Road to Tourism

Editorial -
Tourism is in the news. There are two news-reports front-paged today dealing with this sector. The Chief Minister has announced a Rs. 80 crore outlay to develop 1,000 homes across the State for home-stay tourism. And a day before this announcement, the Governor sat in a meeting with the Tourism Minister and Secretary, recognized that the ‘situation’ in the neighbouring hills was hurting tourist arrivals in Sikkim and directed that more innovative options be explored to resuscitate tourism in Sikkim. The 2011 earthquake and now the trouble in Darjeeling have conspired to keep the ‘season’ uncertain. One needs to accept that tourism requires several things to fall into place to prosper. It is also unfortunately too susceptible to external factors [trouble en route to Sikkim for instance] and since Sikkim cannot do too much about external factors beyond its control, it should work hard and well to streamline everything within the State. The creation of more homestay options and development of 100 new tourist spots will go a long way towards embellishing the bouquet of itineraries that Sikkim can offer guests, as will the suggestion that even better human resource be trained for the service sector. And providing the backbone for all these improvements will be the roads over which tourism accelerates into Sikkim.
The highways are the modern world’s great rivers. Just as most ancient civilisations came up on the banks of major rivers and their tributaries, so too in the present times does every developmental initiative require the presence of good roads. A boom invariably follows road development initiatives. The absence or poor road-worthiness of stretches would hence automatically prove counter-productive. If this analogy be accepted, then the situation has turned worrisome for Sikkim as too many of its roads are in rather poor disrepair. Now, about tourism and roads. No matter how many man-hours are spent trying to come up with the most enticing slogans to attract tourists to Sikkim, such efforts will not sustain. Tourism, after all, depends heavily on positive word-of-mouth publicity and no traveler, who is already taking a risk visiting places based on just publicity brochures and glossy centre-spreads, will decide on a destination once he is told of the poor road conditions. Taking Sikkim’s case, it is making an earnest play to place itself on the Buddhist circuit and with the homestay thrust, trying to appeal more strongly to tourists wishing to slow down with a laidback holiday. Needless to add, all those who decide on Sikkim for either of these qualities, will expect a tranquil stay here. A bone-rattling experience on the road to the monasteries or a home-stay is not something they would have factored in.
It must also be borne in mind that when one says good roads, one does not by any stretch of imagination, imply wide, three-lane blacktops. All that is being wished for are smooth, safe and reliable roads. Bad roads (in fact all roads) turn into nightmare experiences during monsoons in Sikkim. West Sikkim connectivity remains poor like always at present and Tsomgo and North Sikkim, the other places that tourists wish to visit compete for fear-factor levels of unreliability. So, the road to promoting tourism in Sikkim lies literally in its roads. Improve them, maintain them and promote Sikkim well and the State has enough potential to survive even just on repeat tourists. Admittedly, this is easier said than done since roads lie beyond the Tourism Department’s control, but the other arm, that of Roads & Bridges for the State roads, also belongs to the same Government and BRO is another step away with the Centre. Some coordination, better planning and prioritisation should get the roads in better health, monsoons notwithstanding.
There is nothing new in what is being suggested and there must have been several attempts to improve the blacktops in the past, but maybe Sikkim should try harder and more consistently.