CHAPTER-IX

CONCLUSION

India as a country cannot afford to miss the opportunities for economic developments,

employment generation and foreign exchange earnings from cultural-heritage tourism,

specifically archaeo-heritage tourism. Management practices in the Indian tourism

sector should strive to achieve better growth of tourism through infrastructure

development, development of new products, improvement and proper mix of new

tourism products and innovative strategies for promotion and marketing of the rich

cultural-heritage. Management of right practices by all the agencies concerned with

the promotion of cultural-heritage tourism can help in generating new strategies for

achieving diversification of tourism products, packages and circuits developed on the

basis of core competence, strength of individual states and cultural products, instead

of going for common products and packages.

The process of globalisation has resulted in considerable stresses and tensions due to

competitive lifestyles, breakneck speed of change and ever-growing need to excel.

There is a tremendous demand from tourists, world over, to go to exotic and

unexplored places just to relax and run away from their monotonous, mechanical and

routine lifestyles. The rich cultural heritage of India has always evoked great interest

in people from all over the World. India is, and has always been a storehouse of

intellectual and cultural wisdom. Our, diversity, cultural richness, and multifarious

ways of living provide us the distinction of being in a position to offer many unique

products to the global community. Indian cultural heritage, with its deep roots in

ancient civilization, is enormously vast and varied, which can boast of original and

unique achievements in the field of spiritualism, yoga, art, architecture, religion,

philosophy, music, dance, festivities, customs, traditions, and, value—much beyond

the brand image of being a mysterious land of snake charmers.

Tourism management should be inbuilt with new cultural tourism products, packages

and circuits based on our rich cultural heritage focusing on archaeological/historical

sites monuments and palaces, sculpture and architecture, people and lifestyles, ethnic

diversity and languages, values and beliefs, myths and legends, rites and rituals,

customs and traditions, fairs and festivals, colours and costumes, deserts and beaches,

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artifacts and handicrafts, folklore and music, poetry and drama. These products based

on cultural heritage can be developed into attractions for tourism to accentuate in such

a way as to make them living, vibrant and entertaining for the tourists.

Modem management practices would be required to present these cultural tourism

products in the form of multimedia and audio-video presentations, seminars and

lectures, regular music and poetry recitals, reconstruction of the past with light and

sound shows, guided tours and heritage walks, books and publicity material like

picture postcards, posters, CDs, exhibitions, live performances and displays. These

would require creating world-class infrastructure and manpower to provide a tourist

with all the information and amenities at par with the best in the world together with

holistic experience and satisfaction of getting a good value for money and time spent

by him.

Cultural-heritage tourism products and management practices must ensure to

assimilate and support local needs and aspirations by promoting local cuisine,

handicrafts, folklore performances, cultural and recreational activities, local fairs and

festivals and heritage walks. The creation and development of such cultural tourism

enterprises would be best managed, if operated and owned by local people. The

modem travellers are better educated, culturally more aware, curious, analytical and

sensitive. They look for alternatives to large mass tourism markets. They want to stay

in small locally owned accommodation and become part of the local communities to

comprehend local values and ways of life instead of large modern hotels equipped

with international facilities.

In the Indian context, there appears to be a conceptual mindset of neglecting domestic

tourists. Policy makers, industry representatives and opinion makers in India have

always equated tourism and foreign visitors. The reasons are obvious; firstly, it is

traditionally the foreign visitors, who occupy hotel accommodation, fill the airline

seats, frequent the bars and restaurants and use the recreational adventure facilities

like beaches, mountains and exotic holiday resorts. Secondly, foreign exchange was in

short supply and the following tourists were looked upon as the purveyors of

unlimited money supply. Every aspect of Indian tourism, therefore, has so far been

designed to suit the requirements of the foreign visitors, be it accommodation,

transportation, recreation or shopping.

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The hidden dimension of Indian tourism that comprises a nominal rise of domestic

tourism from 63.8 million visitors in 1990 to 176 million visitors in 1999 (Table 9.1)

has somehow escaped the attention of the policy makers.

Table 9.1 Growth of Domestic Tourism in India

Year Domestic Arrivals

1990 63,817,285

1991 85,864,892

1992 102,465,705

1993 109,237,566

1994 127,116,655

1995 136,643,600

1996 140,119,672

1997 159,877,008

1998 168,196,000

1999 176,082,442

(source: WTTC Report, August 2001)

The phenomenal rise of domestic tourism is an inevitable byproduct of economic

development of the country. As people acquire more disposable income, the demand

for travel and tourism grows exponentially. This is already explained in the well

recognized axiom of Maslow; wherein travel becomes the first priority of an income

earner after the basic requirements of home, food and other necessities are met. It is

therefore imperative, that some good facilities are provided to domestic tourists at

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reasonable costs and at par with foreign tourists for a balance of growth of both

domestic and international tourism in India. The foreign tourists visit India mostly

during winter months from October to February, whereas domestic tourists move

around during the summer vacation coinciding with school vacations. These

characteristics can be effectively harnessed to reap the maximum advantages of

economic returns offered by tourism round the year.

According to WTTC, the Indian travel and tourism is expected to generate 3.8 million

additional new jobs by 2013 if its natural resources and rich cultural heritage are

properly developed with the help of thriving business community and high levels of

entrepreneurship, to achieve this, government of India has to take tourism as one of

the priorities with increased allocation of resources for tourism in both central and

state plans.

The data so far available indicates the rate of growth of tourism in South Asia was 9%

and 10.7% during 1999-2000 and 1998-1999 respectively, compared to 6.2% in

Europe and 6.5 in America, which is even higher than overall global growth of 7.4%

during 1999-2000. In India, the growth rate of tourist arrivals during the period from

1990-1999 has been 5.04% compared to 17.5%, 8% and 7.02% in China, Hong Kong

and Thailand respectively. Tourist Satellite Account (TSA) research highlights of

2004 presented by WTTC have pointed out that India and China are set to harvest the

fruits of overall macro-economic progress and benefit from this new opportunity for

domestic and international travel and tourism, used as a catalyst for economic

development (WTTC Annual Reports).

9.1 PRIORITIES

In order to utilize this tremendous potential, the following priorities including

suggestions by WTTC, can dramatically alter the face of “Cultural-Heritage Tourism”

in general as well as “Archaeo-Heritage Tourism” in particular, in India:

1. Cultural-heritage tourism should be highlighted as the bedrock of tourism

development in India with a systematic campaign to project our ancient

civilization, cultural values and ethos. All the agencies need to be sensitized

towards important aspects of cultural-heritage tourism management.

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2. Cultural-heritage tourism should not only be seen as a revenue generating

sector but also as a vehicle to project India as a great civilization.

3. Our priority should be to synthesize the elements of culture, tourism and civic

governance without taking cultural-heritage tourism as mere tourism. It should

be aimed at eliminating poverty, creating more employment opportunities,

empowering women and other weaker sections, creating new skills, preserving

cultural-heritage and most importantly, facilitating growth of just and fair

social order.

4. The intangible aspects of tourism can be substantially increased if proper

management practices are adopted and attractions are added in the form of

new products of cultural-heritage tourism.

5. Educational inputs in the form of cultural-heritage components should be

developed and incorporated in the tourism sector in order to attract more

domestic students travelling to various destinations.

6. The basic characteristics of Indian society like interdependent relationships,

emotional attachment, values, affection and bondage associated with

responsibilities of traditional Indian family system should be highlighted

through cultural interventions in such a way that foreign tourists can

experience these facets as a part of their visit.

7. There is an urgent need to highlight India as a cheaper destination providing

good value , for money to tap tremendous potential of budget tourists from

foreign countries besides encashing the higher income groups with more

satisfying experience through cultural-heritage manifestations. This will help

in encouraging repeating visits of tourists and increase in the duration of their

stay in India.

8. All the agencies involved with cultural-heritage (including archaeology) and

tourism should evolve appropriate strategies to take care of the demands of the

tourists during favourable seasons.

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9. There is a need to develop suitable infrastructure in terms of transportation and

accommodation in order to improve accessibility and feasibility requirements

of all categories of domestic and foreign tourists.

10. There is a dire necessity of developing better, faster, cheaper and more

comfortable means of public transport for the overall convenience of tourists

of all categories.

11. Popular cultural-heritage products in transportation like “Palace on Wheels”,

“Royal Orient Express”, etc., which mainly cater to affluent foreign and

domestic tourists should be replicated with similar products with cheaper fares

for domestic tourists to link various cultural-heritage destinations of a region.

12. Provision for decent quality accommodation at reasonable prices should be

made for domestic as well as foreign tourists of all segments. The traditional

concepts of associating hotels with foreigners only have to be reviewed.

13. Qualitative improvement in goods, services, accessibility and infrastructure

development in all the aspects of tourism with better management practices

and linkages of cultural-heritage with tourism should be made. This will help

in passing on economic returns uniformly to all sections of society involved

with cultural-heritage and tourism.

14. Tourists should get maximum satisfaction by way of good value for money

and time spent by them on entertainment and purchase of commodities,

especially artifacts, where there is tremendous scope for spending by the

tourists.

15. It is essential to link cultural-heritage with tourism because it is found that

sightseeing, which includes visit to archaeological/ historical sites, monuments,

religious places, witnessing dance and music and attending fairs and festivals,

is an important motivation for tourists to travel and visit tourist destinations,

even before embarking to a particular destination.

16. The educational aspect and human resource development of the host

community involved in the services of both domestic and foreign tourists

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should be strengthened. This can be done by popularising tangible and

intangible aspects of culture through publicity material, seminars and training

with cultural-heritage inputs, to enable them to provide correct information

and a satisfying and fulfilling experience to tourists.

17. The quality of entertainment should be accentuated with the help of positive

linkage of cultural-heritage with tourism and introduction of right

management practices.

18. Proper attention on publicity and personal contacts should be given to help

increase repeat clients and further publicise the tourist destination with more

cultural-heritage inputs.

19. The special aspect of Indian hospitality reflected in our philosophy of “Atithi

Devo Bhava” meaning “Guest is akin to God” and the positive attitude to host

community towards tourists should be adequately highlighted to attract more

tourists.

20. The sensitivity and accountability of people involved in the service sector

working in the government agencies should be improved. It is better if the

government agencies do not indulge in the service sector and confine their role

to infrastructural development in tourism.

21. There is a dire need of improving the cleanliness and hygienic conditions at

tourist destinations. This aspect should be given top priority since no tourists

would like to visit unhygienic and dirty destination, even if they are of great

cultural value. Moreover, having visited once, they will carry wrong message

with them.

22. The grey areas of tourism sectors should be addressed with the help of

cultural-heritage interference in tourism management. Entertainment in the

form of cultural-heritage programmes must have representations of local

culture even while taking care of accommodation aspects.

23. With cheaper labour rates and good quality of human resources available in

India, good quality of products and services can be provided to tourists at

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cheaper prices. This aspect of our ability to provide maximum amount of

satisfaction and good value of money and time spent needs to be popularised

in order to attract more tourists.

24. There should be some mechanism to link hotels with agencies working in the

field of art and culture to provide authentic and complgte panorama of Indian

art and culture to the tourists.

25. The accommodation sector should be encouraged to provide complete and

authentic understanding of Indian art and culture, so that tourists are not left

on their own to pursue their cultural interest.

26. It is suggested that developing cultural-heritage products and marketing them

exclusively in a hotel can attract tourists and improve occupancy much beyond

budgetary considerations, since such an accommodation could be perceived as

an attraction itself.

27. There is a need to develop vision and awareness amongst hoteliers about the

role of cultural-heritage in promoting tourism in India. Through suitable

incentives they should be encouraged to spend more money on promoting art

and culture as a part of tourism development.

28. All agencies involved in promoting tourism, should be made to realise the

possible harmful effect of over exploitation of cultural-heritage, which tends

to distort local culture, as has happened in some other countries.

29. The communication gap among travel agents/tour operators regarding the

local culture prevailing in a region and that marketed in bigger cities needs to

be bridged with the use of latest communication channels along with modem

management practices to effectively increase the reach of the tourists by

providing them with all available information at all levels, much before they

embark on their destination.

30. Institutions promoting art and culture need to outreach and contact all the

agencies working in tourism in order to make them aware of their work and

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activities in the overall interest of promoting Indian art and culture for the

tourists.

31. Tourist agencies should take steps to develop confidence in the host

community so as to foster warm relationships with the tourists by making

them physically and mentally comfortable besides generating a feeling of

security and safety among them with a positive attitude of goodwill and

welcome.

32. Cultural-heritage interventions in the form of well-managed tourism products

should be introduced to help increase tourism in a region as tourists continued

to have positive inclination towards places of archaeological/historical and

cultural interest even after their visit to a particular destination.

33. The special talents of guides to narrate historical facts and cultural information

in a story form to the tourists can be utilized effectively if there are forward

and backward linkages with all the agencies like travel agents, hotels and

cultural-heritage institutions involved in culture and tourism by training them

as effective resource persons to present the authentic aspects of culture and

provide correct information rather than concocted and spicy stories that may

please the tourist for a short time, but ultimately prove harmful in the long run.

34. The interest of tourists should be drawn towards hitherto unknown and

unpublicised attractions and their itineraries should be enriched with right kind

of inputs and correct information about the regional culture and cultural-

heritage.

35. Guides represent the closest link between the tourists and their destinations,

and provide an effective link between the tourist-generating regions, travel

agents and tourist destinations. As such, there is a need to strengthen the

guides as resource persons by professionalising their services besides

equipping them with cultural components and linking them with all supportive

services like transportation, publicity material, reservations, money exchange

etc.

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36. The government of India should lay more emphasis on unearthing hitherto

untapped tourist destinations of vast potential as tourists do not visit

destinations in India for entertainment or business purposes but are more

interested in exploring the country and knowing all nuances of its art and

culture.

37. The strategy should also be to concentrate on domestic tourism, particularly

rural and pilgrimage tourism, so that the infrastructure, thus created, can serve

as a backbone for International tourism in times to come. This will help in

compensating the fall of revenue from foreign tourism in lean season with

increase in revenue from domestic tourism in alternative seasons.

38. At least one centre should be identified in each state and union territory as a

hub of culture, tourism and civic governance. It is suggested to develop such

centers in Kurukshetra in Haryana, Bodh Gaya in Bihar, Mahabalipuram in

Tamil Nadu, Ajanta-Ellora Caves in Maharashtra, Lai Quila in Delhi, Hampi

in Karnataka, Bhimbetka, in Madhya Pradesh, Kumbalgarh-Chittorgarh in

Rajasthan, Dholavira in Gujarat, Rishikesh-Bardinath in Uttaranchal,

Udayagiri-Khandigri in Orissa, Nagarjuna Sagar in Andhra-Pradesh, Kiillu-

Manali in Himachal Pradesh, Kamakhya in Assam, etc.

39. Places like Raghurajpur village in Orissa, which is known for Patachitra

paintings have a unique techniques of writing on palm leaves and Guru-

Shishya tradition of teaching Gotipua dance to young children of poor families

should be selected as models of rural tourism in the country. Similarly,

villages like Badnava and Molela in Rajasthan should be projected as a

musician’s village and terracotta village, respectively to attract tourists.

40. India’s image has to be corrected with honest information available from

reliable source on safety security, cleanliness and hygiene by cultivating travel

writers to project a better image of India.

41. In order to fund, maintain and market India’s cultural-heritage, the

participation of private sector for promoting cultural-heritage should be

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encouraged and private sector funds should be leveraged with the creation of

public-private heritage trusts.

42. There should be a rational entry system in the form of a package for all major

national heritage sites, so that the tourists do not feel discriminated and

harassed.

43. The government, central or state, must stand forth as a facilitator rather than a

regulator or roadblock. The government has no business to run hotels and

restaurants because it needs a high degree of accountability, commitment and

result-oriented approach, which is largely missing in government enterprises

managing a service sector.

44. The availability of airline seats for flights coming to India should be

augmented, since India is a long haul destination which cannot be reached by

rail or road alone. The policy of the Indian government to allow international

flights only on a reciprocal basis and sharing of segments needs to be changed,

the government of India should allow foreign airlines and charted aircrafts to

land in India to facilitate more international tourist arrivals closer to the actual

tourist destinations.

45. More international airports should be opened and the existing airports should

be privatised, which would facilitate investments and improve management of

airports. Nearly 85% of the tourists come to India through only five

international airports, which have been rated as among worst airports in the

world.

46. The visa procedures should be simplified to attract maximum number of

tourists from the developed countries, which are major tourist-generating

regions.

47. The accommodation sector should be opened up with liberal land policies to

attract investments and a uniform taxation system conducive to tourism should

be evolved. In some states as many as 48 clearances are required for

construction and operation of a hotel. Enactments like coastal regulation zone

have become biggest stumbling blocks in the development of seaside resorts.

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It is no wonder, therefore, that the hotels and tourist accommodation in India

have become some of the most expensive places in the world.

48. There should be a rational taxation regimen in all the states. The government

should stop treating hospitality industry as a milking cow, which can be

flogged mercilessly. State after state has levied crippling taxes on

accommodation, restaurants, catering, liquor, and transport. There is no

, uniformity in the taxes administered by the states with Tamil Nadu charging as

much as 40% tax on accommodation while Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh

charge extraordinarily high transport taxes. The excise policy in Rajasthan and

elsewhere makes liquor cost 350% above its normal price.

49. Last but not the least, there is a dire necessity to link all aspects of

management with all facets of culture as well as tourism, in order to provide a

holistic view of Indian art and culture to domestic as well as foreign tourists in

its entirety.

It is time for the central and state governments to change their perception of seeing

tourism as an elitist activity set in the background of five star hotels, recreation and

pleasure. The implications of management of cultural-heritage tourism leading to

employment generation, community growth, foreign exchange earnings, promotion,

preservation and conservation of Indian cultural-heritage, etc., cannot be ignored.

Time has now become ripe for India to identify, prioritise, and implement uniform

management strategy to awaken this sleeping giant of cultural-heritage tourism,

turning it into one of the most powerful engines of economic growth, employment

generation as well as conservation and preservation of cultural-heritage in the decades

to come.

The overall strategy of cultural-heritage tourism management must ensure that a

tourist to India should get physically invigorated, mentally rejuvenated, culturally

enriched and spiritually elevated so much so that on return to his country he feels

India within him.

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