Recently, I caught the advance publicity about a BBC TV programme, which was going to explain, why the tourism industry in India is so much less significant than that of other Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia?
Unfortunately, I missed the programme, but the question that it posed was intriguing. How could India not have a huge tourism industry when it has so much to offer non-wildlife and wilderness tourists - its incredibly long-known history and civilisations, its great religions, its 28 World Heritage Sites, its human and physical diversity, its extraordinary cultures embracing clothing, food, craft, dress? You name it, India has it.
But if India still lags behind, which could be a deliberate choice, what chance does this country have? Yes, it has the incredibly beautiful Okavango and the Chobe and its vast wilderness spaces; but having sensibly opted for a finite high-cost low-volume tourism strategy, it should have worked out when this will peak, if everything is working in its favour, and thereafter, either be sustained over a period of time, or droop.
