Travel & Tourism-jan-feb2011

INFOCUS | TRAVEL&TOURISM | SPECIAL REPORT

Great Journeys

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That’s what these two great nations seem to get as travellers from either country these days, and yet there have been a great number of travellers and timeless accounts in books thousand years ago. There is an urgent need to revive the interest and thus give tourism between the two countries a fresh fillip.

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INFOCUS | TRAVEL&TOURISM | SPECIAL REPORT

Ravi Bhoothalingam

J

ourney to the West is the name of a popular Chinese classic, an imaginative rendering of the travels of the Buddhist monk and scholar Xuan Zang. In the 7th century AD, he journeyed from China across Central Asia to India, and spent 14 years travelling in our country before returning with a vast collection of Buddhist manuscripts. But Xuan Zang’s epic journey was itself in continuation of a long tradition.

For a thousand years before him, pilgrims, traders, scholars and adventurers had trodden the many trade routes between India and China collectively known today as the ‘Silk Road’. A pilgrimage to India –‘the Western Paradise’- was the ultimate dream for many Chinese. Indian sculptors, painters, artists, musicians, astronomers, mathematicians and scholars were to be found in every city along the Silk Road, and had an honoured place in Xian, the then capital of Imperial China. Even more remarkably, these two civilizations coexisted peacefully for nearly three millennia without any significant period or event of armed conflict.

Such a record between neighbouring countries must be unprecedented in world history.

How is all this relevant today? The word ‘tourist’ was unknown in the days of those Silk Road travelers. But in today’s terminology, the travels of those merchants, yogis, pilgrims, scholars, craftsmen, charlatans and others who frequented these routes would fit the definition of tourism. They travelled ‘with a purpose’, well beyond their ‘local areas’, and certainly more than ‘overnight’—in fact, for months if not years. Perhaps the first really largescale tourism in recorded history was between India and China.

Against this glorious historical canvas, where is India-China tourism today? The story is pathetic. In 2010, of India’s 5 million international arrivals, less than 100,000 were from China.

And of China’s 42.75 million foreign (non-ethnic and excluding Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) visitors in that year, about 500,000 were Indian, and that includes non-resident Indians. These figures look even more marginal when set in the context of the burgeoning growth of the outbound travel business in both countries – over 20% per year through the two decades since 1990.

China and India also generate healthy outbound volumes: (40 million and 12 million travellers per year respectively from each country). The World Travel and Tourism Council estimate that the Asia-Pacific region will remain the growth engine for world tourism for the next 10 years.

In the interests of economics, many leisure travellers have already switched from long-haul to short and mediumhaul destinations. In the last few years, Chinese travellers have focused on Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar. Indians too have taken advantage of the attractive tourist packages available for travel to Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius and the South-East Asian region. Carriers in Asia have increased their reach and frequencies, notably to India and Australia. Domestic tourism and intraregional tourism are more prominent in Chinese are great travellers but very few seeem to make it to India.

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the consumer mind-space right now.

At the same time, both countries have also developed a substantial segment of high-value leisure travellers who enjoy exotic and new destinations.

For the Chinese, these may be in unusual destinations in Europe or the Pacific, for Indians, in Australasia and adventure destinations worldwide. In this broader scenario, however, IndiaChina bilateral travel continues to languish, at levels certainly not befitting two giant, fast-growing, neighbouring Asian economies.

The irony is that the potential for outbound travel from both these giant Asian countries is enormous. The World Tourism Organization forecasts that, by the year 2020, China should account for an outbound volume of

India and China need to tap into each other’s huge tourism markets.

Even more remarkably, these two civilizations coexisted peacefully for nearly three millennia without any significant period or event of armed conflict. Such a record between neighbouring countries must be unprecedented in world history.

100 million travellers, the largest in the world. India could be over 50 million by that time. Moreover, after joining the World Trade Organization, China has loosened its restrictions on its outbound travellers. In India, the current rules on foreign exchange are liberal enough to deter only the most extravagant and wildly opulent travel.

This combination of large outbound volumes together with rising purchasing power constitutes a powerful engine for tourism generation, and so it is not surprising that many countries are competing to seize a piece of these lucrative pies.

Australia, Switzerland, UK, Austria,

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INFOCUS | TRAVEL&TOURISM | SPECIAL REPORT

Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Mauritius, Maldives and Sri Lanka are actively pursuing the Indian tourist. So are the countries of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and even individual provinces of European nations such as Italy and France.

Imaginative approaches are in plenty.

Britain, Switzerland and New Zealand are targeting Bollywood to shoot films in locales in their countries. Strong advertising and attractive packages lure the Indian traveller to Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand. The countries of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, along with Thailand have also created the Greater Mekong tourism packages aimed at the Chinese and East Asian markets. Korea, and more recently, Mongolia and Russia, have actively targeted the Chinese traveller.

With this background, it is India’s tourism potential is great but we need to tap the Chinese market.

imperative that for their mutual benefit, India and China should immediately engage each other intensively to increase tourism between the two countries.

Even if either country got only 5% of the others’ outbound market, it would mean 2 million additional tourists for India, and 0.5 million for China. For India, this implies a foreign exchange inflow of over 4 billion US dollars and at least 200,000 additional jobs.

Example, if one Jumbo Jet lands daily with 400 persons as tourists, revenue of US$ 150 million is generated over the year, even assuming a modest expenditure of US$ 1000 per stay over a 7-day visit.

The time now is propitious. Over the last few years, flight frequencies between the two countries have increased as indeed the destinations connected. Business and delegation travel has picked up very sharply in the wake of booming trade and commerce, but to tap the tourism goldmine, we

must act quickly on a few fronts.

First of all, we must increase the awareness of India in China. At present, India figures quite marginally in the Chinese psyche. Yes, India does occupy a special place as the land of the Buddha, especially amongst the older generation. Indian films have made a visible mark; there is scarcely a taxi driver from Xian to Xinjiang who cannot hum the words of Awaara Hoon. The 1962 conflict does not seem to bother people in general and survives only as a residual political issue. There is recognition and respect for India as an IT power, and for its relatively strong English-language base. But all this does not yet translate into transforming India into a holiday destination for the Chinese.

Awareness of India should be supported through strong and imaginative measures. It is no longer sufficient just to open the quintessential government of India tourism office in

Beijing. Rather, we should create a 21st century “House of India in China” in Beijing and other key Chinese cities through a cooperative venture involving the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, representative organizations of India’s tourism industry, aviation and travel companies interested in China, the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and NASSCOM. There should be a yearlong calendar of events and programmes projecting different aspects of India.

Leading film personalities should be called upon to tour the provinces of China. Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai could be our best ambassadors!

Print and electronic media must be targeted to cover the various facets of India, with Indian fabrics, fashion, and cuisine being in full display. Above all, we should launch an ambitious youth exchange programme to create a new generation dedicated to friendship and peace, and the rediscovery of each

others’civilizations.

Secondly, we should create travel packages for the Chinese traveller, with care and attention to language, information and cuisine. Let us try novel approaches. Why not holiday offers coupled with English-language summer schools for Chinese students?

What about exchange programmes where teachers can teach Indians Chinese and Chinese English? Why not open the historic trans-Himalayan land routes from Sikkim and Ladakh, Tibet and Xinjiang to adventure and eco-tourism? How about shooting Indian films in China and a sequel of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shot in India?

Thirdly, let us look afresh at tourism circuits. Can we create a transnational ‘Grand Buddhist Tour’ starting from Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, to take in the hallowed Buddhist sites of Northern India and Nepal, traverse the great monasteries of Tibet, terminating in Mongolia at the magnificent Erdene Zuu monastery built on the ruins of ancient Karakorum? What about direct charters into Jaipur and Kochi and creating an Indian ‘fair of nationalities’ a la Dilli Haat in both cities? Can we capitalize upon the reopening of Nalanda University to

Chinese fishing nets off the coast of Cochin in north Kerala.

create a great upsurge of Asian student interest in India, as was the case over two millennia ago?

Tourism on a large scale between India and China will create benefits for people that go well beyond the economic dimension, though that in itself is substantial. It will be a massive move for peace and stability, in a world that stands perilously close to greater conflict and violence. And a befitting revival of the Silk Road-- so that the trails blazed by Xuan Zang, Fa Xian, Kumarajiva and Bodhidharma may be followed by citizens of today’s world recreating these two ancient civilizations for their fulfillment, profit and pleasure. 

Ravi Bhoothalingam is Chairman and Founder, Manas Advisory; an independent director and consultant, he travels extensively in China, Mongolia and High Asia to promote cultural and business ties and is Fellow, Royal Geographical Society, London.

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