On The High Ground

India houses three-fourths of the Himalayan range, Nepal the rest. Yet the countrys adventure tourism business earns just a third of what Nepal earns.

Most planners tend to think this doesnt matter: India is able to earn far more from conventional tourism anyway. And indeed, investment patterns reflect that way of thinking 70 per cent of the countrys tourism budget goes towards what is known as cultural tourism.

For tourist-starved India, that could be the start of a big problem. As G Kanjilal, deputy director general, department of tourism, government of India, points out, The trend in world tourism is changing and tourists are demanding greater participation in their itinerary.

 

The trend has been evident in India too, though obliquely. According to the department of tourisms market survey annual report, 1994, tourists in the age group 15-34, considered prime adventure tourist candidates, account for 37.1 per cent of the total number of inbound tourists, which has increased from 33.2 per cent in 1990. Yet, adventure tourism accounts for just 5 per cent of Indias tourism earnings.

The sector, in fact, is in a bind. The low volume of business is the reason for such low investment in the sector, says Swadesh Kumar, president of the Adventure Tour Operators Association and managing director of the 17-year-old Shikhar Travels. As a result, the edge that India has over other countries in terms of cheaper accommodation, food and travel is being underutilised. The cost of accommodation and food in Europe is more than double than that in India. It was only last year, for instance, that Indian adventure tourism was marketed in Europe in a big way. We can offer different sites at much cheaper rates than anywhere else in the world; all we need is a bit of enterprise in our marketing policy, says G Kanjilal, deputy director general, department of tourism.

The truth of this statement is clear from the growth patterns in adventure tourism over the past three decades. When the government opened up places like Himachal, Garhwal and Sikkim for tourism in the seventies, adventure tourism recorded a magnum 70 per cent growth. This continued till the eighties after which growth petered out to 15 percent now.

Most of the growth, such as it is, comes from what the industry calls soft adventure tours safaris, trekking and rafting rather than the hard options of mountaineering, scuba diving and rock climbing. This trend is likely to continue, and for an unexpected reason the growing demand for soft adventure tourism from the HRD departments of corporates. Several companies, especially MNCs, have been opting for outdoor management development programmes and adventure conferences. The idea, say the HRD buffs, is to help executives become better managers by combining mental and physical skills. Only adventure can bring out the best in a person and we create situations in which a person is compelled to combine his physical and mental capabilities to a taxing limit, says Ajit Bajaj, professional rafter and managing director of Snow Leopard Adventures. So far Snow Leopards has handled clients like Reebok, Standard Chartered Bank, Australian Trade Commission and Hyatt and, in March next year, the company will acquire its first overseas client from England. The same reasoning holds for adventure conferencing. Popular destinations so far include wildlife sanctuaries like Corbett and Kanha National Park and Rishikesh which are currently being marketed with some energy. The basic idea here is to hold conferences in seclusion and tag the essence of adventure holiday along with it. As Ranjit Vig, managing director, CAAIR Travels, says, Offbeat destinations like wildlife resorts and beaches are frequently being chosen by the corporations for their in-house conferences so that corporates get sufficient time for holidaying as well.

Rafting is another sport that has become extremely popular in the recent past. There are today as many as seven private companies operating at the Rishikesh riverbeach. As Bruce Campbell, an English rafting instructor working with Snow Leopard Adventure says, In comparison to Austria, where rafting is a big business, India has the advantage of having many rivers and vast cachement areas where rafting can be promoted at different levels. Adds Bajaj, In the past three years the number of tourists participating in rafting has increased by nearly 30 per cent.

New businesses are also emerging. Camel safaris, for instance, have already become one of the major attractions in Rajasthan. Says Shikhar Travels Swadesh Kumar, So far, we have been successful in drawing a significant number of tourists visiting Rajasthan in sports like camel safaris and desert safaris. Shikhar Travels in three years has experienced nearly 80 per cent growth in the camel safari business.

As far as hard adventure tourism is concerned, it is rock-climbing that has attracted the most attention so far. Annual business in this sport is increasing by 50 per cent. This is simply because the Himalayas offer a much more varied range of peaks