A religious group in the northern state of J&K in India
has recently suggested banning tourists wearing mini-skirts
in the state. Well, the tourist department knows that this wouldn’t go down
well with the tourists and the tourism industry which is making attempts to
attract eyeballs in a militancy infested state may suffer.
This J&K instance though is one amongst zillions of
reasons that hold tourists away from India. Others include lack of hygiene,
lack of cooperation from the public and the bureaucracy, very little security,
and lack of infrastructure.
Tourism, however, is a very important indicator of the level
of comfort that the globe enjoys with a particular country and this level of
comfort is a pre-requisite for ushering in business at a larger scale. Our
inability at being able to pull sufficient crowds to the country also explains
why there is less FDI in India, and why to some extent we are growing at
somewhat lesser rates of growth than we could possibly attain.
China on the other hand has mastered the art of being
palatable to the globe and it then matters relatively less that the country is
not a democracy and the media is not that free. The inflow in China especially
took off after its WTO accession. Tourist arrivals in China are now matching the
levels in the USA and this is no mean feat (see figure below).
Whether for business or for leisure each tourist asks a
basic question ‘what’s in there for me?’ and China we all know has lots to
offer to the world. To businessmen it is the world’s ‘workshop,’ to students it
has some good universities to offer (at least by Indian standards) and to the
core tourist it has its heritage and infrastructure to offer. I am myself so
keen to visit China to experience the Shanghai Maglev, to see the hutongs in Beijing,
the Great Wall, the terracotta warriors and so on and so forth. An Indian (who
has visited or somewhat studied China) is generally in awe at how so much has
been accomplished in China.
India has shown some effort in boosting tourism especially
with national campaigns like ‘Incredible India!’ and state campaigns from
Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat among the prominent ones. However, we have
a long way to go and campaigns alone wouldn’t help. The day we would reach
China’s levels of tourism, I am sure we would have arrived economy-wise as
well.
