TravTalk India Online Magazine
Arun Iyer, Founder & Managing Director, My Golf Tours, shares his perspective on how India can truly become incredible. He narrates his experience of promoting India as a golfing destination internationally under the aegis of the ministry and this is what he has to say.
My Golf Tours essentially promotes India as a top golfing destination in various countries. We come under the segment of niche tourism. The good news is that the Ministry of Tourism (MoT) has certain policies for this type of tourism promotion. These policies are great and helpful on paper. But the problem lies in their implementation. I will share an experience. We regularly exhibit at Asian & European Golf conventions with support from the MOT. But there have been instances when we wanted to exhibit at the International Golf Travel Market in Europe, the approval came in a little too late, due to which the money spent on putting up the stall did not achieve a great return since we had crossed the deadline of getting the online appointments from prospective buyers. As a result, exhibiting at the convention was not as fruitful and could not have serious one-on-one appointments with potential buyers. Money, time and efforts were spent with almost nothing to show for it.
My suggestion for this is that any application that is moved through the ministry must have a deadline. Or it is done online with complete transparency, and they have to either approve or reject it within two to three weeks.
Delayed sanctions
During the ministerial meetings organised by our golf trade association, we have been informed that we are looking at countries like Japan to understand how to attract tourists into India. The Asian Convention is scheduled in Japan in mid-March 2023, and we have made an application to exhibit in December 2023. We have not heard if the application is accepted, rejected or put on hold. Having certain deadlines will help us avoid these situations and help tour operators take faster decisions.
India as a country has a wide spectrum of segments of tourists coming in. We need to identify the segments and as per that, appoint people and make them accountable. We need to look at tour operators who specialise in these segments and bring about a change in targeting select markets through those specialists who have been doing it for many years.
There are so many good operators working out of India, in the hinterland but they are never really considered. There is a feeling the closer you are to Delhi, the better chance you have at interacting with the ministry. We should be more transparent given the digital age we are living in.
The government must make sure that the policies are changed and people are made accountable. It is the same people who work in the bureaucracy that have changed India today. Our bureaucracy can also change provided tourism is looked into as a source of revenue for India. From my point of view as a golf tour operator, a normal visitor spends around US $1,500-$2,000, but a golfer coming to India will spend at least 40 per cent more. That’s a global statistic of a golf traveller!
Experience versus qualification
The policies are excellent on paper but there are issues in implementation. I have met many directors of tourism who are representing our country overseas. They have seniority due to their years of service but they often lack vision for tourism. This is probably the reason why the ministry has planned to shut down almost six top tourism offices overseas, which will be taken over by the national tourism board once its formed. Having said that though, we have also met helpful people in the ministry who have come forward voluntarily and helped us, but they are few and far between. We should not have to depend on a few people to help us – the system needs to work.
