Come summers and while some would start dreaming of vacations in Europe, our burgeoning middle class would start planning vacations in Kalam, Naran or the Galiyat. The more adventurous would take out maps and start looking at Chitral, Hunza or Deosai plains in Skardu.

Pakistan’s domestic tourism saw a tremendous boost in the last decade, due partly to more disposable incomes and partly to better connectivity through some amazing road networks. The year 2019 saw Prince Williams and Kate Middleton roaming around in Chitral and Lahore, Sikh pilgrims visiting newly opened Kartarpur Gurdwara and a host of international travel bloggers walking in the streets of Pakistan, intermingling with people and enjoying local food and hospitality.

As a result, we saw Pakistan at the top of Conde Nast travel destinations list for year 2020. Who would have thought that 2020 may turn out so differently.

While data on tourism in Pakistan is even worse than any other sector, rough estimates by the World Bank suggest over 50 million domestic tourists travel during summers and while few credible estimates are available for foreign tourists, Pakistan ranks 121 out of 140 countries on Travel and Tourism competitiveness index. Travel and tourism contributes 2.5 percent of the employment in Pakistan, which translates to roughly 1.5 million jobs.

Unfortunately, while people can still dream of mountains, tall pines and gushing streams, opening the mountain towns for tourism is a tricky business. The way people flouted the SOPs during the post-Eid lockdown relaxation by the government is a good example of why the government should ensure strict enforcement of Covid SOPs before these mountain towns are opened to tourists.

It is important to run an extensive campaign to ensure people are aware of the tourism SOPs as these steps are indeed meant to protect people from this monstrous pandemic.

At the same time, it must be understood that while tourists can easily stay away one or two summers from the beautiful north of Pakistan, there is an economic survival question for the host communities. Every summer, millions of people in Northern Areas earn their livelihoods thanks to this seasonal domestic tourism. These include entrepreneurs like hoteliers and tour operators but more importantly daily wagers like waiters, guides, roadside kiosk owners, drivers, shop keepers etc. Mostly these people earn their yearly incomes during the four to five summer months.

An initial assessment by the World Bank estimates that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone shall lose $20 million in revenues and 260,000 formal jobs in tourism sector to the pandemic. It is the livelihood of these people that is at stake in the times of Covid-19.

The prime minister has time and again suggested that we cannot lockdown the whole country as that would be disastrous for the poor, especially the daily wagers. This is particularly true of these northern mountain towns. We have a distinct opportunity here to implement an ‘intelligent lockdown’ instead of partial or complete lockdowns. A recent research paper by Rashid Mahmood available at (https://www.dawn.com/news/1549406) gives a ray of hope.

The paper focuses on application of a lockdown design for the whole country, however, here I am advocating using some of the ideas from the paper in opening up our northern mountain towns to the people in a strictly regulated manner.

The proposal is to categorise towns like Kalam, Naran, Nathiagali, Murree, Chitral, Hunza and Skardu as independent economically and socially independent zones. Fortunately, most of these towns are in any case quite isolated through mountains and rivers with limited entry and exit points.

The government should prioritise random testing in these towns over the next couple of weeks to ascertain the disease prevalence and isolate and treat any patients in these zones. The entry and exit from these zones should be strictly regulated in consultation with local community and business unions. Once a zone is declared safe from a disease prevalence perspective, it may be opened to a limited number of tourist families.

It must be understood that while tourists can easily stay away one or two summers from the beautiful north of Pakistan, there is an economic survival question for the host communities.

The idea is to create a win-win situation where the government is able to facilitate some economic growth in these areas through implementing an intelligent lockdown while the local population has an incentive to earn their livelihoods in these difficult times.

The government, in consultation with local communities, should then enforce a strict regulatory regime for the tourism activity with a credible threat to immediately close down the zone in case of any violations by the community. Hotels should be graded and initially only the top tier hotels should be allowed to operate with 50 percent capacity and 50 percent staff with strict implementation of mask wearing, sanitation and social distancing guidelines.

All staff of these hotels should be tested every week and at random and should preferably be resident at the hotel with minimal interaction outside. There should be no walk-in customers and hotels should operate on advance bookings protocols.

The government should only allow hotels with proper sanitation facilities and where social distancing can be enforced and no tent city facilities like the one in Naran should be allowed to operate this year. All street vendors should be registered and no outsiders should be allowed in the zone for business.

Each of these zones should have a reception post at entry where all tourists and their families should undergo initial screening on arrival. The tourists should be allowed to proceed into these green zones only if they appear disease free after initial screening. For example, the government can establish such reception posts at Madyan for Kalam or at Balakot or Mansehra for Naran zone.

The idea is to allow an uninfected family to travel with some restrictions to these mountain towns and ideally surrounded by other uninfected families with strict social distancing in place. The government can also start by allowing only families and not groups of random people or school tours and only private vehicles should be allowed to ply. The assumption is that the families travelling would be maintaining social distancing and would be free of disease, something we cannot be sure of in random groups of people. Also families tend to spend more on vacations so this would be better for local economic growth.

Lastly, the government should allow shops to open on alternating days on a rotation basis and there should be no social or religious gatherings. Also, all areas meant for large gatherings, like cinemas and marriage halls, should remain closed. Tourists should be there to enjoy the serenity of the mountains and not for social intermingling.

Every crisis has an opportunity. This is the current government’s opportunity to recalibrate tourism industry towards a more standards-based and customer-driven industry. As of now, the government can propose to allow only the hotels registered on international websites like Booking.com. This shall force more hotels to improve their services due to customer feedback loops available on these technology platforms.

This is also an opportunity to revamp water supply, sanitation and waste disposal systems and upgrade other infrastructure in these mountain towns. It is heartening to note that the Tourism Department is using this time to establish public washrooms and Rescue 1122 facilities in Swat and Kaghan valleys besides planning for solid waste disposal and tourist awareness campaigns.

The government should also think of a three years’ tax break for tourism industry located in northern areas.

While tourism appears to be less of a priority for the provincial governments currently, it is not really about luxury, it is actually about providing opportunities for economic growth to millions of poor people in these mountain towns and surrounds. Substantial efforts by the district governments would be required to open up these mountain towns in a controlled and regulated manner. Initially, the government can start with a two-week pilot in Malam Jabba.

The catch is giving more responsibility to local communities to enforce the regulations in their own interest with clear SOPs on closure of a zone in case of violations or increase in disease incidence. With much needed improvement in pandemic statistics, it is time to start careful planning for such an initiative which besides bringing some normalcy to our lives would go a long way in promoting local economic growth in these difficult times.

The writer is a development professional with interest in tourism and heritage. He blogs at www.travelpangs.com and can be reached at omarmukhtar16@gmail.com.