and is temporarily confined to a wheelchair. She may not be able to walk but has a zest for life and would love to visit RK beach road. The problem is that there are no ramps to access the footpaths there. So, you will need to struggle to get her from your car to the wheel chair and then struggle again to get the wheelchair on to the pavement because there are no ramps. Then consider a situation where a young couple with a baby are taking a holiday in Vizag. They come with a pram so that they don’t have to carry the baby all the time. They find that they cannot use the pram on the pavement easily because there are no ramps. Each time they want to climb on to the pavement they have to struggle with the pram. In each of these cases we are denying accessibility to someone by not providing ramps.

Disability is real

More than 15% of the world population needs help with accessibility. These include children, senior citizens and others with some form of disability or the other. Imagine; 39 million people worldwide are blind and a further 246 million have some form of sight impairment. All these people cannot enjoy our beautiful world, our exquisite scenery, our lively beaches, our sparkling ocean, our ancient heritage sites, just because the rest of us, smug in the security of our physical ability, do not bother to provide accessibility to those disadvantaged fellow human beings. We forget them because they are not our friends, our family or our most dear ones in our own homes. The trouble is that unless the problem comes and boots us in our posteriors we do not appreciate the tragedy of the situation.

The United Nations view

Ban Ki-moon; the Secretary General of the United Nations said “With almost 1.2 billion people travelling abroad each year, tourism has become a powerful economic sector, a passport to prosperity and peace, and a transformative force improving millions of lives. Everyone has the right to access leisure and tourism services on an equal basis. … Let us recognize that all people can and should be able to participate in tourism and enjoy unforgettable travel experiences”. The Secretary-General of UNWTO, Taleb Rifai, said recently, “Accessibility for all should be at the center of tourism policies and business strategies not only as a human right, but also as a great market opportunity …”

Vizag gets its act together

In April this year at a panel interaction between the citizens of Vizag and the city administration, organised by the Vizagapatam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a leading IT firm, several issues were discussed about Vizag’s smart city aspirations. One of the issues was about helping people in wheelchairs to access hotels, government offices and a stretch of Vizag’s iconic beach road. At that time the commissioner of GVMC (now our collector) had agreed that accessibility was a major factor in improving the lot of Vizag’s citizens. Coincidentally the theme of this year’s UNWTD turned out to be “Tourism for All, Promoting Universal Accessibility”. Seizing on this topic our corporation has started providing ramps to all the pavements on our beach road to make it wheel chair friendly. Today, between RK Mission and Palm Beach Junction, we have nearly 2.2 kilometres on each side, total of 4.4 kilometres, of seamless pavements on which a wheel chair can (almost) move freely. “Almost” because some ramps are too steep and too narrow, but there is hope that they will all be done up soon. This appears to be one of the longest wheel chair negotiable pavements in the country and we can all be proud of this achievement. While we still have a long way to go in tourism we are headed in the right direction.

Vizag cares – our USP

Our tourism department has always been notoriously inefficient, confused and lacking in focus. Instead of building basic amenities for tourists we have squandered money of events which pander to a few local bigwigs. Official activities are done to impress the powers-that-be rather than for building up a real tourism ecosystem like quality toilets, resting areas, information centres, signage and guide maps. Yet there is a glimmer of hope that things may change. On the evening of 27^th September 2016, a function celebrating World Tourism Day will be held on the beach road. It will highlight the efforts of the civic authorities to make Vizag’s beach road footpaths suitable for access by wheel chair. This is an important milestone in recognising special needs and telling travelers and the world that we are now approaching tourism in a responsible and humane way. Vizag it seems may be maturing to a different level of tourism; aligned to an international cause. We may be on the way to making Vizag universally accessible and we should take full advantage of this unique selling proposition.