"Tourism Enriches" the world order

"We are all linked through tourism…" states the newly launched global tourism communications campaign kick-started by the world tourism organization (WTO) in its held in Madrid, Spain.

The two day international mega event, held on January 29 and 30, 2004, attracted more than thirty speakers from seventeen countries, representing national tourism administrations and organizations, the private sector, and the media, who presented papers and debated issues of tourism communications and other multifaceted dimensions of tourism to the over 1200 participants from 126 countries.

Launching this global campaign titled "Tourism Enriches" the WTO Secretary General. Francesco Frangialli, in his inaugural address, lauded the role of media in tourism promotion stating that the organization's new found partner was the media - the first one being the private-public sector partnership.

He said that the media had a highly positive role in encouraging tourism and stressed the need for developing new standards in the tourism-media relationship, based on independence and mutual respect. He also called on the international media to play a responsible role in covering events that could impact heavily on the livelihood of travel destinations and their local populations.

"Tourism thrives on transparent, honest and effective communication. The media is an essential partner in this and so are the communications professionals, who work in the tourism industry", he said.

Tourism, as per the WTO reports, is the world's largest growth-industry, tripling in size and economic impact over the past fifty years and is forecast to triple again over the next two to three decades! Even though SARS and Iraq War sapped the percentage of international tourist arrivals by -1.2 per cent in 2003, compared to the previous year, the industry remains upbeat about its prospects in 2004.

The forecast for international tourist arrivals for 2010 is 1 billion which is slated to touch 1.6 billion by 2020. For India there was a 15.3 per cent increase in international tourist arrivals in 2003 with its share of an international tourism receipt of over US$ 3000 million However more could be achieved by India in terms of both the arrivals and receipts, which I will come back to explain later.

Every single soul on this earth — be it on land, in water or air — is linked through tourism! There is an obvious socio-economic angle to tourism, which has a human and cultural face too, as it leads to improved lives of many people and increased understanding among all the people of the world. This ubiquitous unification factor of tourism across countries and cultures is what is being leveraged by the WTO and TOURCOM. It was the first effort by the organisation to showcase the effectiveness of all the media of communication in leveraging this potential of tourism.

For example, the Lewis Model presented by Richard D. Lewis of Richard Lewis Communications, UK, for effective cross cultural communication that combines the key aspects of business and social communications for meeting the international demands and standards in tourism promotion would be a very useful model for the tourism promoters here in India, when the country is gearing itself to woo the international traveler.

One more avenue of tourism communication is the electronic media, which according to Thomas Steinmetz, Publisher, eTurboNews, based in Haleiwa, Hawaii, USA is the most effective and spontaneous forms of tourism communications. "What is so wonderful about the electronic media is that results can be measured in a way no other media would have the possibility to measure it... and this allows us to change the content to the most effective way", he pointed out in his presentation "E-Communication is tourism". One thing very striking in the paper "Communicating sustainable tourism: reaching the geotourist" presented by Jonathan B. Tourtellot, director of sustainable tourism, National Geographic Society — Geotourism and Editor, National Geographic Traveler was the differentiation he attempted to make between eco-tourism and geotourism.

The concept "geotourism", as introduced by the NGS, encompasses everything that goes into making a place a place, focusing on the importance of that particular place and the opportunities to build on the character of that place, whereas, Tourtellot said that ecotourism focuses only on nature.

He further stated that attracting the geotourist means focusing attention on a holistic way on all of the natural and human attributes that make a place worth visiting. He pointed out the folly of governments measuring success of tourism in terms of quantity and not quality, which unfortunately accelerates the trend toward overwhelming the destinations. "It is very important that tourism success be measured, not by counting heads, but counting up the economic and social benefit to the location. Without policies to conserve what tourists are coming to see, the place may eventually find that it has no attractions at all", he told the gathering.

Christian Nielsen of European Services Network and Author of Tourism and the Media in his presentation emphasized the need to issue effective and timely travel advisories to ensure that the countries citizens are well informed and prepared for travel abroad, thereby helping avoid difficulty and danger.

He further added that if this communication exercise is overdone, it would become bad news and adversely affect tourists' psyche and thwart all tourism efforts and prospects of the destination country. "Promoting a destination in normal circumstances is a difficult task, but promoting a destination that faces tourism challenges — whether from negative press, or from infrastructure damage caused by natural disasters or man-made causes — is an altogether more arduous task", he said.

He further said that the travel advisories and tourism communications during crises should be unbiased, realistic and responsible in nature, and whoever does it should be accountable for any verifiable evidence and consequences arising out of the communiqué.

The conference set a perfect stage for meaningful interaction between the major stakeholders of the tourism sector, was sponsored by big names in international travel such as Hong Kong Tourism Board, Reed Travel Exhibitions, IBERIA etc, with CNN being the general media sponsor.

Other media sponsors were National Geographic Traveller, CondeNast Traveller, Travel Channel, Dream Company and many more. But to my surprise, many journalists told me that when they thought of India, only Delhi, Agra and Rajasthan came to their mind. No body, whom I interacted with, had any clue of destination southern India, including our 'God's own country'! This drilled into me, what could be a naked truth that our brand promotional exercises do not reach beyond a closed circle espoused by our governmental and non-governmental tourism sectors.

This is evident from the fact that in the Asia and the Pacific region India has only 1.8% share of international tourist arrivals and only 3.1 per cent share of international tourism receipt! And as per the Conde Nast Traveler Report, India does not figure in the list of destinations that the affluent American is willing to travel to.

The sad part is that even the lesser prominent neighbours like Vietnam and Thailand figure in the list. If South Asia is the dream destination for the affluent American, then India isn't simply there as his/her priority! In the Asia-Pacific region China tops the list followed by Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.

The fact that the United Nations 15^th General Assembly had adopted a resolution on December 24 last year with which the WTO has become a new, full-fledged specialized agency of the UN, shows the growing importance of WTO and the necessity for our government and private sectors to closely associate with the Organization for leveraging India's image as a dream destination in the international tourism circles.

Beware! Our neighbouring countries are vying with one another to grab the pie of the world traveler who has his eyes fixed on South Asia. If tourism has to enrich our nation socially and economically, then we have to be more dynamic in our approaches and actions, even if it means hosting events like FITUR and TOURCOM in India and doing the ground work in establishing the necessary infrastructure of international standards.

{T.Damu,Vice President,Corporate Affairs, Indian Hotels CoLtd was a delegate from India to the First World Tourism Communicationms Conference held at Madrid,Spain,on 29th and 30th January 2004}