Make Sikkim Easier to Holiday In

Editorial:-
The Chief Minister laid the foundation stone of an ambitious 5-star luxury resort in Barfung, South Sikkim on Tuesday. About a week back, he had inaugurated a 5-star luxury resort in Pelling, West Sikkim. These are ambitious projects, which even a few years ago would have been considered ill-advised even in Gangtok, which incidentally now has a range of high-end hotels already in operation. Tourism has marched strong in Sikkim, its infrastructural and locational disadvantages notwithstanding. Living in Sikkim, one tends to overlook just how handsomely this sector has grown in the State in the very recent past and it is on occasions like the latest foundation stone laying ceremony that this growth is brought into focus. Sikkim, after all, now gets more visitors annually than it has people residing here! The recent Lonely Planet endorsement of Sikkim as the No. 1 destination to visit in 2014 is further reiteration of the State’s still growing appeal. The State can expect a substantial hike in the number of visiting Sikkim the next season, and since it is still grappling with the Sept 2011 earthquake setback, should work even more concertedly to ensure that visitors enjoy themselves here, impressed as much by the State’s hospitality as by its obvious natural beauty. And when one speaks of hospitality, it is about more than just the smiles of taxi drivers and the hotel staff, it is also about the facility with which the guests can arrive and travel here – the rules and paperwork they need to negotiate. Needless to add, this sector needs some working, but that falls in the policy-framing domain and one hopes wider consensus is developed to make Sikkim more tourist-friendly in how easily it can be accessed. Before one proceeds, one needs to add that this process has improved manifold in the recent past as well.
Not so long back, tourism in Sikkim was essentially about catering to the spillover from Darjeeling; hosting tourists who were left with a day or two left on their Darjeeling itinerary. Some of the older hoteliers will attest to this. That is clearly no longer the case now. Apart from two Casinos which are trying to develop a whole new clientele for tourism in Sikkim, the State’s traditional strong points have been in focus for some years as well. Sikkim’s potential for alpine style climbing escapes continues to be explored and developed and is being promoted by intrepid climbers. The appeal of its landscape, the significance of its religious history and the diversity of its indigenous cultures are well recognized and continue to mesmerize guests, making repeat visits an easy sell. It routinely figures among the recipients of tourism industry-related awards and Lonely Planet crown is the latest in what is now a long list of awards. Tourism-specific infrastructure, from hotels to foot trails to village homestays, is being developed across the State and village tourism has been announced as a mission pursuit by the State Government. Impressive additions have been made to the places to visit list, starting from Guru Rinpoche’s statue at Samdruptse a decade back to Char Dhaam at Solophok and Tathagatha Tsal at Rabongla since. All these investments and achievements are impressive and welcome, but also an unfortunate fact is that policies and rules governing travel to and within Sikkim are regressive and tourist unfriendly. The fact that foreign tourists require a special permit to be able to enter Sikkim delivers the first stumbling block. Admittedly, from a time when this permit had to once be applied for at embassies in their respective countries to now arriving at the border checkposts here and getting their travel documents stamped, is a substantial forward leap. Acquiring the permit is a token formality now, but the fact that it still needs to be acquired stretches out the infamous Indian red-tape that every foreign tourist is instinctively wary of. Extra paperwork discourages tourists, and since information is never very clear, not everyone knows that this is a mere formality and that it takes only minutes to get stamped into Sikkim. And after that is the dampener that awaits every foreign tourist on a Sikkim visit – news that the more exciting and appealing destinations in the State remain out of bounds for foreigners. And then there is the frustration of realising that even travel within Sikkim has its unique complications which make impromptu changes in plans and itineraries nearly impossible.
One could go on and on, but the point has been made. For a State investing so much as Sikkim is on tourism and harbouring aspirations as high as the State does from this sector, the policy interventions required to make it more accessible and tourist friendly need to be more forcefully voiced. No amount of promotion and publicity the tourist traffic it has potential for unless guests can holiday without worries of documents and logistics weighing them down. Commission agents can afford to live in the moment and not bother about long-term ramifications, policy makers and the stakeholders, however, cannot afford such slackness and need to constantly work at refining policy and rules to make holidays in Sikkim as hassle-free as possible.