Tourism industry wants visa bottlenecks to go

Lack of coordination among centre, provinces post-18th amendment highlighted

ISLAMABAD: Stakeholders in the tourism industry are concerned over increased visa restrictions introduced by the government recently, fearing that it may hamper their capability to generate much-needed revenue.

Instead, they were of the view that the government should adopt a tourist-friendly and flexible policy which seeks to remove bureaucratic hurdles for potential tourists planning to visit the country.

This concern was expressed during the National Tourism Conference which was held in the capital on Monday.



The moot brought together government officials, tour operators, travel agents, hoteliers and representatives of airlines to discuss issues pertaining to the tourism industry in the country.

“Currently, there are seven bodies working for tourism in the public sector- one each at the centre and all provinces as well as the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) - but there is a lack of coordination amongst them. Who will promote Pakistan, nobody knows,” said Aftabur Rehman Rana, president of the Sustainable Tourism Foundation Pakistan.

With the government recently imposing further restrictions on the visa on arrival facility, Rana called for simplifying the visa process in addition to establishing an interactive central web portal following the models of ‘Incredible India’ and ‘Amazing Thailand’.

“The PTDC website has never been updated,” he complained.

Islamabad Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz, who spoke as a panellist, conceded that there was no central tourism policy in the country at the moment.

While responding to a question about how the capital lacked a proper landfill site, the mayor resolved to make Islamabad one of the most beautiful capitals in the world and disclosed plans to set up a proper waste management system over the next few months.

Educationist and artist Salima Hashimi, who was also a panellist, emphasised on the need to have a national calendar of events and celebrations which are particular to Pakistan such as basant.

“We simply do not know our own strengths because you are so scared,” she said pointedly while making a veiled suggestion towards the ban imposed on basant in Punjab.

“There is a need to patch together the mosaic that is Pakistan and reconnect to ancient Pakistan,” she said.

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) country representative Mahmood Akhtar Cheema highlighted the need for making travel guides and brochures easily available for tourists.

“We as a country are not good at projecting our strengths … even our ambassadors abroad do not have sufficient knowledge about our tourism-related strengths,” Cheema bemoaned.



At a session on the potential for provincial tourism and strategies, representatives from the four provinces as well as AJK and G-B shared their individual strategies towards boosting tourism.

The representative from Punjab highlighted the scale of religious tourism in the multi-billion, while the Balochistan official talked about the tourism potential which was presented by the multibillion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Intriguingly, all representatives on the panel agreed that domestic tourists constituted the bulk of tourists visiting their respective regions. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa led all the regions, having received between nine to 10 million domestic tourists in a year.

The conference recommended taking ownership of the industry at the federal level in addition to facilitating and promoting the industry. They suggested managing tourist destinations at the national level in addition to improving security, connectivity and tourist infrastructure.

“Tendency to be fearful and doubtful [of visitors] needs to go away,” noted Sidra Iqbal, who moderated the event.

Reservations about the lack of coordination and planning at the federal level after the tourism ministry was devolved to provinces under the 18th constitutional amendment were also expressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2017.