Saturday, May 15, 2004
NYT travel special on India
The New York Times is carrying three separate India travel stories in its weekend edition. Amy Waldman explores the Taj Mahal, Nancy Newhouse takes a detour through Rajasthan and R.W.Apple maintains his ongoing love affair with Kerala. Check out the photographs too. Some of them are gorgeous.
There's nothing new in these stories, but serve as reminders to the tremendous tourism potential lying untapped in India. I keep being reminded of this every time I am in India. For example, I was at Adil Shah's fort in Vagator (Goa), one of the most beautiful forts you'll ever get to see -- lagoons meeting sea beneath. There were about 10 people in there, including me. Similarly, the Edakal caves in Wynad (Kerala) boast cave paintings older than Altamira. There's noone visiting those caves, or Wynad for that matter.
India currently gets about 3.5 million tourists a year, while France picks up 70-80 million tourists. Even tiny Thailand picks up 10 million tourists a year. It's high time the worthies in government in Delhi changed their attitudes to tourism. Someone needs to tell them that tourism is slated to become the second largest business in the world after finance and that India cannot afford to miss the bus on this one. Someone needs to tell them that there's almost as much money to be made in tourism as in IT.
For starts, India needs to give up its ridiculous price discrimination policy where foreigners are charged 70%-300% more than locals for everything from air-tickets to entry fees. India is not doing anyone a favour by letting them visit, but rather foreigners choosing to spend their hard-earned money in India, rather than at other destinations, is great news for the Indian economy.
Easing up the visa policy (everyone needs a visa to get into India) will help too. If Sri Lanka can become more pragmatic about visa policy (you get one on arrival), I dont see why India cannot. Finally, allowing more flights into India will ease the impossible seat situation, especially during peak season. Currently, there is no correlation between demand and supply on flights in and out of India.
There's nothing new in these stories, but serve as reminders to the tremendous tourism potential lying untapped in India. I keep being reminded of this every time I am in India. For example, I was at Adil Shah's fort in Vagator (Goa), one of the most beautiful forts you'll ever get to see -- lagoons meeting sea beneath. There were about 10 people in there, including me. Similarly, the Edakal caves in Wynad (Kerala) boast cave paintings older than Altamira. There's noone visiting those caves, or Wynad for that matter.
India currently gets about 3.5 million tourists a year, while France picks up 70-80 million tourists. Even tiny Thailand picks up 10 million tourists a year. It's high time the worthies in government in Delhi changed their attitudes to tourism. Someone needs to tell them that tourism is slated to become the second largest business in the world after finance and that India cannot afford to miss the bus on this one. Someone needs to tell them that there's almost as much money to be made in tourism as in IT.
For starts, India needs to give up its ridiculous price discrimination policy where foreigners are charged 70%-300% more than locals for everything from air-tickets to entry fees. India is not doing anyone a favour by letting them visit, but rather foreigners choosing to spend their hard-earned money in India, rather than at other destinations, is great news for the Indian economy.
Easing up the visa policy (everyone needs a visa to get into India) will help too. If Sri Lanka can become more pragmatic about visa policy (you get one on arrival), I dont see why India cannot. Finally, allowing more flights into India will ease the impossible seat situation, especially during peak season. Currently, there is no correlation between demand and supply on flights in and out of India.
