Patricia Mukhim
Covid 19 has hit the tourism sector like a tsunami. For a state like Meghalaya that earns its rupees from the tourism sector, the prospects look rather bleak for the near future. Indeed, even in January this year, no one was prepared for this ‘Future Shock.’ And we are still battling Covid three months after the lockdown. No one can really do a crystal ball gazing and tell us when this sly virus will leave us. However, tourism like any other business has to reinvent itself. Covid19 may slow the pace but that pace will pick up. Long term demand will build up. In the meantime Meghalaya tour operators in collaboration with Government need to chart out a different course for the future of tourism. In fact this temporary slump is an opportunity to step back and see if we have been pursuing the right course and if what we have been doing is actually tourism or some kind of destructive roller coaster ride.
For Meghalaya there two key words that should prefix the word tourism. They are ‘sustainable’ and ‘eco-tourism.’ What we have been pursuing so far has been neither eco-tourism nor has anyone given a thought to sustainability. Everyone has been in a mad rush to sell destinations as if there’s no tomorrow. Government has been a passive onlooker, sleepwalking with no tourism policy in its pocket. It was a free for all as if nature is owned by a few people who run tourist destinations and the rest of us are mere temporary passers-by. Sorry, but that idea of tourism is no longer sustainable and if the post Covid tourism model does not change then just forget tourism because there will be nothing to sell.
Yesterday, I was in conversation with a leading tour operator, DD Laloo who has, along with Dr Vijay Kumar, Commissioner and Secretary, Tourism Department been trying to think out innovative ways of reviving tourism in Meghalaya. This thinking is imperative because that’s where Meghalaya’s economy is. Tourism in Meghalaya has suffered from want of a long term vision. As a result we have the example of Mawlynnong, previously a stellar model of rural tourism which has now gone awry. The reason? Short-selling the sights and sounds of the area and not having a holistic action plan of how to deal with the consequences of a sudden rise in footfalls and the accompanying carbon footprints. No one even worked out the carrying capacity of Mawlynnong. Should it be 50 or 500 or 1000 tourists a day? What are the environmental costs of having 500 or 1000 people stepping with their shoes and boots on the “LIVING ROOT BRIDGE.” Khasis love to talk about heritage and heroes of the past but have respect for neither. If people had any respect for their ancestors who diligently wove the roots of the rubber tree (ficus elastica) to make a bridge that spans the river so they could travel from one village to another, they would not charge a mere Rs 30 per person to walk on that marvelous sacred bridge. Those days no one wore shoes. Hence the root bridges looked nice and fresh and well cared for. Now in Mawlynnong a lot of repair work has taken place and marred the very idea of the root bridge. What is Rs 30 to a tourist that pays hundreds of dollars for air fare? It’s just 40 cents for goodness sake! How can the villagers not have even a modicum of respect for what their ancestors have left behind? It’s nothing short of criminal!
The carrying capacity must be fixed depending on the ability of the place to reverse the carbon footprints every single day and this being a technical thing, we would need experts to tell us how to measure that. Once the price of a destination is hiked up there will be lesser day visitors including the types that sleep on buses parked at Polo Ground and who don’t even spend on hotels and food. Tourists that only leave behind excreta and plastic waste should be discouraged from coming to Meghalaya!
Proper pricing of tourist destinations is the key to sustainable tourism. On a good day, a place like Elephant Falls (despite the discharge of grey water coming from the sewerage of the Air Force Headquarters which no power on earth seems able to stop) still manages to get about 1000 visitors a day. While the place is being run very professionally by the San Shnong Welfare Youth Organisation (SSWYO), there is much scope for improvement on tourism products that can be sold to nature lovers from the city of Shillong itself. The place is located next to the Reserved Forest. In the evening and early morning, this is an ideal place for bird watchers (ornithologists). You can hear the cuckoo and all kinds of birds inside the forest. So a forest walk for a price is a good recreation for city folks, more so in the post Covid period when people long for fresh air. The SSWYO can have a robust tie-up with the Forest Department so that the forest is protected even while a walk through it is allowed.
Meghalaya is a hill state with meandering streams and brooks gushing out of every nook and corner. Unfortunately, in Shillong city these have become cesspools and septic tanks. But look at the Wah Umngot in Shnongpdeng, Dawki. It is a spectacularly clean and pristine river and is widely admired for its beauty. You can literally see through the water even as you take a boat ride. Yet it is another product that is not yielding appropriate revenue for the local people there because it is not astutely priced. Another case of short-selling a tourism destination! And there are many such destinations!
Tourism is a huge waste generator, yet no one has really thought through what to do with the garbage left behind by tourists. Should they not be paying for the clearance? Is the cost added to their hotel bills or their entry tickets into a tourist spot? Like Sikkim, Meghalaya too should strictly check to see if tourists are bringing in plastic wastes like food packets and water bottles. Water dispensers have to be put up at destinations and tourists should pay for the water they drink there. Alternatively, they should be encouraged to bring their own water flasks, not single use plastic water bottles. These are the biggest pollutants and we don’t have a plastic recycling plant in Meghalaya! Also what we don’t know is that beyond Shillong there is no garbage treatment plant. Just a few kilometers away from Shillong is Smit Village with the once beautiful Umiew RIver now turned into a garbage dump. And mind you the Umiew River feeds the Greater Shillong Water Supply System. People informed that there is no waste collection or waste management system. So we can guess where all the garbage goes. Straight into the river! This has got to stop because this is the reason for Covid!
Hence reopening tourism also means that Government has to have a comprehensive action plan based on a quick survey of the present situation after which it has to come out with a CLEAR CUT TOURISM POLICY. We don’t want a slipshod job not based on ground realities. It’s good to know that Dr Vijay Kumar has been travelling and feeling the tourism pulse of the state.
And the word tourist today should include anyone who leaves their home in any part of Meghalaya to travel to another part. They too must pay the same cost that national and international tourists pay, for they leave the same carbon footprints wherever they travel.
Hotels and guest houses too must start thinking of eco-friendly environments. They should try solar lighting and adhere strictly to sewage treatment protocols. And last but not least, hotels, guest houses, B&Bs have to stop using single-use water bottles and disposables. These hotels etc., should be evaluated and awarded for being eco-friendly.
There’s much work to do in Tourism before Meghalaya opens up. When to open up is the million dollar question. For now let’s get things in order first. Can we have a Post Covid Tourism Policy at the earliest?