Indian tourism braces for an image makeover

Monday, 21 October 2002, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
NEW DELHI: Long stereotyped as a nation of snake charmers, Taj Mahal and beggars, India is finally bracing for an image makeover by promoting the India tourism brand to woo elusive overseas tourists. Tour and travel companies in India are mulling over a plan to boost the long-depressed tourism industry by improving the image and quality of the country's hotels, transportation and other infrastructures. "The handful of Western tourists who visit India each year are attracted solely by the Taj Mahal because they hardly know that India has many attractions similar to the Taj," said Ravi Bhoothalingam, CEO of travel industry consultancy Manas Advisory. "No other country has so much to offer to a tourist than India and yet we have not been able to reap dividends. "Why do more tourists go each year to small countries or city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore than to India? Or why are Dubai and Katmandu more popular tourist destinations than Delhi or Kerala? "The answer is simple. India has not been able to promote the tourism brand aggressively all over the world," Bhoothalingam told IANS. India accounts for barely 0.4 percent of the global tourism market, attracting just 2.4 million visitors last year, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council figures. India's contribution to global tourism revenue has not changed in the past five years as globetrotters dropped the country from their travel itinerary in favor of other exciting locales like Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa and Thailand. Despite having exotic places and monuments like the Taj Mahal and the forts in the deserts of Rajasthan, the country has not been able to make its mark on the global tourism map due to pathetically inadequate infrastructure. The September 11 terror attacks, the terror attack on the Indian Parliament, fears of war between India and Pakistan and a communal carnage in Gujarat only made matters worse for the gasping domestic tourism industry in recent years. Foreign exchange earnings from overseas tourists visiting the country declined 15.6 percent in the nine months to September 30. Industry observers say the country can increase its share in the global tourism industry pie as tension between India and Pakistan ease with the announcement of withdrawal of soldiers from both sides of the borders. The decision of Britain, the U.S. and Australia to tell their citizens to stay away from Indonesia and adopt caution in Singapore and Thailand after a nightclub bombing in Bali has also raised hopes of increased tourist inflow in India. "Every product and service needs some kind of brand promotion exercise to win customers. This is a truism," said Rajan Chhibba, managing director of market research firm KSA Technopak (India) Private Ltd. "So, you can't keep the tourism sector out of it, especially when it is battling with so many problems. The need to present brand India appeal to the tourist of the world is more relevant now than any time before." Chhibba, however, warned that all focus on building the India tourism brand without improving the infrastructure could prove "counterproductive" for the industry. "From the moment of arrival to the time of departure, the tourist in India is constantly reminded that he or she is a foreigner. For most globetrotters, an experience in India tends to border on the morbid. "If it's not poor services, the dirt, overcrowding and the touts, to begin with, it's the unimaginative thinking and hastily planned schemes of tour operators that ruin everything in the end." Agrees Santosh Desai, executive vice president of advertising major McCann-Erickson India. "At present the image of India in tourism world is it is too large, too intense and too unfamiliar with no single defined selling proposition. "India as a tourist destination needs to be presented in a much more consumable way and the branding exercise should be launched around this premise."
Source: IANS