Mamata Banerjee visits Digha sea beach and outlines her plans

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited the sea-beach of Digha and was impressed by it and the tourists who spoke well about the tourist spot. But, she wants still more and issued instructions to her people. As she has said - Digha has everything but it is necessary to create some better infrastructure. Tourists who come, especially couples, must not be disturbed. It is up to the administration to ensure that.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 23 December 2015.

Digha is a well-known tourist spot in Bengal but because of problems like littered beaches, poor road connectivity, absence of a proper walkway along the beach and concerns about safety, tourism has never developed as an organized industry. However, some recent measures that have been taken has given a boost to tourism. One of these is the paved 4-Km walkway parallel to the beach in Old Digha.
Another step taken by the government was the attempt to develop infrastructure around the Udaipur beach along the Bengal-Odisha border. There are also plans to build a road connecting Mandarmoni and Digha through Tajpur. It will be a 20-Km stretch and, once complete, the experience will be better than that of Marine Drive in Mumbai.
Mamata's dream is to turn the beach into one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the state.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Tourism in Madagascar takes a beating - no visitors to watch the lemurs

Madagascar depends a lot on tourists to boost up its economy and the Lemurs' Park near Madagascar's capital is touted to be one of the city's top attractions, but it is not getting enough number of visitors. Right now, it is the high season and, only a handful of tourists are seen in the park to get a glimpse of the furry creatures unique to the tropical forests of this vast Indian Ocean Island as the ring-tailed lemurs scamper through nearby eucalyptus trees.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 3 August 2015.

A section of tour operators blame this to the mass cancellations that followed a month-long Air Madagascar strike kept all internal flights grounded. Tourists used to arrive in large numbers during 2008, but there was political unrest since 2009 and that has affected tourism.
Of course, the authorities want to reverse the trend. It is promoting its rainforests, reefs and weird and wonderful plants and animals and are aiming for 1 million tourists by 2020. This would be five times higher than last year and more than double the 2008 peak, when 380,000 people visited the former French colony.
They want to showcase Madagascar as a ‘honeymoon’ destination like Mauritius and Seychelles.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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North Korea wants to promote tourism but Ebola scare plays spoilsport

#PyongyangMarathon #NorthKorea #Ebola #biologicalweapon It is a real paradox for North Korea – while it wants to see more tourists, the scare of Ebola has forced it to ban foreign marathon runners from the annual Pyongyang marathon as reported in news.sky.com dated 23 February 2015. This ban has been imposed even though the secretive country does not have any previous recorded of any case of Ebola virus.
The race officially as the Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon, runs through the streets of Pyongyang and had been thrown open for the first time to foreigners last year – the response was positive and it was a huge success.
Accordingly, hundreds of foreigners had signed up to run in this year's event on 12 April – their incentive was to avail of this rare chance to compete in the mysterious country. However, they are now a disappointed lot because tour operators have been told that the race is now only open to North Korean runners, due to fear of Ebola.
The marathon, in its 27th year, is part of a series of sporting competitions, arts festivals and cultural events to mark the birthday of North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, which falls on 15 April.
The Ebola virus has killed upwards of 9,000 people in West Africa - but there ae no reports of infection either in North Korea or in the surrounding region. Incidentally, the country's media has previously suggested that the disease was a human creation of the US military and that Ebola was a biological weapon.

Tourism in India - visa-on-arrival to boost tourism

The tourism industry in India is awaiting a revival because it received only 6.58 million tourists in 2012 which is very low a figure as compared to other Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia. Hence, the Ministry has extended the concept of visa-on-arrival to countries like the US, Australia, Brazil, Germany and Japan. Tourists from these countries can now avail of this visa-on-arrival in India.
Actually, visitors from 43 countries no longer need to queue up at local consulates, but can instead apply for them online and collect the visas at airports. This scheme will be available at nine major airports in India.
Till now, India offered visa-on-arrival to visitors from only 12 countries and others had to undergo a long waiting period before they could now whether they would be allowed to enter India after submitting their applications at visa processing centers.
In the opinion of tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma, the change would be boost to the tourism industry. But, it has to be agreed that unless there are better infrastructure like communication and hotels and unless the mindset of Indians change as a whole, unless they stop eve-teasing, it would be difficult to achieve the goal.
There have been innumerable instances of tourists falling in the traps of unscrupulous elements and leaving the country with a bad impression that gets talked about on social networking websites. That is certainly not desirable for tourism. Hence, if the minister of tourism wants full satisfaction, he would have to coordinate with other ministries to streamline the whole setup so that the tourist feels at home and carries back with him a good impression.
Incidentally, boosting tourism is on the agenda of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tourism in India – wooing foreign tourists with atithi devo bhavo

Long before Prime Minister Narendra Modi coined the phrase of Swatchh Bharat, the Bollywood screen idol Amir Khan had launched another version of a similar theme – it was about tourism. He had been chosen to become the brand ambassador of Indian tourism and the face of Incredible India with his Atithhi Devo Bhava.
This is a Sanskrit phrase which means – consider the guest as god.
The campaign focused on how to make the tourists feel at home in India and highlighted innumerable instances of what foreigners do not approve of - one of these campaigns showed busload of people moving alongside a car in which tourists are traveling. Suddenly, someone from the bus throws a banana peel out of the window and it lands in the tourist vehicle.
The campaign was the brain child of the Union Ministry of Tourism in 2002 because with the large variety of places of tourism available, tourists flock to India but, the local culture and infrastructure being what it is, many of them go away unhappy, at times disappointed. That is not good for tourism. Therefore, the ministry decided to approach the industry with professionalism and roped in agencies to work out how best to present the country – thus emerged the Incredible India campaign. It was closely inked with the message – atithi devo bhava.
Whether the strategies have paid dividends or not can be gauged from the fact that Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) during the October 2014 was 6.56 lakh as compared to FTAs of 5.98 lakh during the month of October 2013 and 5.56 lakh in October 2012. The statistics reveal that there has been a growth of 9.6% in October 2014 over October 2013 as compared to a growth of 7.5% registered in October 2013 over October 2012. India has a multitude of caves, ancient monuments, wildlife reserves, and scenic beauty spots that tourists find attractive. But, at many places, the infrastructure like communication and accommodation are not up to the mark. Then there are problems of language and unscrupulous elements are always ready to pounce on unsuspecting tourists and take undue advantage of this.
Kerala has been identified as ‘God’s own country’. Rajasthan is the land of deserts, palaces and forts. Assam is wildlife territory in the national reserves of Kaziranga. Temples, churches and other places of worship abound from the North to the South. And then there are tourisms of other kinds like medical tourism – this has added impetus to tourist arrivals in India.
In order to attract tourists and ensure that they keep coming, it is necessary to remove the hurdles and ensure that the foreigners take back pleasant memories – as a popular saying goes: ‘if you are satisfied, tell others; if not, tell us.’ That is the bottom line for marketing any good and is valid for tourism, because it is just like any other product. It has to be borne in mind that the well-being of tourists is everybody’s business – remember the banana peel incident.