With policy unveiled, Gujarat Tourism gears up to boost footfall

Now, Tata Nano factory or Reliance's Jamnagar refinery could well be tourist attractions

With its new tourism policy unveiled earlier this week, which entails an investment potential to the tune of $4 billion in tourism sector in Gujarat by 2025, the state government has started working on what it calls innovative formats of tourism.

For example, industrial tourism is high on the agenda. Its well-known that Gujarat is one of the better industrialised states in the country and the state government has now come up with an idea to even sell this as a tourist attraction.

In the words of N Srivastava, managing director of the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Ltd (TCGL), "Many people visiting the state for official or personal purposes might be interested in visiting the car manufacturing sites here, see how a car is made in action. Same applies for the thriving dairy industry here. A visit to a dairy plant at Anand can give a glimpse into how milk is processed into cheese or ghee."

He feels that there is potential for such a brand of tourism amongst students and business travellers alike. 

For that matter, a leading Gujarat-based tour operator, has already spotted the opportunity and has come up with customised tour itineraries for industrial tours. Manish Sharma, owner of Akshar Travels and also the chairman of the Gujarat Tourism Development Society (GTDS) had spotted an opportunity around this year's Vibrant Gujarat Summit, when he was handling delegates, who were looking for short trips around Gandhinagar in their spare time.

And coming from industry backgrounds, most actually were keen to witness the industrialisation of Gujarat. So, Sharma came up with an idea to design both short and long duration tours which would club leisure with visits to the industrial hubs. 

A typical industrial tour itinerary would look something like this: starting from Ahmedabad, moving to Sanand (visiting the Tata Nano and Ford India plants), then visiting Rajkot and Morbi industrial clusters, that are known for autocomponent makers and ceramic units.

A visit at the Ajanta clock factory after breakfast. And so the tour continues, linking Jamnagar, (Reliance's petrochemicals refinery), the pilgrimage sites at Dwarka, Tata Chemicals' salt manufacturing facility at Mithapur and so on. Different circuits have been designed, depending on the tourists' preference, connecting the Rann Utsav at Kutch with the ports at Mundra and Kandla.

Those interested could even visit the ship-breaking yard at Alang, or Amul dairy at Anand. Sharma says already students from Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune have undertaken such industrial tours in Gujarat. 

The state tourism department is also planning to explore the geological potential of Kutch, which sports an unique, vast landmass which is encrusted with salt at what is popularly known as the Rann. The Rann Utsav is already popular; from a humble beginning in 2005 when it was started as a three-day event and is now a three-month long affair, attracting around 190,000 tourists in 2014-15.

However, this apart, Srivastava says that the state government is actively working on a plan to create a simulator that would give someone a feeling of flying over these vast lands and witnessing the myriad land formations from an aerial view.

"The project cost is estimated to be around Rs 20 crore, and we are planning to launch this in Bhuj as an additional tourist attraction," he says. 

Taking cue from the tourism statistics, the state government is trying to work out plans that would appeal to all sections of travellers who visit Gujarat. Lets look at some figures. 

According to the  Gujarat Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation Limited (GITCO), which manages the Tourist Flow Information System (TFIS) for the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Ltd (TCGL), while 19.2 million business travellers visited Gujarat during FY15, registering a 12.38% growth, leisure travellers grew by 17.7% to 2.4 million.

Business travellers account for nearly 59% of the net touristinflow in to this industrialised state, and the share has remained unchanged in FY15 from the previous year. 

R M Patel, chief consultant, GITCO says, "The business tourist segment dominates tourist inflow. However, there is an interesting growth in leisure tourists, especially Sasan, Saputara and white Rann have proven good destinations." 

Spiritual tourists account for nearly 31% of the tourist inflow at 10.2 million, growing by 16%. Overall, tourist inflow to Gujarat has registered a 13.5% growth to 32.6 million over 28.7 million in FY14. 

Going by the origin of travellers, 75% are people from within Gujaratat 24.5 million, while 7.4 million tourists from other Indian states visited Gujarat, up 23% from 6 million tourists in Fy14. While non-resident Indians who visited the state stood at 389,000, number of foreign touristsgrew by 7% to 245,000 individuals. 

Srivastava's team has drawn up plans to identify villages where textile weaving artisans live, and handicrafts is a popular form of livelihood.

"We are trying to club rural tourism with textile or handicrafts tourism. This would be targeted at foreigners who might not be interested in the spiritual circuit as much as domestic tourists. Living, eating and watching artisans at work can be a memorable experience for foreigners," he says.

When it comes to spending on publicity and advertisements, Gujarat tourism has been a fierce competitor among states. According to the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the year ended March, 31, 2014, between 2009-10 to 2013-14, expenditure on publicity and advertisements stood at Rs 258.23 crore. 

However, the CAG report also highlights that when comparing growth rates of tourist inflow with the all-India level, Gujarat manages to do only marginally better.

Growth of tourist footfall as on 2013 over 2009 at the all-India level is 70.55%, while that of Gujarat is 72.5%. In comparison, neighbouring states like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have actually fared much better. Tourist footfall in Maharashtra in 2013 was up by 162.5% over 2009, and that of Madhya Pradesh was up 172.1%.