RISHIKESH - The Indian government, seeking to drive up tourism revenues through its global "Incredible India" campaign, is failing to match its public relations efforts with adequate infrastructure and curbs on corruption among local officials.
The ancient pilgrim town of Rishikesh, 230 kilometers from Delhi, and headquarters of the increasingly popular white-water river rafting industry, is at the epicenter of the mess. The town lies in Uttarakhand, a tourism-dependant state in northern India, and exemplifies the troubling underside of "Incredible India", where tourism could be worth as much as US$220 billion annually by 2019.
Adventure tourism, involving activities such as river-rafting, is a growing industry in the country, already generating $2 billion
annually and with expected annual growth of 20%. Foreign tourists contribute 65% of revenues.
"The region receives thousands of tourists a month, but the Uttarakhand government has not upgraded or built basic facilities such as roads and even public toilets," says Arvind Bharadwaj, a partner in Red Chilli Adventures, a well-known rafting and trekking operator in Rishikesh. "Even garbage facilities at river-side camps have been built by tour operators."
Rishikesh, in the Himalayan foothills and on the banks of the Ganges River, is one India's sacred Hindu pilgrimage towns. It is also one of the most popular north Indian destinations for Western travelers, serving both as the country's capital for yoga, meditation and therapy centers and as a base for rafting.
But just as spirituality "services" are often linked to con-men running rackets to rob gullible tourists, state governmental departments - forestry officials in particular - are being accused of ruthlessly exploiting the tourism industry as a cash cow, but not providing necessary infrastructure and fair application of tourism-related laws.
For instance, local forestry officials allegedly stop trekking expeditions while they are in progress to arbitrarily demand more "taxes" or withhold "permits" for visits to various mountain regions and national parks close to India's borders with Tibet and China.
The conflict involves the government, adventure-tour operators, nature-loving tourists, environmental activists, local tribes and villages, and corporates, reflecting the numerous facets of Rishikesh and India itself.
The town has a noisy, mundane, business side, a quieter region across the river teeming with temples, meditation and yoga centers, and the timeless serene, peaceful, powerful purity of the Himalayas that grips one in the less human-inhabited regions of Rishikesh, where sages have meditated for thousands of years.
Governmental officials are being accused of feeding the tourism business conflict, instead of resolving it. For instance, contradictory policies and permit fees for foreigners plague the Garhwal and Kumaon Himalayas adjacent to each other in Uttarakhand state. “It's almost like dealing with different states," says Arvind Bharadwaj. "There is no single window clearance for all the various permits needed. It's like dealing with two different state governments."
The tourism red tape and taxation is reminiscent of India's infamous "License Raj" in the era before economic opening up in the early 1990s, when corrupt bureaucrats and politicians choked Indian industry and entrepreneurs of decades of growth.
Given India's breathtakingly diverse and vast natural resources - it has some of the world's highest mountains, longest rivers, a 7,600-kilometer coastline, both sea-level and high-altitude deserts, places rich in history and culture - the general industry perception is that the country makes barely 10% use of its tourism potential, compared with smaller Asian nations like Singapore and Malaysia.
The 2009 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report, from the World Economic Forum, ranks India 11th in the Asia-Pacific region and 62nd overall, among the world's attractive tourism destinations. Switzerland, Austria and Germany head the list, with Singapore the top-ranked Asian nation at 10th.
India's travel and tourism industry, though, is ranked fifth in 10-year growth projections, and it is expected to be the world's second-largest tourism-related employer by 2019.
The Planning Commission, India's top economic think-tank, last month expressed its support to give infrastructure status to the tourism industry, a special 10-year tax holiday status at present given to sectors such as power, roads, ports and airports.
But the basics of tourism suffer long-time neglect, evident in the trouble brewing in Uttarakhand. For instance, the irritating, idiotic side of the Tourism Ministry's "Incredible India" campaign appears in the tourists' first contact with the country. Indifferent, bored customs and immigration officials deal with air passengers inside the airport, with barely a courteous greeting; awaiting them outside, like vultures, are crooked taxi drivers fleecing tourists, with the active connivance of airport police.
The same short-sighted view of killing the goose that can lay the golden egg appears in Uttarakhand state. This correspondent was shown a receipt dated October 17 from the Uttar Kashi Forest Division in the state, charging daily taxes of 100 rupees (about US$2) for a kitchen tent; 50 rupees for each guest tent; and in all about 4,500 rupees a day for three trekking tourists from Germany. Forest department taxes form about half the fee tour operators earn, apart from paying income taxes.
Life isn't happier for wildlife tour operators. "There is so much violation of laws from vested interests that one has to create a small oasis within which to survive," said Minakshi Pandey, who runs Forktail Creek, a popular jungle camp on the outskirts of the famous Corbett National Park in the state .
"Harassment - that's the problem in one word," said Yousuf Zaheer, considered India's first professional rafting guide and former president of the Sahasik Sangharsh Prayatak Smiti, the regional tour operators' association.
Zaheer, managing director of the Himalayan River Runners adventure tourism firm, said the latest bit of governmental devilry is a proposed 20% entertainment tax on the river-rafting business. His association has decided to take this issue to court.
"First of all, adventure tourism is more an interactive learning experience with nature, through which we also discover ourselves," Zaheer told Asia Times Online. "'Entertainment' is almost a derogatory term for it, and the entertainment tax reflects all the uncertainties and arbitrary new rules we are facing."
Yousuf Zaheer started his love with rivers 25 years ago, rafting in the rivers of Oregon and Washington state in the United States. "The safety models are nearly the same worldwide for river rafting," says Zaheer, "but India developed a unique new model by combining rafting with riverside beach camps."
These semi-permanent camps in the Rishikesh region have become a big hit with tourists, including the expatriate population and foreign embassies' staff from Delhi. The local governmental is accused of hijacking the business by randomly canceling licenses and delaying granting annual permits.
"For instance, permits for this year came only in the first week of October, over a month later than usual," said Arvind Bharadwaj. "That means our clients from overseas who have made travel plans much ahead suffer from uncertainties and cancelations."
In 2000, Uttarakhand state was hailed as a tourism star when it was carved out of Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state and one of India's most backward. Locals said vested governmental interests had turned the tourism haven into a hell.
"When Uttarakhand was formed, the idea was that tourism would be the focus and would be given all encouragement," said Vipin Sharma, a partner in Red Chilli Adventures. "But things are going from bad to worse, with short-sighted governmental agencies creating all kinds of hurdles."
The conspiracy apparently is to get rid of the smaller tour operators who evolved from local roots, and clear the way for rich businessmen and corporates wanting to make a quick buck from the Himalayas and the Ganges.
"We started out as basically sports people doing it for the love of it," said Pawan Mann, director of Outdoor Adventures India, who began her small firm in Rishikesh in 1985 as an ardent trekker, mountaineer and sailor. "It was a lifestyle choice. Money from it was incidental, but now the tourism business here is going into the hands of people in it for the love of money, not nature."
About two decades ago, hardly three adventure tour companies existed in the region. Equipment was imported with 200% duties, with no government support or infrastructure. Now, more than 200 adventure tour operators jostle in the Rishikesh region alone, with big money trying to muscle out the smaller, more established and more committed players.
"Things were good initially in Uttarakhand, but now it's a disaster," Mann told Asia Times Online. "It's a dying state, with so many problems and various governmental departments at loggerheads with each other."
Mann says she is ready to pack up business and leave - but is held back by her love of the place, the people and the 50 local families dependent on her firm for their livelihood.
