Talking tourism

Earlier this month, during his visit to the Sonmiani beach in Balochistan’s Lasbela district, Prime Minister Imran Khan proposed establishing a “splendid tourist resort” along the coastal belt of the province with the potential of attracting a “large number of people from the Muslim world”.

He added “our people”, who face problems because of Islamophobia, don't want to take their wives and children to Europe and other places. So, he said, “A place like Pakistan has great potential where people from Muslim countries will come for tourism.”

A Muslim family-friendly beach resort in Pakistan – where women are not seen sunbathing or playing volleyball in bikinis; food is halal; and sundowners and happy hours a definite no-no – would cut a niche market, eye the great potential in ‘halal tourism’. But why limit this great potential to Muslim tourists alone? Our soaring mountains have always lured and captivated visitors of all kinds. Why not the unexplored beaches?

The PM’s statement was in sync with the CPEC plan to develop Balochistan’s beaches along the Makran Coastal Highway – including Hammerhead, Ormara and Astola Island – for economic opportunities.

But, in Pakistan, the challenge of developing tourism is much more complex. It is not just about attracting tourists in droves by connecting remote places through a network of expressways; it’s about protecting local environment and culture, boosting economies, and making communities equal stakeholders.

Since his cricketing days, Imran Khan has aspired to turn his passion for adventure tourism into a booming industry for Pakistan. Thus, as soon as he came into power in 2018, he appointed his Zulfi Bukhari to bolster tourism in the country. Social media influencers promoted Pakistan. They posted attractive images of snow-clad peaks peeping through floating clouds in Gilgit-Baltistan, rivers flowing in rage through the green valleys of Azad Kashmir, intricate geometric and floral frescos at Mughal heritage sites.

It would perhaps be impulsive to brush their contribution aside as cosmetic – for travellers from around the world have indeed flocked to the northern areas in recent years.

Whether due to the contribution of influencers or Covid-related boredom and unlocking of travel sites, this fast-rising tide of tourists has become an unacceptable tsunami. The once idyllic towns of Kalam, Naran and Skardu are now out of hand. There is trash everywhere, and where there is no trash, are hotels, some multi-storied, with their architecture totally incongruent with nature.

Take the case of Swat, for instance. Zubair Torwali, a resident of Bahrain in Swat, says that “outsiders” (not locals) own most hotels in his area. He says most of the land purchased by them is in cash. In the absence of strict land regulations, land acquisition has become an easy bait to invite ambitious and greedy investors with little understanding of indigenous culture and environment.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tourism Department spokesman Latif-ur-Rehman informs that over the last Eid holidays, between July 17 and July 24, more than 550,000 tourist vehicles entered the Malakand Division, more than 200,000 vehicles and one million tourists entered the Galiyat and some 1.2 million tourists in 300,000 vehicles visited Kaghan. Horrific pictures posted by those stuck in the jam showed bumper to bumper and miles upon miles of motor vehicles.

Imagine the high carbon footprints left behind by the travellers, the polluted air for locals to inhale and heat emitted from motorized vehicles to bear with.

Alluring hundreds of thousands of tourists by spreading a road network or building fancy resorts does not necessarily boost the local economies. “At best, people can access nearby bigger and busier markets to trade products like soft drinks more easily. But the profit margins for a local shopkeeper on a bottle of soft drink is miniscule,” says Ali Arqam, journalist and researcher based in Peshawar in KP.

Ihsanullah Khan owns a hotel in Kalam. He thinks Kalam has grown on its own – “There is no input from the government” – where roads are bumpy, clouds of dust engulf roadsides, power cuts are common, hotels are unregulated, garbage is mismanaged, and hygiene is compromised.

True, tourism brings money and jobs to tourist spots – however, at the cost of damaging the ecosystem, culture and heritage. “Kalam is crowded, not developed. It desperately needs a regulator,” he adds.

In Lasbela, the PM assured the federal government would chalk out a plan with Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani to bring consultants to the area and decide how to utilise it in the best way for tourism. That’s a tall promise because there aren’t many competent tourism planners or visionaries with solutions to control over tourism in Pakistan – those who can steer us out of this mess place limits on the number of tourists in one site; propose tourist redistribution techniques; impose strict laws on hotel development – and take the local community on board as equal partners.

Imran Khan may have the World Bank-funded Integrated Tourism Zones Development Project to talk of, which is indeed ambitious and thorough. The objective of the project is to “improve tourism-enabling infrastructure, enhance tourism assets, and strengthen destination management for sustainable tourism development in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.” But, once fully implemented, will it fix the fundamentals?

Given the trends of the recent past, it seems, the tourist tsunami has drifted us into chaos. Therefore, the wish to develop the pristine, idyllic beaches of the undiscovered Balochistan can only be taken with scepticism.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Lahore.