ISSUES IN SOUTH-INDIAN TOURISM.

INTRODUCTION:

India is the largest market with large number of middle class people . The world market is focus on the Indian and Chinese market to sell their product, that too in India mostly on middle class people. The world tourism industry shows growth after the economic crisis. But tourism indus try in India is in question . South India covers four states, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh at the bottom of India; three sides are surrounded by Bay of Beng al, Indian Ocean and Arabic sea.It has good environmental condit ion, natural resources with two national parks, hill stations and beaches like Marina beach in Chennai is second world longest beach (appendix-1). People in South India have different culture with different language in each state. But, it not even shows growth in the tourism, because of the lack of tourism knowledge between the people and the tourism industry, poor transport facility, weak policies on environment pollution control, and there is no strong marketing strategy to tourism sector. Due this not yet tourism industry in South India developed, these issues are discussed as flows.
GOVERNMENT:

The government plays a vital role in tourism development by providing funds implementing the policies and to develop the international relationships. India has signed 46 bilateral, trilateral Agreements and Protocols with other countries to widen links of friendship and mutual promotion of tourism. During the year, Agreements on tourism co-operation have been signed with Spain and Poland on April, 2009. In addition, Joint Working Group Meeting on Tourism was also held on August, 2009 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia to further Indias interest in the field of tourism with Indonesia.

A Joint Action Plan on tour ism Cooperation between India and Singapore was signed on August, 2009. The Ministry of Tourism has a scheme of approving Travel Agents,Inbound Tour Operators, Adventure Tour Operators, Domestic TourOperators and Tourist Transport Operators. The aims and o bjectivesof this scheme are to encourage quality, standard and service inthese categories so as to promote tourism in India. This is a voluntaryscheme open to all bona fide agencies. The total number of approvalsissued to service providers of Tra vel Trade etc., is given below: Travel Agents 415

Inbound Tour Operators Tourist Transport Operators

552 203

Adventure Tour Operators Domestic Tour Operators Total

28 48 1246

International Cooperation Division is one of the important divisions of the Ministry of Tourism, which engages in various consultations and negotiations with international organisations such as United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO); Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP); Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC); Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC); Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)

and South Asian Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC). This Division also negotiates with other countries for signing of agreements or Memoranda of understanding for bilateral tourism Cooperation and attends Joint Commission Meetings in co-ordination with Ministries of Commerce, Culture, External Affairs, Civil Aviation, Finance, Petroleum, etc. for promotion of tourism. The Foreign Tourist Arrivals in India during the year 2009were 5.11 million as compared to 5.28 million in 2008, registering afall of 3.3%. Tourism sector witnessed a bad year all over the world.The decline in growth rate in Foreign Tourist Arrivals observed in India was lower thanthat observed for world (4.3%).The Foreign Exchange Earning from tourism during 2009 in US$ terms are estimated at 11.39 billion as compared to 11.75 billion during 2008, registering a fall of 3.0%. The above data from Indian Annual report which shows that Indias tourism in growth stage, but there is no action takes place for touris m sustainability. It also faces major problems like safety and security, environmental pollution and increasing immigrations, there are no proper policies to cope -up these problems.Oppermann argues that government involvement in tourism comes in many dif ferent forms and levels, like national tourism organisations, tourism development plans, national airlines, investments incentives or disincentives, general legislator regulations, visa and tax regulations and financing of hotels and tourism infrastructure are just a few approaches that government may use in furthering , guiding or impending tourism development. For this issue, Common Wealth game (2010) incidents are best example; during this period there is a heavy rain which causes floods, no proper mana gement to control floods. A tourist was shot by terrorist, disease like malaria and dengue were spreading, and there are no good conditioned accommodations for tourist,

even to the sports people. Some of sports person were get back to their nation without participating in the event because of this unsafely condition in India. But the central government concentrate on decorating the cities and repairing the stadium. This situation clears the current Indian government position on the tourism. The state government of south India is also in the same position. Most of the people in this region are middle class, major employment is agriculture, mainly depends on seasonal rain for agriculture. During unseasonal period, most of the people are unemployment. If the st ate government, develop the tourism in these area, which offers the employment to some people. The most tourist destination like Mudumalai wildlife reservation forest and Periyar tiger reservation forest not yet have basic facilities like restrooms and proper road. South Indian government can use Tiger as an iconic image for promote the tourism package, but they missing this valuable opportunity. Another important issue in south India is hygiene. No proper drainage facilities, the waste water from the house and industry are mixing in the rivers, which pollute the water and create diseases and destroy the natural resources. Some people illegally cutting down the most valuable trees like Sandal wood and selling market. So the state government and central gover nment should implement the strict policies to overcome these issues and state government of South India should aware of tourism important. During 2009, the Kerala houseboat worker are came to strike for refusal of the Boatowners to renew the labour contra ct after the existing two-year contract expired on August, 2008. The current wages ofHouseboat workers is a nearlyRs 2500 (USD 56) per monthand a daily allowance of Rs 100 (USD 2.25) in an industry thatboasts of average daily business of Rs.2.5 million (USD 57000)during the peak season. The

employees have asked a salaryhike to Rs.4000 and daily allowance to Rs.200. It provides direct employment tonearly 2000 workers staffed by over 600 houseboats. It is important to note in this context that the Kerala's tourism Industry has completely failed to provide way rapid growth of the houseboat operation that endangers the damaged ecosystem of the backwaters in the state causing displacement of and loss of livelihood for traditio nal fishers. The strike and the economic demands of the houseboat workers clearly indicate that it has also failed miserably to protect the interests of the workers who have found alternative survival employment in the tourism sector.
TRANSPORT:

Transport plays a vital link between tourist and destination; it mainly focuses on the tourist activities. In south India, transportation is major drawback for tourism development. For example, if a tourist travel 700km in south India means it took nearly 14 hours to reach the destination, but in UK it took only 7 hours. Transport is responsible not only for physically moving tourist from the main originating areas to the destination, but also for transporting tourists once they arrive at the destination. (Cooper, 2008). Transport act as the tourist attraction. The tourist to India mainly visit north Indian place like Agra, Rajasthan desert, and Himalaya. Visitor omit the South India, because there no proper tourist products for tourist attraction even it has some historic places, natural resource like hill stations, sea shores and national parks. But North India has railway product like the palace on wheels, which covers Rajasthan and Delhi. In road transport also the same situation is going on, there is no tourist attracts stage coach or city view coach in south India. The most recent development

in USA are Duck tours, which is used for tourist to sightseeing, using the second world war amphibian landing craft. This kind of facility gives the tourist mobility around the destination and tourist motivation. In some nations the bus tour tickets are valid all day, so one can visit one destination and take another bus to visit another spot by using the same ticket. IT city called Bangalore in South India have this kind of system, other than this , no other cities implemented this system to promote their tourism. In sea transport, India not have private cruise owners, but have nearly five international ports, that too three in south India. But they can use small ships as an intra-sea transport to attracttourist, by make travelling in small ships from one destination to nearest destination. It also gives experience to the tourist and also provides the employment to the local people. But the local people a nd the state government of the South India are no t aware of the tourism important. Now the Indian central government invest large amount to develop the infrastructure of the transport like building the hi -tech bridges and roads. In overall, from the above aspects the central and state government should concentrate on the transport to attract the tourist and provide that in good quality to retain the tourist. In concentrating on the transport we have to see the global warming. In china, they planned to implement the 3D bus, which is ecological and reduce the traffic in road transport.This kind of innovative technology should be implemented to focus on the future tourism and global warming.
MARKETING:

A societal process by which individuals and group obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value

with others.(Kotler and Keller, 2006).Kotler argues that the marketing is built on the main concepts of needs, wants, demands, satisfaction of marketing and marketer. It is the process of getting, keeping and growing the customers through creating, delivering and communicating the customer superior values. Cooper also argues that the aspect of delivering superior value is an important part of the marketing management approach. There is a requirement for a way of uncovering the value sought by the customer, the development of that within the company and then the delivery of optimum value to the end customer. An examination of these two peoples views gives significant core similarities. In promoting Indian tourism, central government and some hotels are involved in marketing work. Incredible India is the marketing logo for whole India and God s own country for Kerala tourism. The common wealth game is an good example for the marketing in Indian tourism. Apart from the North India, most of the tourist visited the Southern part of India during the Common wealth game. For past five years, Association tour operators and some hotel members with 26 tour operator s as representative from Taj Hotel and Resort, INPAC hotel and resort, Air india airlines, Kingfisher airlines and Jet airways, did presentation about Indian tourism to major cities in USA and Canada like New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Toronto. This yield 57 per cent growth to the Indian tourism for last four years, about 800,000 visitors from US visit India every year. In last year, aseries of Incredible India five roadshows, run by marketing firm TheNetwork, are targeting agents, including homeworkersand independents, and offer the chanceto meetoperators, airlines and hoteliers.The roadshows, which covers 30 exhibitors and150 guests in each event which takes place at Birmingham,Liverpool,Glasgow and Dublin .

These kinds of activities show that good promotion for Indian tourism. The marketing should done at right place, with right product, to right people will be effective. In tourism marketing, only the large organisations are involved, if the small organisations are involved means, it will more helpful for tourism industry. The central and state government should motivate the tourism industry of both public and private to promote their product in in novative way to attract more tourists.
EDUCATION: Theobald argues that the tourism education is important to assess the

implications of the global issues on the tourism industry, on the provision of education and training for the field; to determine wheth er tourism education provision is meeting the global industry needs; to explore future opportunity for global education for a global industry programme and delivery. (Theobald 2005) Education level and knowledge about tourism in south India is very low. This is the reason, because people not know about the important of the tourism. The Hotel and resort people should aware of this and should create awareness program about the tourism important. The government should conduct awareness program about the tourism and environmental change in tourist destination area local peoples, which helpful to implement new policies and easy to manage both the local people and tourist. During Common wealth (2010), training on hospitality skills was given to employees of some agencies. Air hostess, travel and hospitality management diploma courses students are sponsored by Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka state government. Like this the training should provide to the local people who involved in Tourism.

NATURAL DISASTER:

According to Page (2008), tourist health and safety is now a global theme associated with tourist travel as a wide range of threats, risk potential hazards and natural disaster affects traveller. Tsunami, which creates the most tragedy situation to the south Indian tourism, it kills most of local people and tourist also. It destroyed lot of sea shore areas. Next to this deforestation and soil erosion are another major factor. Due to this, most of the valuable animals inside the forest are in question able situation, only 1411 tigers in India. So the government should create prevention method to prevent the natural disasters.
CONCLUSION:

From the above discussion, it clears that the government making agreement with other nations, failed to develop the tou rist destination and tourism industry. When transportation problem is resolved and shows development infrastructure means the tourism in south India will show rapid growth. Apart from this marketing is an important tool to sell the product in the competitive world market, so strong marketing strategy should create to turn the world tourist towards the south India. For this the hotel and resort people, government and local pe ople should involve in a periodical review and discussion, to overcome the issues and to utilize the opportunity. It is not possible to develop the tourism industry by alone government, without the support of tourism organisation and local people. From Theobald point of view the tourist industry does not control all those factors that make up the attractiveness of a destination and the impact on the host population can be considerable , it is necessary that the options concerning the planning of tourism shou ld be considered at the highest level of government and the

appropriate public administrative framework put in place. Development of tourism is a partnership between public and private sector depends on economic, political and social policies of the country. So solve and overcome these issues the government, tourism industry and locale people of south India should have clear framework and involvement to develop tourism sector.

Appendix-1:

Source:http://www.mapsofindia.com/south-india-travel.html

REFERENCE:

Ball, S., Horner, S. and Nield, K. (2007) Contemporary hospitality and Tourism Management issues in China and India. Butterworth- Heinemann. Cooper, C., Fletcher, J., Fyall, A., Gilbert, D and Wanhill, S(2008) Tourism Principles and Practice, Fourth edition, Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd. Pg: 404, 510. Knowles, T (2004) The globalization of tourism and hospitality; a str ategic perspective, 2 nd edition, London: Thomson Learning. Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2006) Marketing management, Prentice hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Laws, E (2004) Tourism in the 21 st Century: lesson from experience, 2 nd edition, London: Thomson Learn ing. Oppermann, M and Sung Chon, K. (1997) Tourism in Developing Countries, London: Thomson Learning. Page, S.(2007) Tourism Management: Managing change, 2 nd edition, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Page, S. and Connell, J. (2008) Tourism: A Modern Synthesi s, 3rd edition Theobald, W.F. (2005) Global Tourism, 3 rd edition, Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann.
Magazine & Journals:

CONTOURS (octomber- november 2008)

Journal of sustainable tourism. Tourism in Focus. Travel weekly. Travel agent (June 8, 2009).
Website:

http://www.world-newspapers.com/travel.html http://www.keralatourismwatch.org http://www.ttglive.com (24 may 2004)

http://www.incredibleindia.org http://www.emerald.library.com