P Vaidyanathan Iyer: Beyond cows and snake charmers

RAISINA HILL

Brugge is a small city in Belgium, roughly one-tenth Delhi's size. It has a population of about 1.2 lakh, a fraction of Delhi's 14 million.

But ironically, the city, which is about an hour's drive from the Belgian capital of Brussels, attracts about 2.65 million tourists a year. India, with its rich cultural heritage and idyllic destinations manages to lure just about 2.75 million global tourists.

I was part of a group of nine Indian journalists on an official tour to Belgium on an invitation from the European Commission, headquartered at Brussels. No sooner had we reached the capital city than the taxi driver talked about the various places of tourist interest. The first lesson: hard-sell the place right from the entry point.

India's problem is, however, different. The return trip to India from Brussels via Vienna said it all. The Austrian Airlines' flight back home featured a 45-minute film about India.

And, sadly enough, the film prominently presented cows in the middle of roads, snake charmers and crowded streets, and none of what that led Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in conceiving a Rs 50-crore India Shining campaign.

The film can potentially deter Europeans who are considering putting India on their tourist plans the following monsoon or winter.

R P Agarwal, deputy chief of the Indian mission, who threw a dinner for the visiting journalists in Brussels, was at pains to explain why India attracted such little attention amongst foreigners. A small seafood fair in downtown Brussels had visitors pouring in from all over Europe and Brussels is hardly known for sea food, he pointed out.

India, as any travel agent will tell you, has it all, from adventure sports to colourful festivals and mega fairs. And all these have been on offer for years.

Despite this, the inflow of tourists has hardly grown in the last 10 years. From about 1.8 million in 1992, total tourist arrivals have not even doubled (2.75 million during January-December 2003), representing a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of just over 4 per cent.

No wonder India's earnings from tourism, according to the government of India's tourism department, stand at just $ 3.6 billion (January-December 2003). And this is just about 1 per cent of total global tourism earnings.

The fact is, that successive governments have done little to hard-sell India abroad. And even their little efforts were perhaps not well targetted. There are three primary issues that need to be addressed while promoting tourism in the country.

One, the availability of facilities that middle-income (and not just the high-income) foreign tourists look for. Two, the overall infrastructure, including airports, ports and travel within the country. The last, but perhaps the most important, relates to hard-selling the Indian brand.

A guided tour of Brugge is an eye-opener. The Europeans preserve history well, as the Brugge City Tour bus showed with its journey through narrow lanes and streets with lovingly-preserved old buildings. Incidentally, the word "bourse" (stock market) traces its origins to this city, where traders used to meet in a building to fix currency rates in the past.

What have we done with our tourist spots and to improve access to these places? Besides a one-off Palace-on-Wheels that caters to high-income foreign tourists, precious little. The airports desperately need a face-lift and a couple of billion dollars. There are the five-star hotels, but few decent affordable hotels to make touring India a viable proposition for the middle-income foreign traveller.

One believes, the infrastructure will be in place, at least in the next five years. But, what about selling India to the world? A start can be made by hard-bargaining for a 30-minute slot in Austrian Airlines capturing the geographical variety and cultural richness of the country.