Pic source internet
Tourism
brings cultures, cuisines and countries together, a recent newspaper clip
caught the attention of many, when the locals of Shimla were pleading the
Tourist not to visit Shimla!
Depleting
resources, excess commercialization, increase in waste output, impact on
environment are serious concerns in most of the Tourist spots across India.
Tourism is not necessarily a fully organized industry in India, but for many
states biggest source of revenue and job creating comes from Tourism, and
foreign tourist influx brings in much needed foreign exchange, of course we
forget the fact that local tourists are indeed greater volume when it comes to
religious tourism, and hill stations that are high on honeymoon tourism. With
accessibility and added economic power local tourists indeed outnumber the foreign
tourists.
The
lopsided tourism policies are focused on creating tourism infrastructure and
seldom focus on developing the industry to make tourism more sustainable. These
lopsided policies eventually are crumbling under their own weight, as tourist
spots are becoming more and more crowded and in turn giving rise to serious
environmental and sustainability issues. Be it untreated sewage let into the
Ganga from the hotels in Gangotri or the garbage being thrown on the top of Khardung-La
or the eateries cleaning meat at Balmuri falls or hours of traffic jams due to
large number of visitors to Shivanasamudra, all tell the same story of bad
policy decisions and even worst implementation.
Recently
Karnataka Forest department took a decision to restrict the number of Trekkers,
as the popular Trekking routes like Kudremukh, Skandagiri, Kumaraparvatha were
reeling under heaps of trash and witnessed serious threat to the Flora and
Fauna, but is that enough? The Forest department and Tourism department work in
silos, thereby leading to more policy lapses and failure to create a holistic
tourism policy.
Karnataka
can offer 365 days tourism option and is blessed with a variety of options,
Beaches, Wildlife, Cycling, Eco-Tourism, Safaris, Trekking, Rafting, Temples,
Rock Climbing, Kayaking, Scuba Diving, Sky Diving, Forts, Monuments, Hill
Stations, Waterfalls etc. With high connectivity and accessibility, the IT
State lives up its tourism tagline ‘One State Many Worlds’, Tourism
department’s enthusiasm to emulate states like Kerala or Goa or Rajasthan it is
committing the same mistakes where the policies are devoid of sustainability. Today
over 30-40 % of Karnataka tourist spots have reached the danger mark in the
scale of impact on environment and sustainability.
Even
though Karnataka was one of the 1st State to ban all kinds of single
use plastic items fully, most tourist spots are an eyesore with plastic
items littered around unmanaged, once in a while these spots are cleaned and
the waste along with plastic and disposables gets dumped into nearby drain or
burnt. Waste water is let into the streams and rivers without any thought on
the impact it has in the long term. With excess foot falls in some of the tourist spots,
there is an alarming impact on environment and resources.
Does
Karnataka Tourism policy talk about waste management or treating of waste
water or low emission transport, does the state have a policy on making tourism more sustainable? Answer
in NO! Any tourist spot that has an average of 100 tourists per day has to be
considered at a high inflow spot where the infrastructure like hotels, toilets,
eateries, souvenir stores, facilities needs to be regulated and made fully
complaint under the ‘Sustainable Tourism Guidelines’, and also create a community-based
tourism where the beneficiaries are the local communities and not the Tourism
department.
Tourism
department has to play the role of a facilitator, incubator and regulator and
not that of an operator, thereby making tourism more community based, this can
create direct employment for local communities and increase accountability on Sustainable
Tourism with checks and balances.
There
is an argument that focus on Sustainable Tourism could lead to lesser inflow of
tourists, which in reality invalid argument, as in the long-term there are more
gains then loss, and also it is an opportunity to identify and develop more
tourist spots. If the objective is to ensure that a foreigner should be able to
spend one extra day in Karnataka, then it is a strong reason enough to offer
more options rather than more days with fewer options.
So,
what are the suggestions for Karnataka Tourism, here are some options, 1. Redraft tourism policy making it Sustainability centric 2. Shift from the role of an Operator to Facilitator,
Incubator and Regulator 3. Promote Responsible Tourism via Community and
Operators 4. Invest in resource development, low emission transport and not merely in infrastructure
buildings 5. Focus on maintenance, cleanliness and branding of the tourist
spots 6. Market tourist spots not facilities 7. Incubate operators and encourage
operators to create circuits based on season 8. Prohibit tourist spots for at
least 100 days in a year, to ensure re-cope and reduce exploitation 9. Stay
committed to Environment friendly Sustainable Tourism.
Sustainable Tourism has to be the only way forward, foot falls cannot be the scale to measure success of tourism policy, scale of sustainability is far more important as we are constantly challenged by resource constraints and environmental impact.
Kavitha
Reddy
