While a surge in domestic tourism has been attributed to the economic boom in India and the availability of better and cheaper travel options together with attractive package deals for new destinations, it is the brilliant packaging of the country under the “Incredible India” campaign that is drawing millions of foreign tourists – about 4 million in 2006.

The campaign was built around the brand proposition of “India as a path to ananda” (“wellness, bliss and contentment” in Sanskrit). When the advertising campaign was launched in 2002, and in the years since, India has hardly been the peaceful haven that the campaign promises. Yet it has worked like magic.

It has used stunning visuals of the country to showcase its dramatic diversity, whether with regard to its geography or heritage, its culture or cuisine. It has moved beyond the old approach of marketing India as the land of the Taj Mahal to showing a country that offers the visitor spectacular sunsets as well as ski slopes, adrenalin-pumping adventure sports as well as a stress-free lifestyle. It tempts visitors with the opportunity to savor life as the maharajas did decades ago or as the sages did in a world of spirituality. It has promoted India as a great place simply to experience life.

The Incredible India campaign has obviously struck a chord with foreign tourists. Over the past two years, tourist arrivals in India have grown at a steady 13% annually. In 2005, India was ranked fifth on the Conde Nast Traveler’s Readers Travel Awards 2005 list, up from the 11th slot three years earlier.

The accolades and increase in arrivals have been accompanied by a surge in the flow of foreign exchange as well. India’s foreign-exchange earnings from tourism stood at US$5.7 billion in 2005, a 20.2% increase over the previous year.

Even a few years back, it was tourists on a shoestring budget who flocked to India, and they brought in little foreign exchange. That has now changed. Foreign tourists in India spent an average of $1,470 per person in 2005, nearly double the global average of $844.
Tourism in some of the strife-torn parts of the country has suffered on account of terrorism. Fifteen years of armed insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir shattered its tourism industry. And the tourism potential of the northeastern states has remained untapped because of the decades of fighting there. It is only over the past three to four years that tourists, including foreigners, have returned to the Kashmir Valley.

Outside Kashmir and the northeastern states, terrorism hasn’t impacted seriously on tourism so far. The serial blasts in Mumbai last July did not affect foreign arrivals to the city; neither did the blasts at the Sankatmochan temple in Varanasi, another favorite on the Western tourist’s travel itinerary in India.

Goa, a favorite with foreigners, especially those from Israel, was reportedly on al-Qaeda’s hit list last Christmas, prompting the Israeli government to issue a travel advisory to its citizens traveling there. While the alert did trigger some concern, it did not impact too much on tourism. Israeli tourists, who incidentally have constituted the largest group visiting Kashmir, have often said they are used to worse in their own country and are unfazed by the security situation in India.

Tourism is India’s third-largest foreign-exchange earner. It is also among the sectors that provides the most employment. According to official figures, the sector directly and indirectly employs almost 42 million people, 8.78% of the total employment in the country.

And with India’s attractions to tourists increasing by the day – medical tourism, graveyard tourism and slum tourism are among the new draws – the sector seems poised to grow further. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the Indian tourism industry will grow annually at 10% over the next decade, the highest rate of growth in the world. The Tourism Ministry estimates that by the end of 2012, foreign-exchange earnings from tourists will cross $12 billion.

Ungodly treatment
But such hopes are in danger of being dashed if recent developments are any indication. Although the catchline of the Tourism Ministry is atithi devo bhavah (“the guest is god” in Sanskrit), the treatment of foreign tourists has been rather ungodly. Several attacks on tourists have occurred not in the terrorist hot spots but in the “safer” parts of India.

This month, a Swedish couple – part of a tour group – were attacked and seriously injured at the Thekkady resort area in “God’s Own Country”, Kerala. Last month, British tourist Stephen Bennett was allegedly lynched by villagers in Maharashtra. A Japanese tourist who went missing in September remains untraced. He was last spotted at Delhi’s international airport.

In 2004, a German tourist was raped by a police officer’s son in Rajasthan, and an Australian was raped and killed by a taxi driver in Delhi. And the number of women who get sexually harassed on the streets and trains is countless. Officials and tour operators are worried that such incidents will scare away tourists, just when things are beginning to look up for the sector.

For decades, India’s tourism suffered because of its crumbling travel and hospitality infrastructure and the lethargic approach that defined government efforts to woo visitors. Delays in securing visas or getting past formalities at airports, shabby airports and hotels, poorly maintained historical monuments, and harassment by touts and taxi drivers were among the long litany of complaints that figured in every tourist’s experience in the country.

The government has in recent years been trying to improve infrastructure and address tourist woes. Steps have been taken to boost expansion of the hotel industry and training, and help is being extended to those who would like to provide home-stay accommodations for tourists. The atithi devo bhavah initiative was launched to sensitize and train key stakeholders in the tourism industry on issues such as cleanliness, courtesy and Indian culture.

But the country is still a long way from matching the standards of service in other tourist destinations. Touts continue to hang out at railway stations and monuments, pestering tourists to buy carpets and curios at places where they get a commission. They direct them to hotels that are often seedy. It is almost impossible for a tourist to enjoy her or his time at a monument or a heritage site without a tout breathing down her neck.

India will have to do more than present attractive visuals of its spas and serene lifestyle. It has to clean up its streets. The threat that touts pose to India’s tourism seems far greater than that from terrorism.