India-ASEAN Business Summit Looks At Collaboration In Tourism

Anindita Chattopadhyay - New Delhi

If the recent business meets are anything to go by, then tourism has emerged as an ‘industry of reckoning’ in India. While the Global Investors’ Summit in Gujarat had a tourism session looking at private-public partnership and investment opportunities, the India-ASEAN Business Summit held recently in Delhi had a special tourism session where industry practitioners and ministers laid bare the scope for collaboration in this sector.

Realising the importance of intra-regional tourism, the tourism ministers of the ASEAN countries converged at the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2002 to endorse the formulation of a high-level tourism agreement to remove fiscal and non-fiscal barriers. While a joint fund (created in 2002) promotes the ‘Visit ASEAN‘ campaign, one ticket allows onward journey to other sectors and offers attractive hotel rates. That the regions are becoming increasingly interdependent is evident from the fact that 70 per cent of tourists in 2002 were from within the region and other Asian countries. India seems to have seen the point at last and is interested in switching over to a new paradigm. Making a presentation of the regenerated monuments and circuits, Jagmohan, minister for tourism and culture, government of India, said, “All I would like to say is we are open to all kinds of cooperation and collaboration to facilitate tourism.”

According to A C Muthiah, president, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), mutual cooperation could boost long haul as well. “Tourism professionals on both sides need to work together to synergise long haul travel potential. People travelling from US and Europe to India should be able to extend their travel into ASEAN countries and vice versa,” he said.

Dato Seri Samy Velu, minister of housing and works, Malaysia suggested joint tourism promotion using Bollywood, Dato Ajit Singh, former secretary general of ASEAN, pointed out that India, a dialogue partner of ASEAN, should immediately start a dialogue with ASEAN tourism ministers as the trade and commerce ministers are doing. “In the delegation, you can include industry partners as well,” he said.

Industry associations like the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) and the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) have already taken a step towards inter-regional tourism cooperation. For instance, Inder Sharma, chairman Emeritus, Sita Travels suggested abolition of visa amongst ASEAN countries and India, liberalisation of aviation policy within the region and liberalisation of investment policy in airports, hotels, theme parks etc. Subhash Goyal, chairman, Stic Travels, pointed out that a direct currency exchange regime, open bilaterals to build air bridges and developing an Asian common market could boost both tourism and economy in the region. Many of these decisions, as we know, lie beyond the purview of the tourism minister.

However, there’s no denying that countries must reach a certain level of cooperation and have some common rules and regulations to create an atmosphere of investment. Whether India-ASEAN tourism will click can be a matter of debate, but the government and industry should come forward together to give it a shot at least.