“We Need To Develop NCR Towns To Make New Delhi A Long Haul Destination”

“Delhi’s tourist arrivals can soar high, provided all the stake holders like hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators, transporters, guides etc will speak and work in a unanimous fashion”, asserts Ramesh Negi, managing director and chief operating officer, Delhi Tourism and Transport Development Corporation (DTTDC). In conversation with Jyoti Koul, he talks about DTTDC’s future plans

As the recently appointed MD of Delhi Tourism, could you outline your priorities about tourism in the region?

Ever since I have taken over, my first and foremost thrust has been on systematic dissemination of information. I have realised that very little has been done in this direction and most of these activities are undertaken by private bodies. Therefore, to fill the gap, we are planning to open multi-lingual information centres at railway stations in New Delhi, thus improving the process of information dissemination. Besides this, we are planning to provide a totally new look to our website, revamping it to a large extent. The new version of Delhi tourism’s website will provide all information on the internet itself. The website will be more attractive and useful because it will be a multilingual site including languages such as Spanish, Japanese, English and French.

At the same time, we are also planning to start a helpline, which would be on the lines of call centres. To begin with, it will be a 12 hour service operational during the night because it is a period when most international flights land into the country. This help line will have a dual purpose, firstly, it will provide information and secondly register complaints, which would be taken up immediately in order to resolve them.

Delhi has always been a transit destination. What will be your efforts to make it a long haul tourist destination?

Worldwide, most capitals are transit points but they are important tourist destinations. The capital of any country is a must see destination across the world, hence being a country’s capital has both advantages and disadvantages attached to it. To make Delhi a genuinely long haul destination, we need to develop National Capital Region (NCR) towns. We are laying emphasis to draft a special tourism plan for the NCR. However, the major bottleneck that we encounter is the dearth of good accommodation primarily for budget travellers. Besides, Delhi also lacks an interesting platform to promote cultural shows and entertainment especially focussed for the middle class segment of the society. Further, efforts are on to solve the accommodation problems by renewing the guest-house or paying guest accommodation scheme. At present, we have the Delhi Haats for cultural entertainment. Being the capital of India and the gateway city, Delhi’s tourist arrivals can soar high, provided all the stake holders like hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators, transporters, guides etc think and work in a unanimous fashion. We in our way are trying our best to bring them together.

What new initiatives have been incorporated to improve the tourism infrastructure?

To provide a face to Delhi Tourism, we are planning to have a corporate office in Cannaught place at Baba Kharak Singh Marg. We are in talks with New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) regarding this proposal. Delhi is predominantly a city of monuments and these monuments are under the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), therefore, we are not in a position to do much about them. However, we are trying to create our own infrastructure in terms of Delhi haats where people can experience food, shopping and other specialities of various regions under one single roof. We are coming up with another Delhi Haat at Pritam Pura, which will be spread over eight acres. Besides this, we are planning to set up tourist facilitation centres and make existing coffee homes more refreshing and upgrade the information centres at airports. India is also hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2010 in Delhi and probably the Olympics in 2016.

How are you gearing up for these events and what challenges are you facing in the process?

Delhi being the venue for the Commonwealth games in 2010, the event will generate a demand for approximately 20,000 guests to be accommodated per day. Catering to this huge crowd during the period is indeed challenging. To resolve this issue, we are planning to renew the guest house scheme and are also in discussion with the Delhi District Authority (DDA) to allot us land to built smaller hotels.

We are also contemplating of having a satellite hotel town by 2010 when India will host Commonwealth Games. New Delhi can become a hot selling destination during that period. Since New Delhi is well connected with the neighbouring cities and towns especially by the metro rail, there would be a major influx into the city during the phase. Realising that accommodation would be a vital issue, we are hoping to discuss the same in the forthcoming meeting with PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industries and FICCI. We would also be discussing other challenges and opportunities that would be associated with the Commonwealth games.

Delhi has a lot of potential in the area of health and medical tourism. How are you planning to tap it?

Yes, compared to other important cities in Asia, India especially Delhi has an upper hand when it comes to health and medical facilities. We are working through many channels to promote this segment. New Delhi is also part of the association called - Asian Network of Mega Cities (ANMC), which is a committee of about eight major cities of Asia. At the council’s annual meeting scheduled in the month of September 2004, health and medical tourism, youth and sports tourism, would be an important agenda for discussion. There will a consortium of medical experts who will deliberate on the various aspects of health and medical tourism and they can be instrumental in promoting health tourism in the region.

Delhi being a gateway city, has always earned a reputation of having law and order problems, in terms of passenger safety and touting that effects both domestic and international tourists. Any plans to combat this problem?

Frankly speaking, Delhi is still better, when compared to other famous cities of the world. They are very unsafe but no one is pointing it out. However, realising that we will have to make the city tourist friendly in every respect, we are emphasising on the social importance of tourists. We are focusing on changing the mindset of the people, for which we are planning to start programmes to sensitise our staff and taxi drivers, guides, auto drivers etc. To improve the law and order system, all we need to do is make the existing forces more efficient, for which mass support would be a great boon.