Make the country hospitable, make yourself likeable

AGKSPEAK

Finally, a tourism commercial that takes on a genuine problem, and the deployment of strategic likeability.

What I've Liked
Imagine you have lived all your life in a cold and dreary land. Where the sky is perpetually grey. And everyone wears black, of choice, to work. And suddenly onto this colourless backdrop flash images of a bright, sun-filled land, with jewel-toned landscapes and magnificent architecture. You see the same impossibly beautiful world in the newspapers, magazines and on hoardings.

Brightly turbaned faces smile warmly out of life-size posters. On an impulse you book your tickets and you find yourself in India. You eagerly look around for that fantasy land that drew you here. Full of expectations, you smile at the cabbie "" after all, the tourism posters promised you a warm and hospitable people. The cabbie, however, reads it as a sign that you are game for anything and takes you on the most nightmarish ride of your life. You stick your head out for a breath of fresh air and a paan-loaded gob of spit smacks you in the face. And thus begins your ordeal as a tourist in India.

I am so glad that someone has finally decided to take the bull by the horns and address one of the major problems that affect our tourism industry. What we display is not who we are. The image is not the experience, in other words.

The new TVC in the "Atithi devo bhavah" campaign not only throws light on our Jekyll and Hyde tendency, it urges us to demonstrate what is professed in India, that we "treat our guests as god". The commerical suggests a few basic courtesies at the very least: for instance, when a tourist is being harrassed, do step in to help. This is our country, and if a guest is being mistreated, it's our worry. Apart from this being totally against our culture, it also has enormous economic ramifications.

The tourism industry ($11.33 billion in 2000) supports an allied economy of $23.8 billion. And keeps 17.4 million Indians employed. It doesn't take much for every disgusted and disillusioned tourist to negatively influence his/her own circle of friends, and for these numbers to come crashing down. This campaign is a step towards addressing an enormous stumbling block: our attitude to strangers.

What I've Learned
Likeablity""the weapon that will win you the parity war
It's an odd thing "" this concept called likeablity. It's what we all look for in others and tend to overlook in ourselves. Unless, of course, we've been trained to exude it either by our mothers, or by the farsightedness of the company for which we work. It often influences the deciding vote when a person is faced with two or more choices that offer similar technical expertise. Surprisingly, it has the power to override everything else.

I should know. I have two excellent experiences that illustrate this. One unpleasant, and the other, gratifying. Let me begin with the unpleasant one first. I needed some overseas travel insurance, an exercise which should normally be wrapped up in a day or two at the most. I was given the name of the person who would handle it and a deadline by the agency. And then the nightmare started.

At the very first instance, the person got my name wrong and insisted on addressing me by the same, even after being corrected. Sloppier still, the agency then failed to keep the deadline and what was most irritating "" the person "responsible" kept disappearing when I called. It just went on and on, till I lost my temper "" and changed the agency.

In the other case, it was my bank. I was given a "relationship manager" by the bank, a gentleman who would do his job quite efficiently, till one day he blew me away... by surpassing it! I opened my mailbox to find a note from him telling me that he would be travelling for four days.

He mentioned his place of visit, the name of the person who would look after my work in the meantime, and gave me his number. I was extremely impressed. Now I will never know whether it was his personal ethic that made him behave so thoughtfully, or the consequence of the bank's training. Either way, to me it was the clinching factor in my resolution to transfer my accounts from all other banks to this one.

In a world where increasingly companies offer the same range of services and skill sets, what sets the winner apart is the likeability factor. Very often, it is ignorance that makes people behave like boors. It is not without reason that "ignorance" is a "gaali" in most Indian languages. So the responsibility to rid their employees of this ignorance lies squarely with the organisation. They carry your company's visiting card with their name printed on it. So their bad manners lose business; good manners gain them. How much simpler can it get?

Yet, managers overlook the rude behaviour of their staff and spend huge sums on knowledge accretion instead. I hope time and a red bottomline will serve a wake-up call.

Email: agkbrandconsult@yahoo.com