Welcome to our ‘paradise’

One gets tired of hearing about the potential of Pakistanis or of Pakistan. Time and again we are told of the potential of one person or another in Pakistan and how given the right backing and push, they would be world leaders and achievers.

There are even those who while lamenting the fact that Pakistanis are not able to achieve more, insist a grand conspiracy is possibly behind the reason why more Pakistanis cannot make it to the international level. We are a super people. The only thing holding us back are vested interests.

We do not let facts get in the way. Our poor literacy rate, the explosive population growth or the fact that our government invests next to nothing in health and basic infrastructure doesn’t seem to feature in all this.

No one talks of how as a country we are becoming more inward looking and intolerant and how extremism has made the country one of the worst places to visit in the region.

Which brings us to the tourism potential of Pakistan. To give credit to this administration, it has eased visa requirements to increase the number of tourists.

To add to this, we have been flooded with misleading v-logs and content by paid influencers on different platforms on how beautiful and welcoming the country is. While the potential for tourism is there, one has to be more realistic about whether the number of tourists to Pakistan will increase any time soon.

Both the tourism summit as well as the foreign influencers who commented on how welcoming and open Pakistan is, have done a disservice to any serious effort at promoting tourism in Pakistan. It has brushed under the carpet all the problems faced by visitors to the country, which are numerous to say the least.

To begin with, some idiotic videos about Pakistanis not accepting payment from tourists for goods or services sold is both insulting and misleading. By and large, the experience of most (except for Indians) is that most locals are out to fleece tourists. People are lied to and cheated on a regular basis. But that is one part of the problem.

Imagine arriving to a country where your luggage has been pilfered at the airport and this is considered normal. How a health inspector can take aside an unsuspecting visitor and shake them down on the pretext of not having the required vaccinations.

Who can forget how ASF and immigration staff beat up passengers. The long immigration queues and the missing luggage trolleys. This is the welcome we get.

This is a country where a single woman cannot safely walk on the streets in the daytime without being harassed, abused or worse. Policemen are no help.

The public transport system is so bad that tourists use substandard and expensive taxis which are unregulated which also over-charge since none of them have functioning fare meters.

Five-star hotels enjoy a monopoly - they charge more than double if compared to Dubai and their standard are nowhere near. There is no culture of improving service or facilities. Again, its all about fleecing the visitor.

There are no hostels was in the past. Clean and cheap accommodation is almost nonexistent in most cities. What is on offer are overpriced and poorly serviced hotels. The alternative is rodent infested dirty rooms in so called questionable establishments where personal belongings of guests are regularly stolen.

While we have heard that the railways are improving, there are still terrible if compared to other rail services in the region – be it China, Iran or India. There is no system of booking and security of passengers remains a problem.

The alternative is to fly on overpriced airlines whose fares are more expensive than regional carriers who take you out of the country.

Leave everything aside: clean and accessible toilets are not available in any of the country’s major cities, let alone on the highways. With the possible exception of the Lahore-Islamabad motorway, commuters are hard pressed to find a clean toilet on the road. All that has been mentioned here is the tip of the ice-berg.

Before we welcome anyone to Pakistan and misguide them with our so-called legendary hospitality, at least let us get our house in order.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2019.

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