{"id":15845,"date":"2010-09-28T23:24:07","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T18:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/?p=15845"},"modified":"2010-09-28T23:24:07","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T18:24:07","slug":"opinion-come-and-see-for-yourselves-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/2010\/09\/28\/opinion-come-and-see-for-yourselves-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"[Opinion] Come and see for yourselves — Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

By M Ismail Khan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Come and see for yourselves — Pakistan is not what the ruthless\u00a0western media may have led you to believe –from the virgin beaches in\u00a0Gwadar to the ‘throne room of mountain gods’ in the Karakorum — it is\u00a0a country of unmatched natural splendors. It houses 140 million\u00a0hospitable and ‘largely’ easy going people belonging to an array of\u00a0cultural background some of them as old as 9000 years. Pakistan is not\u00a0all about venomous mullahs, suicide bombers and oppressed women –that\u00a0is a message the country needs to project as loud and clear as\u00a0possible. Tourism can serve as an important means of public diplomacy\u00a0to convey such messages. However, one needs to keep in mind that\u00a0festivals and cultural events do help tourism but tourism cannot only\u00a0be defined as a set of cultural events. Tourism essentially is a\u00a0business activity, which requires enabling policies, market forces,\u00a0professional expertise and requisite infrastructure; it is not a polio\u00a0vaccine which can be promoted through awareness campaigns alone.<\/p>\n

For years now, we have been trying to put together a ‘Visit Pakistan\u00a0Year’ but somehow had to postpone the celebrations as other and more\u00a0urgent tasks e.g. Kargil conflict, change in government, and war\u00a0against terror etc, came in the way. This time around, our dynamic\u00a0tourism minister seems determined to celebrate 2007 as ‘Visit Pakistan\u00a0Year’. Nonetheless, it would be interesting to see how she would\u00a0manage to maintain the momentum once the election dates are fixed.\u00a0Meanwhile, the ministry has announced a wholesale 50 per cent discount\u00a0in royalty fee on mountain peaks rising above 6500 meters (e.g.\u00a0regular fee for 8611 meters high K2 is US$12000), it has also rolled\u00a0out an ambitious plan of around 52 events all over the country, and\u00a0has developed a prioritised marketing plan targeting specific tourist\u00a0generating countries. These are definitely some positive moves, yet at\u00a0the end of the day, a successful tourism campaign would be judged on\u00a0the basis of the number of arrivals and foreign exchange earned in a\u00a0fiscal year, and not by the number of events organised.<\/p>\n

Tourism, the world’s largest industry after oil and automobiles, has\u00a0always struggled to find its rightful place in the eyes of Pakistan’s\u00a0economic planners. In many countries, including the ones in Asia,\u00a0tourism has already emerged as a major employer, taxpayer and foreign\u00a0exchange earner. Pakistan on the other hand, despite having excellent\u00a0potential in terms of both cultural and natural heritage, has\u00a0miserably failed to capitalise on this economic opportunity. The poor\u00a0and negative image of the country as a tourist destination has been a\u00a0major constraint. Here again, political chaos prevailing in the region\u00a0especially Afghanistan and Pakistan-India tensions over Kashmir, and\u00a0the ill-conceived radicalisation of state institutions and symbols may\u00a0have left a longer then life shadow over the real picture of the\u00a0Pakistani society.<\/p>\n

But ‘image’ is not the only problem Pakistan’s tourism faces or else\u00a0the domestic tourism should have been booming. The basic problem has\u00a0been the lack of imagination and commitment on part of the policy\u00a0makers to make best use of country’s tourism resources. Tourism as an\u00a0economic activity is an interplay of state level facilitation and\u00a0market based operation. Over the years, a lot of noise has been made\u00a0about having a futuristic tourism policy, and about according the\u00a0tourism sector full industry status, but nothing has actually came out\u00a0of those pronouncements.<\/p>\n

The best way to celebrate ‘Visit Pakistan Year’, therefore, is to\u00a0introduce major reforms in the tourism sector. Tourism should be\u00a0provided full industry status by encouraging banks and financial\u00a0institutions to favorably invest in hotel, transport, human resource\u00a0development and other areas of the sector. There is need to rewrite\u00a0the terms of reference of the federal tourism departments created in\u00a01970s. Everywhere, tourism has become a highly competitive business,\u00a0if Pakistan desires to do well it has to (re) restructure the tourism\u00a0departments on professional lines so that their services could cater\u00a0to the high expectations of modern day’s choosy tourists.<\/p>\n

There is tremendous scope for cultural, pilgrimage, and sports tourism\u00a0in the country, but the most precious segment for the country is the\u00a0high budget mountaineers and trekkers. Those are the people who invest\u00a0a lot of time, effort and money in pursuit of their desired tourism\u00a0products. They are faithful and committed customers that usually many\u00a0of them won’t even care about a war going on in the neighbouring\u00a0valley. Yet the kind of bureaucratic red tapes these poor mountaineers\u00a0have to endure in visiting Pakistan is simply preposterous. Each one\u00a0of them has to be cleared by a number of departments, some of them\u00a0hardly capable to spell their own names, forget about those of\u00a0incoming tourists. In a country, where billions of rupees worth\u00a0smuggling takes place in the name of Afghan transit-trade etc it is\u00a0clearly an anti-tourism behavior to penalize the prospective tourists\u00a0who wishes to bring in necessary equipments for their expeditions.<\/p>\n

There is also no point in asking tourist to report in Islamabad on\u00a0their way up and back from the mountains for the sake of ‘briefing and\u00a0debriefing’ when the same can be accomplished through the officials\u00a0already posted at their launching basis like, Gilgit, Skardu and\u00a0Chitral. Imagine the frustration of incoming expedition members when\u00a0they are forced to break their journey in Islamabad in the smoldering\u00a0heat of summer often having to miss out on their schedule flights\u00a0disturbing the entire travel plan just to pacify the ego of some\u00a0clueless officials.<\/p>\n

Another convenient way to multiply foreign exchange earnings through\u00a0tourism is to allow direct chartered flights access to Skardu, which\u00a0already has Pakistan’s longest airstrip capable of handling all kind\u00a0of aircrafts. Giglit and Chitral airports need further up-gradation\u00a0for long haul flights. Private sector airlines should be encouraged to\u00a0operate flights to the mountain areas. Situated next to Northern Areas\u00a0is Ladakh region in the Indian administered Kashmir \u2013 opening of the\u00a0traditional road link between the two regions can stimulate a major\u00a0tourism boom in the whole region – whereby Tibet’s recently\u00a0inaugurated high altitude train system has already become a major\u00a0tourist puller in China.<\/p>\n

Lack of intra and inter-department coordination and devolution of\u00a0marketing responsibilities at the provincial levels are other snags.\u00a0Embassies and PIA need activation and capacity. Foreign service\u00a0academy should provide for tourism courses as well. It has to be\u00a0considered that tourism products that Sindh or Punjab would like to\u00a0market are different to the one presented by NWFP and the Northern\u00a0Areas or Balochistan, therefore, it is vital that a true tourism niche\u00a0of different units is reflected in the marketing strategies. This will\u00a0enable different regions to deal with the issue of extreme\u00a0seasonality, and would help tune their services and infrastructures\u00a0accordingly.<\/p>\n

Note: The writer is from Gilgit-Baltistan, presently based in Islamabad.\u00a0He has an additional qualification in tourism from the Schloss\u00a0Klessheim in Salzburg, Austria. Email: ismail.k2@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By M Ismail Khan Come and see for yourselves — Pakistan is not what the ruthless\u00a0western media may have led you to believe –from the virgin beaches in\u00a0Gwadar to the ‘throne room of mountain gods’ in the Karakorum — it is\u00a0a country of unmatched natural splendors. It houses 140 million\u00a0hospitable and ‘largely’ easy going people …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[167,43,357,1046,89,9,4781,170,53],"class_list":["post-15845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pakistan","tag-astore","tag-baltistan","tag-diamir","tag-ghanche","tag-ghizar","tag-gilgit","tag-gilgit-baltistan","tag-skardu","tag-tourism"],"better_featured_image":null,"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}