Future of Tourism in Pakistan
September 27 was observed as World Tourism Day through out the globe. A small news item appeared in the Pakistani press in this connection. That was all about our share in celebrating this day. The question then arises as to what is the future of tourism in Pakistan? ‘Bleak’, I would say, ‘absolutely bleak’. It is the right word to describe the future of tourism in Pakistan and there can be no two opinions about this harsh conclusion. Tourism is not compulsive traveling. It can be impulsive at best but invariably it is planned well before the commencement of the proposed journey. It is imperative, therefore, that the destination should be congenial for travel, and stay, for all practical purposes. These components unfortunately are missing in Pakistan.
Tourism is traveling predominantly for recreational or leisure purposes. In most countries of the world it has assumed the status of an industry, generating handsome revenues for the exchequer. World Tourist Organization describes the tourists as people who “travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business etc’. The proposed destination should, therefore, provide an environment where the visitors should feel comfortable, secure and, broadly speaking, at home. Tourism has become a popular global leisure activity promoting international understanding, peace and cooperation.
There are three basic pre-requisites for the promotion and uplift of tourism: a soft and friendly political image of the host country, a healthy infrastructure and communication network and facilitating attitude of the authorities concerned. A favourable image of a country is not formed by rhetoric alone, nor is it established over night. A lot of spade work needs to be done before a positive message is passed around to the aspiring visitors. The first and the foremost thing to be taken care of is law and order. If the image of a country is not favourable for travel why would the tourists risk themselves by venturing there? A country where international cricketers feel insecure in the well guarded enclosure of a stadium will definitely be eschewed by the leisure tourists. The pristine beauty of the northern areas could have been a major attraction for the adventure loving foreigners but those places are even more dangerous to visit these days or at least the foreigners so think and rightfully too.
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A country’s foreign missions have a very important role to play in promoting tourism back home but the less said about our missions the better. They show proverbial apathy to the aspiring tourists as also to their very own compatriots. If somehow a tourist does manage to enter our beloved country, he will be lost in the bureaucratic labyrinthine of PTDC (Pakistan Tourist Development Corporation). The word facilitation does not exist in our dictionary, may it be tourism or other routine chores.
PTDC is one of the many ruined institutions of the country though it would be highly unfair to single it out from the overall faltering system. PTDC should have a team of trained personal in their coffers but it is the non professional favourites who get the pie. Result! Both PTDC and its provincial subsidiaries have become dead horses employing unfriendly and uncooperative staff demonstrating a bureaucratic mindset. To quote one recent example: Wanting to visit Khewra Salt Mines I contacted PTDC office in Lahore but no one there was ready to part any information. I was instead advised to reach the site where I was likely to get some info. What a joke? Drive down three hundred km to the place without knowing if you would be allowed in or not, what days of the week and what time of the day the mines would be open to the visitors and so on. In other parts of the world a yearly calendar is published in advance about different museums and tourist sites to facilitate the intending tourists who are able to chalk out their itinerary accordingly. I wonder why we don’t learn through the experiences and expertise of other international organizations specializing in this field. The story of the visit to the salt mines, with its pinch of salt, has already appeared in the Sunday Plus issue of September 14, 2008, reflecting poorly on our tourism department.
Tourism can be local and international. International tourism has many dimensions. It can be health, leisure, adventure and business tourism. Many Americans go to Eastern Europe for cheap medical and dental treatment. Similarly we have large number of expatriates from the West who come to Pakistan for affordable dental procedures. In better circumstances many foreigners would have followed the suit, contributing to the local economy but alas! Wishes are not horses. Nepal is an ideal place for adventure tourism while Europe in general is a favourite destination for leisure trips. Pakistan has a diversity of attractions for the perspective tourists. It has great heritage sites like Moenjodaro, Taxilla and Harappa besides the grand Mughal monuments. Nature has bestowed our country with challenging snow clad peaks in the beautiful north and vast deserts in the arid south. These are great attractions for adventure lovers. I recently mailed some pictures from our captivating north to a French lady who was on a visit to Lahore last year but could not make it to the northern areas as she left Pakistan in panic after Ms. Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007. The French lady found it hard to believe that these pictures could be from Pakistan. She thought they looked like images from the Swiss Alps.
Nature has been very kind and bountiful to this country but we have never been able to cash these gifts due to our shortcomings and short sightedness. Things start going wrong for the intending tourists right from the word go. An elderly British lady from South Devon in the UK was going to visit India and she planned a break in Pakistan on her way. She got in touch with our esteemed tourism hierarchy to get the basic travel information and asked if she could be adjusted in group tours. The reply as ever was negative and blunt. Startled, she flew to India straight, carrying a plane load of disappointments. So much for the promotion of tourism in Pakistan. Our promo ‘ Visit Pakistan’ should be re-phrased ‘Visit Pakistan at your own risk’ and Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation be renamed Pakistan Tourism Mismanagement Corporation.
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Different countries have different promos to attract the overseas visitors. For example ‘See America’ in the US, ‘Truely Asia’ in Malaysia, ‘Uniquely Singapore’ in Singapore and so on. Our slogan is ‘Visit Pakistan’. The question is what for? To see the gaudily decorated public transport buses and vans, ill kept resorts, uncouth restaurants and stinking lavatories? The attitude of the staff is all the more humiliating and ‘couldn’t care less’ type. Public transport cannot be modernized over night due to paucity of funds but strict and meaningful quality control on the locally manufactured bus bodies can bring a bit of respectability to the existing fleet. The approach roads to our heritage sites are horrible. A trip to Shalamar Gardens or Jahangir’s tomb will expose our love for cleanliness. A permanent garbage mound stands tall close to Lahore-Delhi bus terminal in the Punjab Metropolis. I wonder what is preventing our city fathers to remove the overflowing garbage collecting spick from that site. Painting a few words of warning on the adjoining walls that ‘violators would be handed over to police’ will not deter the trash men from adding to the residents’ woes. These sites are our show cases reflecting our sense of aesthetics. Islam says ‘cleanliness is half faith’ but the heaps of garbage on the way, topped with shabby encroachments, makes our heads hang in shame. The condition of the sites itself is not very promising. I visited the ruins at Harappa and they were actually in ruins. What a shame!
Local tourism is working to some extent. People need a change. They go to the northern areas during the scorching summers and snowy winters. Murree is the most favourite hill station with the local travellers but an ill planned mushroom growth of cheap hotels and uncanny building structures have irrevocably scarred the face of this settlement. It has become a haphazard jungle of concrete. When I visited the newly commissioned Patriata resort over a decade ago I was impressed by its lay out and cleanliness but the subsequent trip a few years on was a big disappointment. Why do we not realize that maintenance is more important than the initial construction? The picturesque valley of Swat was another place where huge number of local tourists used to go during summers but this place too has become a hostage to the new found cancer of militancy. That is one thing you cannot blame the government for. Our fate seems to be hanging in balance with some unseen evil forces.
Unless and until our tourism department sets its house in order and hires the services of trained professionals nothing is going to change. The government should do its bit by upgrading the standards of cleanliness and pruning the ugly roadside encroachments. Law and order too needs to be improved. The mere rhetoric of ‘all is well’ and ‘investment friendly’ will not befool the foreign visitors. A country where the very sight of police instills sharp fear and a feeling of insecurity in the citizenry, the law and order situation is by no means up to the mark. Malaysia here is a case in point. A few decades ago this country was not on the tourists’ itinerary and all I knew about it was through my Malaysian class fellows in the professional college and the rubber plantations we had read about in junior school geography class. Now this country has become a tourists’ paradise. We also need a Mahateer Mohammad to set our house in order.
Once the basics are set right, finer modalities can be looked into and implemented. Trained multi-lingual tour guides should be hired for the tourist sites and cc TV cameras should be installed at important places. The number of the visitors will gradually increase. In the year 2007 alone a baffling 903 million men and women travelled around the globe as tourists. Can any one tell about Pakistan’s share in this number? It is a food for thought for the government functionaries in general and the department of tourism in particular.
Written by Dr. Shahid Qayyum
Published by Alisha Khuram
