.jpg)
In the days of the British Raj, the colonial government used to flee to Shimla, a rickety Himalayan hill town, every three months. Now, India’s elite makes a similar migration, to London, or France or even Singapore. And not just Indians, people from all over the world have abandoned India, which was touted as one of the most ‘fascinating’ destinations in the world.
Despite our glorious Dal Lake, snow-covered Ladakh; backwaters in Kerala, the adventures of swimming with an elephant; gawping at rhinos and tigers; disappearing in clouds of colours on Holi in Varanasi, the country has not been able to attract too many tourists last year.
In fact, according to the World Bank’s figures, India attracted only 6,649 (6.65 million) tourists in 2012.
The figure is surprising, as even Sri Lanka and Bhutan boasted the fastest growth in arrivals last year, both climbing 17 percent. India, the largest destination in the subregion, recorded just a mere 5 percent growth. India’s tourism figures are even fewer than Indonesia, fewer than Bulgaria and only half as many as Poland.
North-East Asia recorded a 6 percent increase in tourists in 2012, led by the rebound in Japan (35 percent) after the decline in arrivals following the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011. Taiwan (pr. of China) reported 20 percent more arrivals and the Republic of Korea 14 percent, while Hong Kong (China) (7 percent) also posted solid growth.
A comparison with China, is embarrassing. At 57.7 million foreign tourists a year, China is behind only the United States and France as the world’s most visited country. In fact, China spent a record US$ 102 billion on international tourism in 2012, up 37 percent on 2011.
To add salt to India’s wounds, consider this: Saudi Arabia had 13 million tourists, Morocco had more than 9 million tourists, Poland had 13.35 million, in 2012.
UN figures suggest that France had more foreign visitors than any other country in 2012, while the most visited capital city is now, according to one study, was Bangkok.The Thai capital is currently attracting 15.98 million visitors a year, narrowly ahead of London.
The report notes that prospects for 2013 are strongest for Asia and the Pacific (5 to 6 percent), followed by Africa (4 to to 6 percent), the Americas (3 to 4 percent), Europe (2 to 3 percent) and the Middle East (upto 5 percent).
Why such a sad such a state of tourism industry in India?
There may be too many reasons for this. As this Tehelka article notes, too few hotel rooms, inadequate infrastructure, political indifference, mounting garbage, tawdry scams and violent crime, may be just be a few to name.
But how reliable are these tourism statistics? John Kester, manager for tourism trends and marketing at the United Nations World Tourism Organization told INN, “The quality and depth of statistics varies a lot country by country. ”Typically the data is supplied to the UN from countries statistical offices, tourism ministries and central banks.
The Indian tourism figures begs two questions: First, is our data healthy, and if yes, then what are we doing to fix our woeful tourism data?
