Only half connect

Help! Inbound tourism to India could be reaching a premature plateau.

Rave reviews in travel publications such as Conde Nast Traveller, Washington Post and The New York Times Travel have had India's tourism industry rubbing palms season after season in anticipation of ever-rising numbers, but sadly, inbound tourism seems to be petering out a little prematurely.

Did India shoot too early?

It's a question that could haunt India. According to Ministry of Tourism (MoT) statistics, the impact of the Incredible India campaign has been a stunning 45.5-per cent leap in traffic in 2005 over the figure of 2003.

But now that word-of-mouth has gotten around, it doesn't seem to be luring more and more people to the country.

Early leads suggest that bookings for the 2006-07 peak season, starting October, are weakening. Travel agents and tour operators are already muttering that the boom is ending. A leading tour operator in Delhi drawing tourists from the US and Europe reports a dip in materialisation of bookings of as much as 38 per cent to Jaipur. The reason? High hotel rates.

Five-star rates have gone up by 10-15 per cent in Rajasthan over the past year. According to the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Rajasthan, though, there's nothing to panic about since additional rooms are being built furiously in the state, with a new hotel policy in force.

Still, it's an all-India problem. Subhash Goyal, president of the Indian Association of Tour Operators, feels that India on the whole is in danger of pricing itself out of the global tourism market. "We are the highest taxed country today in the tourism field," complains Goyal.

The story, in a nutshell, is this: while the Incredible India campaign has worked wonders, India's tourist infrastructure has failed to keep up. The result: soaring accommodation rates on account of a crippling room shortage.

Sanjay Basu, managing director, Far Horizon Tours, feels the Delhi, Agra and Jaipur circuit is likely to suffer the most, with south India doing only a little better. "There is a dramatic fall in brochure programmes," he says, "and the effect can be seen in the mid-market segment. It will be a negative growth for tourism. Hotels, though, will get their expected revenue."

Even evergreen Kerala seems to be heading for a dip. E M Najeeb, managing director, Air Travel Enterprises, reports a 20 per cent drop in materialisation of Kerala bookings.

"Overall, the bookings have come down," he says, adding that "hotels are increasing room rates without any value addition". Hotels in Kochi are charging over $200 a night, while those in Kumarakom are asking for up to $300 (unheard of, before).

Not every operator, however, is equally worried about the capacity crunch. Arjun Sharma of Le Passage, for instance, expects his inbound business to go up at least 35-40 per cent for a variety of reasons. Even so, he too admits that hotel rates are dissuading global tourists in the numbers India could easily get.

Whether India has oversold itself overseas as a holiday destination, or not, is not the key issue at the moment, one may argue. It's already done.

And now that global interest has been caught, the country had jolly well get its act together to meet demand.

Losing the opportunity would be a real pity.