Tourism in India Is Booming. So Why Is Everyone So Worried?

(Bloomberg) -- The travel habits of Chinese citizens are changing the world. Taking about 145 million overseas trips a year, the Middle Kingdom’s middle class is moving—and spending—more than that of any other nation: In 2016 they accounted for $261 billion overseas, a fifth of all sales by international tourists, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

To the south, India’s own swelling, monied middle class—250 million smartphone-toting young professionals out of a population of 1.3 billion—is starting to emulate its regional rival. In less than 10 years, the World Travel & Tourism Council expects India to become the fourth-largest travel and tourism economy behind China, the U.S., and Germany.

Although more people are visiting India than ever before—two decades ago about 2.4 million international tourists came to India a year; in 2017 there were five times that—the real boost is coming from domestic travel. Almost 90 percent of travelers in India are Indians. For the last three years, their most popular destination has been the southernmost state of Tamil Nadu, thanks to pilgrims eager to visit its many temples.

Tourism in the subcontinent generated more than $230 billion in 2017, up from almost $209 billion in 2016. The vast country offers myriad options: 36 world heritage sites and 103 national parks, plus the Taj Mahal in Agra, Rajasthan’s hill forts, the holy city of Varanasi, and everything else in between the mountains of the Himalayas and the beaches of Goa. Add in its jungles with tigers, elephants, and the last of Asia’s lions, and no other country is better suited to take advantage of an adventure travel market that’s expected to grow to $1.3 billion by 2023.

“Indians are discovering their own country,” says Ahmed Chamanwala, the founder of the Fringe Ford, a five-room lodge in Kerala state, which sits on a 527-acre forest home to more than 400 kinds of animals. “In our initial years, most of our tourists were inbound travelers. But over the years we have seen an increase in the domestic weekend travelers from the major cities in India. Now the business is more dependent on the Indian market.”

The Paradox

As Venice, Barcelona, and Dubrovnik have learned, however, unchecked growth can threaten stakeholders in the fragile places supported by the surge in visitors. In India, steered by government subsidies and tax incentives, five regional budget airlines debuted 100 far-flung routes last year, helping fuel citizens’ desire to explore. 

The country’s natural beauty is part of its marketing campaign, and wildlife is a huge draw. But one concern being discussed in hushed tones, Chamanwala says, is that the country’s weak infrastructure and stretched bureaucracy could allow certain areas to lose what makes them special before they ever reach their potential. In some areas, tiger reserves no longer have tigers, and nature safaris can feel like crowded parking lots where there are more shutterbugs than subjects to shoot.

Fringe Ford is already taking steps to limit tourism’s impact. The resort, sitting on an old tea plantation that’s been reclaimed by the forest, is staffed with locals to keep the community involved as stakeholders. Chamanwala plans to invest in adjacent plots to create a buffer that will encourage forest growth and conservation. “Keeping the footprint to a bare minimum” is a must, he says, and he invests a portion of his profits into conservation on the property. 

These worries are most pronounced in the high-altitude Himalaya desert of Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir, a region on the extreme northern side of the country where dramatic peaks and native snow leopards have created a tourism explosion. For years, the presence of the Indian army kept this region protected, but now almost 2.5 million visit annually, eager to see landscapes featured in Bollywood films. 

Road construction here, in a region long cut off from the rest of the continent, is a defiant message to neighboring China. As the one major broken link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the new roads are a directive to citizens: travel. Throughout the Himalayas, the glaciers walling off the world’s tallest mountains from human encroachment are melting, opening more land for development. So far, much of the market has been from Indians, which presents enormous potential for international travelers. 

Right now, there are about 650 hotels and homestays in a district with 4,300 households—too many for the land to support. There’s talk of capping visitors, but no standard regulations, and no one wants to turn off the money machine. “I really hope they don’t expand their capacity,” says Misty Dhillon, the founder of the Himalayan Outback, who leads tours throughout Ladakh and greater India.

The Other Catch

Tourism in places such as Ladakh hinges on a pristine environmental image, but visitors produce thousands of pounds of trash each year. More than 30,000 plastic water bottles are dumped in open-air landfills in Ladakh each summer. On Mt. Everest, in neighboring Nepal, there’s an estimated 8 to 10 metric tonnes of everything from empty oxygen canisters to tents and even bodies on the mountain.

Waste is a problem throughout the Himalayas, and much of it is made by domestic travelers. “The trash problem is a big concern, because our domestic tourism is a huge part of it,” Dhillon says. “People are seeing all these tourists coming for snow leopards, and locals are thinking, Why shouldn’t we do it?”

In the meantime, wildlife is getting harder to spot. Glacial melt is speeding up the desertification of the Western Himalayas and increasing erosion, and trekkers hiking the mountains don’t give alpine valleys a chance to recover.

David Sonam, a co-owner of the Snow Leopard Lodge in the Ladakhi village of Ulley, has been instrumental in implementing a resident program that levies a portion of each visitor fee to conservation, helping get locals involved. Ulley, where the Snow Leopard Lodge is located, has been fanatical about maintaining a low impact, limiting guests to 22 at the most. But even here, the relationship with the environment is tenuous.

The lodge is run by Tsewang Norboo, who once hunted snow leopards with his grandfather before turning his home into a hotel that’s earned an outsize reputation. But no leopards means no tourists, a worry dictated by those same tourists. It’s the same issue that could happen in Varanasi, where gallons of untreated sewage flow into the Ganges every day. The thing keeping the industry going threatens to crash it down.

“The land is changing,” Sonam admits. “And it’s changing because there’s just too many people.”

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gaddy at jgaddy@bloomberg.net

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