Tourism revolution in K-P

Pakistan’s improved ranking is expected to fetch more tourists and it is important to offer them a pleasant experience

Pakistan recently topped the Condé Nast Traveller’s list of best holiday destinations for 2020. The country’s sudden appearance on the international tourism radar may have surprised many but the journey to this prominence has been gradual, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) in particular, has been instrumental in steering this newfound tourist attraction towards the country.

The visit of Prince Williams and Kate Middleton to the Chitral Valley created a stir in the international media. But the royal couple has not been the only celebrities to be charmed by K-P. In recent times, the province has witnessed visits by many international travel bloggers, including the popular Polish travel vlogger, Eva Zu Beck, and food blogger Mark Weins. Zu terming Pakistan as the world’s greatest tourism destination and Weins roaming in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar of Peshawar undoubtedly created a lasting impression on the minds of aspiring international tourists.

The K-P government did have a role to play in these developments. Opening up of the K-P Governor’s House and other government rest houses to the public, launching a tourism smartphone application and participation in international tourism expos indeed helped in uplifting K-P’s tourism brand. But what has been a game changer for K-P is its strategy to target specific tourism segments like Buddhist, sports, medical and eco-tourism.

K-P has more than 6,000 Buddhist sites and in recent months, the government has turned its attention towards this hidden treasure. Last year, the largest Buddha statue in Peshawar Museum was transported all the way to the Rietberg Museum in Switzerland to be displayed for three months. The K-P government has also recently set up a Buddhist trail from Khanpur to Swat, attracting Buddhist monks and tourists from across the world. Last month, a 45-member delegation from South Korea visited the religious Buddhist sites in Takhtbai, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Similarly, a renewed emphasis has been placed on sports tourism, with Peshawar hosting the 33^rd National Games and improved publicity around the famous Shandur polo festival, attracting 80 foreign tourists including a team of Dutch backpackers and British polo players this year.

For medical tourism, the government has started offering special incentives to Afghan citizens at public and private hospitals, besides setting up a Pak-Afghan Healthcare Referral Facility at the Pak-Afghan border in Torkham. Plans are also underway to establish a healthcare city in the border district of Khyber.

Setting up of colourful camping pods and tenting villages by the government at various locations was also a major hit and took social media by storm, with a significant increase in tourist traffic.

In the backdrop of all these activities, the government also came up with a new legislation, announcing the establishment of a new K-P Tourism Authority and laying ground for creating dedicated tourism zones. These steps do mark the efforts in the right direction. But the key is not to lose momentum.

Pakistan’s improved ranking is expected to fetch huge inflows of tourists and it would be important to offer them a pleasant experience to further capitalise on this improved branding. It is also important to use the new law to create integrated tourism parks, where potential investors can be offered viable investment opportunities. The government may also need to create special purpose vehicles to manage high-traffic tourism sites to take them out of the traditional local government system and provide state-of-the-art civic facilities. But most importantly, the government needs to make the new tourism authority fully functional to create the requisite capacity to undertake and manage all these new planned ventures.

We must remember that it’s just the start and there is a long way to go. But if managed right, we can very well witness a tourism boom in the years ahead.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2019.

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