Small but striking
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
All of us want a positive change to make our life better and as never before. Betterment of life uplifts the standard of living. In country like India, the standard is decided by many factors which includes economy, environment, education and the political scenario. Economy and education drive other two very strongly. Several macro as well as micro factors helps in improving economy as strengthening the small but unique features make a greater impact on local and global economy.
Tourism is certainly one of them. It helps the local community to thrive and avoid migration for earning. Tourism helps to preserve ancient institutes and imparts the sense of belonging to people. It connects people, motivates people and unites people.
India certainly has a great opportunity to capitalize on tourism to partly solve the problems like unemployment, migration, state-based-discrimination etc. Tourism will also help us to build a good image of diverse Indian culture.
Till this point there is nothing new that I have stated. We all are masters of theory who miserably fail in implementing it. Tourism is neglected topic for most of our states. Many of our politicians doesn't believe tourism can help us removing poverty. For some large amount of funds are required for improving tourism. For some 20 second advertisement will attract tourists. For some tourism means water-park, zoo, museums, and all other sorts of artificial things.
We all require to have a wider perspective when improving tourism. Many small steps must be taken in order to achieve a big dream of Tourism based economy. Some of these are
- Improving quality of transportation (especially railways and roads)
- Cleanliness of the tourist places, especially
- Detailed information of tourist spots through updated websites, road signs, Information kiosk
- True advertisement creating impact among local as well as foreign visitors
Now the question is how to achieve all these with small funds? Ideas are already implemented by some smart administrators and creative thinkers. Here are few of them which have worked well in create small but striking impact on some of the above mentioned aspects.
Walls painted with Varli paintings (A local folk painting) , Ratnagiri Railway Station, Maharashtra. Station certainly is beautified and also show cases local art. |
Loved the quote and the way you used it to illustrate your point
ReplyDeleteNice post Paresh. I was reading somewhere and the stats mentioned that India attracts only about 0.5% of the tourism potential it can. Being in the tourism industry, I understand the pains people go through for an elegant mode of travel. I think the mindset in many occasions is still stuck in the lower segment era and there is so much more to do to attract quality tourists. It may include right from branding to hotels and also to safety issues. I do like what they are doing with the paintings though and the use of public transport space for advertising, but I think there is so much more potential to tap into..
ReplyDeletePositive steps wow...
ReplyDeleteI feel awfully bad by the callous attitude of my state gov towards tourism :-(