Compared to Tamil Nadu, Kerala is the poor neighbour when focussing on religious or historical monuments. Its festivals, dance and theatre activities, however, are renowned throughout India while some of its beaches – such as Kovalam and Varkala – match those of Goa, further north. The heavy marketing campaign by the state throughout the West is likely to increase foreign tourist visitors in the future.
It’s interesting – I’ve noticed that most of what I have written above is about those areas of the country that we haven’t visited. It’s mainly about the north and we have spent most of our time down south. Maybe this reflects an unconscious agenda of where I would like to go or where I wished we had already visited. As it turns out, this doesn’t really matter as I discuss our travels and experiences down south in subsequent chapters. The other thing that occurred to me was the value of the discussions with my little group of frequent travellers. Informal and unscientific as they might be, these discussions opened up to me parts of India that were both delightful and insightful. After listening and reading them again, I wanted to be off to the places they mentioned in the forlorn hope of experiencing some of the adventures and encounters they discovered. I guess that’s part of the ‘tourist experience’ – the excitement, anticipation and sheer foolhardiness of some journeys. As they say in the million-selling self-help manuals, ‘nothing ventured nothing gained’.
The Tourist business in India
Finding out where my little group of ‘India returners’ had visited in the country was illuminating. It alerted me to places that I hadn’t thought of and might never visit. They also illustrated what it was and is that they find so absorbing about India. Their responses will continue to inform later chapters. I remember being struck, however, in those discussions about the reasons they gave for choosing India in the first place – that is, often accidentally or by chance. As mentioned earlier, for the ‘India returners’ it wasn’t initially a calculated priority destination. Rather it was accompanying a friend at short notice, a stopover on a longer journey or one destination from a list of other possible countries. Today, however, things have changed from those times in the 1980s or 1990s. Increasingly, global tourism is a competitive business. Numbers of foreign tourists to India continue to edge up. In September 2015 for example, some 6.8 million visitors arrived in India, down a little from the previous year. Two years later, the number of foreign arrivals had crept up to around 8 million. Overseas visitors from 2000–2015 averaged some 4 million tourists per year. 2014 was a bumper year.
As would be expected tourist numbers reflect wider global concerns about a particular country as is currently the case, for example, in Egypt, Pakistan or Zimbabwe. In the first three months of 2013 foreign tourists arriving in India dropped by 25% largely because of the fears about the risk of sexual assault. The number of female foreign tourists fell by 35%. This fear probably was the result of the widespread global publicity of the fatal gang-rape of the physiotherapy student on a Delhi bus in December 2012 despite a senior government tourist officer stating that it was “still unclear” why there was this dramatic fall in the foreign tourist numbers in early 2013. In 2014 the falling number of women tourists continued. India wasn’t ‘incredible’ anymore. In fact, over the last few years it has attracted global attention as a country unsafe for women. As the Indiatimes put it in 2015, “Given India’s rape epidemic (there’s honestly no other way to term it), countries and travel organizations around the world are increasingly wary about women visiting India.” Gender issues remain a major concern socially and domestically in India, and will also play an important part in influencing choices made of destinations by outside tourists. It contributes towards contextualising foreign tourist numbers but is not likely to be the major factor in explaining overall numbers.
It is unlikely that any statistical tool can capture or trace the value of tourism to any country although numbers of visitors remain the most commonly used indicator. Tourism is a complex industry to manage and understand within a broader industrial policy. Unlike the automotive, shipbuilding or leather industries for example, tourism is a complicated value chain that incorporates and cuts across a number of disparate policy areas such as regulatory provision, labour markets, tourist infrastructures and hospitality. Coordinating and developing a coherent strategic direction for the tourist industry in any country is fraught with difficulties. Despite these complications, most countries recognise the importance of this sector as an important financial contribution to the economy and as a generator of jobs. The aggressively marketed “Incredible India” campaign by the Indian government in the early years of this century together with more recent marketing efforts has resulted in just under 8 million foreign tourists arriving in the country in 2016–17. Overall, there has been a steady increase in foreign tourist arrivals. In 1997 for example, there were 2.4 million arrivals. Despite the increasing numbers, the last few years have seen a smaller than anticipated increase – a plateau of sorts is appearing.
The two ‘biggies’ when looking at where the majority of these foreign tourists came from are the United States – about a million (16%) – followed by Britain (12.6%). A number of other countries follow but with much smaller numbers: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka (0.29%), Canada (0.25%), Germany (0.25%), France (0.24%), Japan (0.22%) and Australia. Surprisingly and not mentioned yet are Russian, Ukrainian and Eastern European visitors. The explosion of Russian-speaking tourists anywhere hot during their own winter in places such as Egypt and West Africa saw this group dramatically entering the ‘top ten’ a few years ago before falling away recently due to the economic circumstances back home. The later chapter on Goa confirms this pattern.
India’s share of the international tourist market continues to average around 0.64%. The smaller countries of Southeast Asia attract far more visitors. When using the fashionable management speak of ‘benchmarks’, India is an underperforming country. The recent decline in tourist inflow is a worry for India. Ranked 38th among the top global destinations for international travel, since 2002 the tourist sector has not expanded to the extent expected. Around seven million out of a total of around 983 million tourists globally can be seen as leaving plenty of room for improvement. Despite these trends, the industry remains a vital part of the Indian economy contributing around 6.5% to the country’s total wealth and responsible for about 40 million jobs.
Given the growing numbers and economic importance of tourism globally, India’s total can be seen as a worry. While there are obviously many different ways of calculating ‘foreign visitors’, the overall trends are clear-ish. The latest figures confirm the incremental increases.
There are many reasons which have been listed as contributing to these small numbers. European Union residents for example are in general reluctant to travel too far from home, with between 50–60% preferring to enjoy their holidays in their own country. Given the popularity of sea and beach vacations, Spain, France and Italy are Europe’s favourite destinations. Despite such reasons, the foreign tourist numbers for India are low. Thailand for example attracts some 25 million foreign tourists a year. The dramatic increase in Chinese tourists in the last couple of years (although down recently) is likely to increase the importance of tourism in Southeast Asia but not India.
Leaving these tourist numbers aside for the moment, it’s quite interesting to map out officially where these tourists chose to go when in India. The state of Maharashtra on the west coast with Bombay as its capital is the most popular destination (around 25% of total foreign visitors). This huge wealthy state with a population of 112 million is home to a number of big cities, obviously Mumbai but also Nagpur, Pune and Nashik. There are a number of major tourist attractions in the state such as the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Ajanta Caves and Ellora Caves, the National Parks and the various delights of Mumbai, but I suspect that its popularity may also be due to its country entry/exit importance through its international airport. The state of Tamil Nadu down in the south-east of the country
is next in popularity attracting 17% of foreign visitors. With more than 34,000 temples, an extensive network of sacred sites and with five UNESCO World Heritage sites, it is easy to see why this is a popular part of the country. The stunning temples of Mamallapuram together with the Meenakshi Amman Temple in the 2,500-year-old city of Madurai continue to be important tourist venues. Then there are the big coastal cities of Chennai and old French capital of Pondicherry and, inland, the majestic Eastern Ghats mountain range which runs up the eastern coast of India almost reaching West Bengal. Up here in the mountains is the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, the only narrow-gauge line in India built by the British that we have not enjoyed. The acclaimed cinema, food and cultural activities (especially dance) make Tamil Nadu a difficult state to leave. Unsurprisingly, Delhi is the third most visited area in India with 11% of total foreign visits. One of the great cities of the world, Delhi’s attractions are well known. The British imprint on the city with the India Gate, the Parliamentary buildings, Connaught Place and Lodhi Gardens are only the most recent added layers to this most historic of cities. Surely, not many people who have read William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi will fail to place the city near the top of their must-visit ‘wish list’. The city of Agra with the Taj Mahal and that most holiest of Hindu cities Varanasi probably contribute significantly to the state of Uttar Pradesh being next in the list of foreign tourist destinations. Rajasthan with its royal palaces of the maharajas is the next most visited state (7% of the total) followed by West Bengal, Bihar and Kerala in popularity rankings. In each case, there are obvious touristic reasons for their inclusion on such a list. The problem for any visitor from outside India is that wherever you go it is difficult to get away once you begin immersing yourself in the local sites, cultures and histories of a particular area of India. It is such a huge country with so rich a varied and complex tradition. Asking others who have visited the country many times is one way of short-cutting this dilemma.
As already mentioned, using statistics and lists to try and capture aspects of foreign tourist experiences and preferences in India is a crude and blunt methodology. However, it does have the merit of situating and contextualising, from a bird’s eye view, what is going on. But perhaps the most important aspect of these touristic happenings in India hasn’t yet been mentioned. To put it bluntly, the number of foreign ‘Western’ tourists to India are hardly worth getting out of bed for, especially when compared to the rising figures of places such as Vietnam, Burma (Myanmar), the ever-popular Thailand and even Cambodia. The country might have the fastest growing economy in the world but it lags far behind in attracting foreign tourists. But help is on the horizon.
If Western foreign visitor numbers have been a little iffy in recent years, the spectacular rise of the domestic traveller has not only arrived to cheer the industry at a time of Western austerity but also to pose fundamental questions over the nature and direction of the sector as a whole. Statistical reports suggest around 18 million foreign visits (a different calculation to foreign Western visitors) in 2010 while the number of domestic tourist visits was around a mind-blowing 740 million, an increase of around 19% on the previous year. However, this domestic tourism pivots around ‘temple tourism’, as they call it in the business; that is, pilgrims or visitors interested in religious or spiritual issues. So the state of Andhra Pradesh north of Tamil Nadu on the east coast, which doesn’t even feature on the ‘top ten’ for Western foreign tourists, attracted 155 million visits in 2010 and was top in India for total tourist visits. Even when compared to Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh boasts a greater number of pilgrimage destinations.
2002 was the year that was seen as heralding the policy turn towards domestic tourism. But as recent studies have begun to realise, ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ tourism cannot simply be equated with each other. The Taj Mahal for example is not a priority for domestic visitors, unlike foreign visitors. More generally the two groups have different tastes with regards to tourist sites and experiences. The most popular sites for the domestics are around Delhi and North India while for foreign visitors it is in the south. They are interested in two different types of India. It was only in recent years that the national tourist agencies recognised the overwhelming policy emphasis given to Western foreign tourism at the expense of the domestic market and began to encourage advertising and promotion at the local state level. A greater ownership and responsibility at local level on tourism resulted in new funding and budgets, a different focus and attention to transport infrastructure as well as associated issues such as accommodation facilities. The recent arrival of India’s ‘middle class’, ‘mass tourism’ and ‘weekend breaks’ raises a completely different set of choices and priorities than those associated with the traditional Western tourist ‘high-end’ market. Given the generally low income of pilgrims when compared to Westerners, how many beds can be built and by whom at the expense of a five-star, air-conditioned hotel that will be only reached through some international airport? Apparently, a number of mid-scale hotel chains are beginning to emerge that fills some elements of the gap in the market. And temples too that are rarely poor due to the offerings made by the pilgrims are beginning to provide cheap dormitory arrangements on a large scale. Instead of islands of luxury catering only to a small segment of the market, there has been a turn towards accommodating and encouraging the internal mass market. Spin-offs in this new focus include non-religious destinations such as Goa with its emphasis on all-year attractions aimed at domestic visitors (“Goa in the Rains”) and Kerala (“Dream Season”).
Travel and tourism remains as the largest service industry in India. As the government’s tourist site puts it, “It provides heritage, cultural, medical, business and sports tourism.” It contributes over $100 billion to the nation’s GDP each year, around 7% of the total GDP. It is expected, the government promises, to grow substantially in the years ahead, with new investment projects and the promotion of ‘niche’ areas such as medical tourism.
Being a tourist
There is another issue, however, that underpins this discussion of tourism in India. Who exactly are ‘tourists’? Are all ‘tourists’ the same or are there different types of tourists? What is the essence or nature of ‘tourism’, and how is it different from other closely related experiences? What exactly are we talking about?
As might be expected, tourism is big business. In fact, it is the world’s largest single industry and growing fast. According to a 2016 report from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), international tourist arrivals were up 5% in 2015 to a record 1.2 billion. A quick glance at some of the literature and reports surrounding either national or global tourism risks being drowned in a sea of statistics. The contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the number of people employed in the industry, destinations for ‘outbound’ and ‘inbound’ tourists, the percentage contribution to exports and the amount of money domestically generated by the industry are all outlined in loving detail.
For the UNWTO as might be expected, the dominant focus is on tourism and poverty alleviation. Tourism is seen as the proverbial ‘magical bullet’. As it mentions in one of its recent reports, “In many countries, tourism acts as an engine for development through foreign exchange earnings and the creation of direct and indirect employment… it is the most viable and sustainable economic development option.”
This is I’m sure all true, especially when it lists the positive as well as the negative consequences of the industry. However, they take us only along a little of the route that deserves consideration when discussing ‘being a tourist’. As mentioned in the opening chapter, the big growth of tourism studies or hospitality studies within higher education tends to share in, uncritically, this ‘development led’ approach to the subject area. There is a wealth of empirical studies and reports on how to achieve a ‘competitive advantage’, designing ways of ‘maximising revenues’ or on various marketing or brand strategies.
Understanding
or defining what or who is a ‘tourist’, though, is not a straightforward issue. Many commentators simply accept the widely accepted UNWTO definition – that is, as “temporary visitors staying in a place outside their usual place of residence for a continuous period of at least 24 hours but less than one year, for leisure, business or other purposes”. There are many problems associated with this or similar technical definitions. It’s very wide-ranging and seems to encompass almost everyone; it reduces tourism to an economic activity and minimises or ignores the cultural and social aspects of the activity. What if any are the differences for example between ‘tourists’ and other categories of similar activity such as ‘travellers’, ‘explorers’, ‘backpackers’, ‘pilgrims’, ‘outsiders’ or ‘hippies’? What these and other labels suggest is that understandings of ‘being a tourist’ are socially constructed and multidimensional rather than being a technical or practical matter. ‘Tourism’ encompasses different groups of people (according to gender, social class, colour, age, nationality for example) with different agendas and seeking different experiences. Acknowledging the complicated nature of ‘being a tourist’, a number of scholars have attempted to outline various categories that differentiate between touristic experiences. An early example is Cohen’s 1979 distinction between recreational, diversionary, experiential, experimental and existential tourists. Others such as Plog distinguish between allocentric travellers (those seeking exotic or untouched destinations) and psychocentric tourists (non-risk taking and going to established destinations). There are many other illustrations over the last few decades of conceptual efforts to nail down the nature of ‘being a tourist’ or of ‘the tourist experience’. McCabe (2005) for example provides a summary of some of these approaches. As a frequent tourist myself, they make for an interesting read. I and possibly the other ‘returners’ that I interviewed can recognise many of the behaviours, intercultural exchanges and contacts and experiences discussed in the studies. I am less keen, however, on the linking of ‘tourism’ to ‘identity formation’ that seems popular in recent years. I acknowledge that it is very difficult to pin down the nature and experiences of ‘being a tourist’ although I will inevitably in this text employ certain assumptions and perspectives on this issue. The questions I chose to ask and the discussions reported here necessarily imply a particular view of ‘tourism’, “a particular view” that I am not going to explore further beyond a recognition of its problematic nature. My overall focus is on visiting India rather than the nature of tourism. And an important aspect of this focus is on the historical dimensions – the subject of the next chapter – that inevitably, especially for the British, shape these visits.
Banyan Tree Adventures Page 7
