PM’S SPEECH AT INAUGURATION OF 51ST PATA ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The
Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurated the 51st
Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) annual conference, here
today. Union Minister for Tourism and Culture, Shri Jagmohan and
senior officials of PATA and delegates from all over the world
were among those present on the occasion.
Following
is the text of the Prime Minister’s speech on the occasion:
"I
am very happy to be with you today at this important travel and
tourism meet. All of us in India are pleased that the PATA Annual
Conference has come back to India after a gap of 24 years. I heartily
welcome all the delegates to this conference and also the dignitaries
who have joined this occasion today.
In
the past half century, especially in the past few decades, the
economic profile of the Asia Pacific region has changed dramatically.
Leaving the dark days of colonial rule behind, the countries of
the region are engaged in rewriting their own destinies — as independent,
self-confident, and steadily progressing nations. Many of them
have become shining success stories, powerhouses of trade and
technology, industry and innovation. I was in Singapore last week
and was heartened to know that it is today richer, in terms of
per capita income, than its former colonial master.
If
the Asia Pacific region’s socio-economic status has changed, so
also has its profile in tourism. The region is today dotted with
innumerable centers of tourist attraction, which draw large numbers
of tourists from around the world. Almost every country is promoting
its traditional centers of attraction, and also adding many new
ones. Indeed, tourism has become a powerful driver of economic
growth for several countries in the region — both those that are
already prosperous and those that are not yet so.
If
Singapore is an example of the former, then Cambodia, the other
country that I visited last week, is a telling example of the
latter. I was pleasantly surprised to know that the tourist inflow
in Cambodia, mainly to experience the wonder of the Angkor temples,
has soared from a mere fifty thousand a year to nearly five hundred
thousand in just five years.
I
am sure the region boasts of many such telling examples. And they
cover almost every conceivable type of tourism — from monument
tourism to mountain tourism; from culture tourism to conference
tourism; from beach tourism to business tourism; and from tourism
for the senses to tourism for the soul.
No
doubt, the governments of the respective countries have done much
to bring about this change, through innovative policies and supportive
infrastructure facilities. Nevertheless, if any one trans-national
organization can be credited for the phenomenal growth of the
travel and tourism industry in the region, it has to be the Pacific
Asia Travel Association.
Ever
since its first conference in Hawaii in 1952, when calm and peace
descended after the devastation of the Second World War, PATA
has played a pioneering and visionary role in bringing together
nations of the Asia Pacific. It was, I am told, also the first
organization in the tourism sector to recognize the benefits of
private-public partnership for promotion and marketing of travel
destinations in the region.
Through
its impressive record of devoted leadership and outstanding voluntarism,
PATA, in the last half century, has also accomplished more than
any other travel organization in educating the tourists, as well
as in improving the tourist destinations — environmentally, socially,
and culturally. As we all know, the United Nations has declared
the year 2002 as the International Year of Eco-Tourism and Mountains.
I heartily applaud PATA for this concern for sustainable and eco-friendly
tourism, which has to be at the very core of all our activities
in promoting tourism. This responsibility can be handled only
by creating a well-regulated, and often self-regulated, partnership
between the government, private sector players in the infrastructure
and hospitality business, mass media, voluntary organizations,
and, last but not the least, tourists themselves.
Distinguished
delegates, India is now all geared up to reach its true potential
in tourism. We fully recognize that the Asia Pacific region is
extremely important for us if this potential is to be fully tapped.
We offer both the ancient and the modern. We are investing large
sums for expanding and modernizing our infrastructure in airports
and airlines, railways, national highways, hotels and transport,
development of tourism circuits, preservation and maintenance
of monuments, human resource development, information technology
and all things related to tourism. It is our endeavor to ensure
that our visitors have the best and the most pleasant time when
they visit any part of India.
Of
course, we have many things to learn from our more successful
friends. Just as each of the forty-odd countries represented in
this conference can benefit from sharing knowledge and experience.
As
your Association enters the second half-century of its existence,
it is now faced with different challenges. Some of these challenges
are not specific to tourism alone; they are common to all sectors
of the economy. Indeed, these concern the very security and well
being of our societies.
I
am referring here mainly to the problem of terrorism and extremism.
It has today emerged as a global menace. No continent, and no
country, is entirely free from its reach, or the reach of its
negative effects. This was evident from the impact of the horrific
terrorist attacks of September 11 on the United States. In particular,
the travel and tourism industry, including the civil aviation
industry, was badly hit. We in India, being victims of terrorism
for close to two decades, know all too well how it has adversely
affected tourism in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere.
Therefore,
the time has come for the entire tourism fraternity in the world
to intensify its campaign against terrorism and extremism. I have
said before — and it bears reiteration today — that all of us
should know why terrorism has hit tourism the most. Just as terrorism
is a foe of tourism, tourism, in the broadest sweep of its effects,
is an antidote to terrorism and extremism.
Whereas
terrorism feeds on intolerance and arrogance, tourism breeds tolerance
and empathy. Terrorism has no respect for human life. In contrast,
tourism teaches us to savor and to celebrate all that is beautiful
in nature and in human life. Terrorism seeks to erect walls of
hatred between faiths and communities. Tourism breaks such barriers.
Terrorism detests pluralism, whereas tourism pays tribute to it.
In
a world that is becoming smaller and more inter-dependent with
each passing year, tourism is encouraging all of us to develop
an international outlook, even as it makes us proud of the natural
and cultural heritage of our own individual countries. As far
as India is concerned, ours is the land of Gautam Buddha, Bhagwan
Mahavira, Guru Nanak Dev, Mahatma Gandhi, and many other apostles
of peace. We firmly believe that promotion of peace, friendship,
goodwill, and understanding among nations and among different
religious and ethnic communities has to be the overriding objective
of tourism in the new century. This, I am told, is also the central
message of the World Tourism Organization. I hope that your conference
will transmit this message powerfully throughout our region and
the world.
On
this occasion, let me express another concern which, I am sure,
is shared by many of you. I urge travel and tourism operators
not to look at their business purely from a narrow angle of short-term
commercial benefit. Excessive commercialism, especially when it
takes place in the absence of effective regulatory mechanisms,
can lead to negative consequences. Environmental degradation and
erosion of traditional social values can make the growth of tourism
unsustainable, much like the story of how greed led to the killing
of the goose that laid golden eggs. In our own country, we have
examples of some tourism centers that have visibly suffered due
to unplanned and unaesthetic growth.
Your
conference, therefore, should catalyze a process of learning from
each other’s best practices in the Asia Pacific region. How can
we encourage responsible and active participation of the local
people in planning and implementing tourism promotion schemes?
How can we promote better municipal governance especially in and
around tourism centers? How can we check vandalism and promote
responsible tourism? On these and other such questions, there
is an immense lot that our countries can learn from each other.
There
is a good concept that is rapidly gaining currency these days.
It is: How to develop and market Joint Tourism Circuits. For example,
even though Singapore has a thriving tourism industry, Prime Minister
Goh told me that he would like India and Singapore to design joint
tourism packages and promote them jointly so that at least a section
of international tourists who come to one country can be enticed
to experience different types of attractions in the other country.
One can also think of a regional Buddhist Circuit that will link
India’s own Buddhist Circuit with countries in South-East and
Far-East Asia. There is also scope for developing a regional Ramayana
Circuit and a package that links the centers of Sufi spiritualism
in India, West Asia, Central Asia, and South-East Asia.
There
is an added reason for joint promotion of tourism within the region.
As all of us know, more and more Asians are becoming rich and
are joining the ranks of international tourists. It should be
our endeavor to facilitate, for example, more Chinese and Malaysians
to come to India and more Indians to travel to Cambodia and Vietnam.
I am told that nearly two hundred thousand Indian tourists go
to Bangkok each year. If at least five to ten percent of them
can be persuaded to go the nearby Angkor temples at a marginal
incremental cost, they would be wonderstruck at the age-old cultural
links that bind India and Indo-China.
In
this context, it is necessary to recognize that promoting tourism
within the Asia-Pacific region through a cooperative effort is
not a zero-sum game. We will all gain if more tourists, especially
our own tourists, start visiting each other’s countries. Above
all, it benefits tourists themselves since they can get to see
and experience more by spending less.
For
countries like India, it also brings an additional benefit. Employment
generation is one of the primary goals of our economic policies.
And tourism, as all of us know, has a high potential to create
business and employment opportunities at different levels of education
and skills.
Ladies
and Gentlemen, before I conclude, I would like to wish you all
a wonderful and memorable stay in India. In a sense, you too are
tourists who have come here for the purpose of the conference.
And we welcome you with the same courtesy that is shown to all
guests in the Indian tradition and which is encapsulated in the
Sanskrit maxim: Atithi Devo Bhava — When a guest comes,
think that a god has come.
I
thank PATA for choosing New Delhi as the venue and I do hope that
you will come back to India sooner than in the past.
I
wish your conference all success.
Thank
you".
