By Benjamin Lyngdoh
27th September will be observed as World Tourism Day yet again! The day and the days thereabouts are always abuzz with discourses on the tourist, tourism, hospitality and so forth. In most cases it exudes a festive feeling of gaiety and celebration, something like Christmas in December. In actuality, when this day is supposed to rejuvenate and scale further the efforts for tourism development, the sad reality is that it has become a stop-gap reason for commemoration as a ritual. Be that as it may, the theme of World Tourism Day, 2016 reminds us what this sector is all about and what impacts it can have. The theme this year goes as ‘tourism for all – promoting universal accessibility’. Thus, it is about opening doors for travel, facilitating in-flow of guests, maintaining visits and motivating revisits, making our tourism resources accessible across all clientele (regardless of age, gender and differently-abled categories) and so forth. However, as promising and melodious as it sounds, are we missing something here?
Firstly, there is an analogy that resonates. It is called ‘Meghalaya within Meghalaya’. The first Meghalaya represents the heart and soul of what we actually are and how we actually sustain. We are poor and in economic rags with no agency to scale-up and scale-out of hardships and poverties. The second Meghalaya is a facade of what we are actually not. They are the small proportion of the populace who have migrated from lower levels of livelihoods to become the new middle class. This face hides and misrepresents the poverties of our state. Depressingly, the real Meghalaya in actuality is the first one. As such, we can all see the sad realities. Fact is, only our towns are developed to a certain extent, the rest of the state is struggling. It is for all to experience that the moment we move a few kilometres out of Shillong, our roads, services and infrastructure disintegrates and blurs into nothing. If I may be insensitive and crass, Meghalaya at best reflects extreme similarities and hence may be considered as a ‘mini central Africa’ (central Africa being one of the most impoverished regions of the world). Despite this nadir, all is not lost and there are plausible interventions for reversing the trend. To this end, tourism-related measures are one of them. However, this is a serious challenge as reflected further in the succeeding paragraphs.
Secondly, the theme puts ‘accessibility’ at the centre-stage. However, the term is relative and contextual in nature. In the case of far developed tourism-oriented countries, accessibility would imply making the tourism resources more tourist friendly across specially-abled and differently-abled clientele. In case of others it may mean making tourism and travel economical and affordable to the masses across market segments. However, in our case, it is anybody’s guess. In a ‘mini central Africa’ type of situation where even the roads and services in Shillong leave much to be desired, it is difficult to really picture what accessibility means for us. To start with, there are many pockets of our state that are not accessible for numerous reasons ranging from poor roads, no bridges, missing law and order, questionable safety and security and so forth. Fact is, before we start talking of tourism in terms of accessibility in the true sense of the term, it is critical that we address these nagging chronic limitations first. After all, the tourism sector’s development excessively depends on the progress of other infrastructural sectors. Moreover, in a bamboozled state where we still tend to debate whether Wangala/Shad Nongkrem is a state holiday or not, where is the idea and perception of accessibility in our cognitions?
Thirdly, accessibility goes together with hospitality. They are inseparable as accessibility is incomplete and handicapped without hospitable behaviour by the hosts. Imagine a situation where on reaching a place, instead of warm smiling faces that display etiquette and comforting services, you are greeted with distant and adversarial stances. The important question here is whether the Khasis are hospitable. As simple and harmless a question as it may seem, truth is, this is what really drives tourism. This is even more so as tourism is a people-centric activity. The behaviour and demeanour of the hosts are the decisive factors that prompt not just visits but revisits by the clientele. Inherently, our tribal value system since time immemorial has always harped upon the very core of hospitality (ban im tip briew tip Blei). However, in these post modern times the hospitable values and practices are all vaporising out in the heat of suspicion, anger and mistrust. Hence, the answer to ‘Khasi hospitality’ is best answered by tourists at a very personal level. In general, the realization will be inhibiting. In addition, a debate on accessibility is incomplete without factoring in the self-glorified ILP movement. Fact is, a traveller will always like a hassle-free travel without any red-tapism to hinder his movement. In an event ILP being imposed, the very discourse and efforts on promoting accessibility to Meghalaya tourism would be seriously hampered.
Fourthly, why is accessibility, be it local, domestic or international, extremely important? This is primarily because the degree of travel by the tourist directly impacts upon the livelihoods of the local populace. I have raised this issue of how and why our tourism resources and spots are missing out on the spending by tourists at local markets numerous times. Hence, this time let us move further on this point. It is high time we realize that the tourism sector is not only about mapping out geographical landscapes for attracting clientele. Importantly, it is more about enablers for tourism-related businesses so as to complete the cycle of accessibility. In the absence of proper tourism-related services, the propensity to pull visitors takes a serious hit. As such, the existing network of food, accommodation and transportation needs to scale up further and target at giving a memorable experience to the tourist. In addition, more and newer business forms are required so as to encourage spending by the clientele at our local markets. To this end, a number of colleges and Universities in Shillong are actively working at it with the objective of motivating students to take up the entrepreneurial challenge. However, a lot more needs to be done and all the stakeholders must be involved.
Fifthly, Patricia Mukhim in her article titled ‘How sustainable is Meghalaya tourism’ (ST, July 1, 2016) had critically picked on the loopholes and vagueness of our draft tourism policy. A number of queries were raised. The answers to these will not be produced by some magic wand and sorcery. The need of the hour is an active brainstorming on the pivotal issues by all the stakeholders. To start with, we need a specific vision, mission and goals statement for the tourism sector alone, separately! After this, our policy statements can link and follow. In general, the problem is an opportunity. Thus, is our policy document currently a problem? It is! However, on the positive side this provides us with an opportunity to actively devise a practical, meaningful and workable document. Hence, the real question is, do we have the academic, political and business will to do it?
Lastly, indeed ‘sustainability of tourism’ is a pressing issue globally. This can be gauged from the fact that with the inclusion of next year’s world tourism day theme, namely, ‘sustainable tourism – a tool for development’, three out of the last six themes has ‘sustainability’ as the focal point. This is a point to be noted for Meghalaya tourism as 90% of our tourism is nature-based. Here, environmental sustainability and environmental rejuvenation takes centre stage. As such, the tourism resources are a vulnerable and sensitive lot that are to be preserved and maintained at all cost. In our case the mantra goes, no natural setting/environment – no tourism.
Thus, all of the issues above have a direct bearing on accessibility and attractiveness of our tourism sector. As such, the issues are to be boxed up as one complete whole and should be tackled holistically through a concerted continuous process. That way the future World Tourism Day celebrations will be a meaningful value addition through charting of new limits annually and not just another passing routine event.
(The Author teaches at NEHU)