COVID-19 impact on northeast tourism: Hope floats as international tourists are keen to visit their favourite destinations once the situation becomes normal and travel restrictions are eased

“Unfortunately, this is the last day of our visit to Assam. What a beautiful and undiscovered area this is. We were overwhelmed by the friendly people, the rich nature, and the beautiful monasteries, wrote Marcel and Ilse a tourist couple from Heech in Netherlands, on our comment register on March 4 before wrapping up their Assam tour and leaving for Bhutan on their way back home. Twenty days later the world’s largest nation-wide lockdown began in India which led to suspension of domestic as well as to and fro international travel.

Even as the country has begun gradual unlockdown, travel restrictions are yet to be eased in most parts of the country including Assam and other North-eastern States. Janet and Bryan, a couple from Yorkshire in England booked a tour in December 2019 to visit Assam and Arunachal Pradesh from September 23 to October 6, 2020. However they had to cancel their trip due to the pandemic. They hope to visit in September 2021. This has also kept the hope for revival of the tourism industry in the post-COVID situation as the region has not stopped attracting potential tourists even after the outbreak of the pandemic.

The pandemic COVID19 has taken us to a different platform all together forcing us to follow many rules which we have never thought of before. Wearing of mask, physical distancing, use of sanitizers, being quarantine, organizing webinars have become new normal. People had no clue about the long-lasting devastating impact of the pandemic and the way it has handicapped the entire world almost at the same time, we rarely got any chance to prepare ourselves to fight against that devil. The most pathetic blow of the virus was in the form of taking people’s lives and snatching the livelihood of the hundreds and thousands of people all over the globe. Assam and the entire North East was also not an exception in this regard.

Many public and private sector enterprises are facing existential crisis and one such major industry is Tourism. Tourism plays a very prominent role to eradicate the problem of educated and uneducated unemployment among the youths by providing job opportunity to the efficient ones in different sectors associated with the industry. It is noteworthy to mention that from the end of 2019 onwards tourism of North East specially Assam encountered a major setback because of the sparks and strikes emerged in relation to Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The sudden and unexpected slowdown in the tourist flow has hard hit all the people associated directly or indirectly with the tourism industry whether a tour operator, guide, naturalist, drivers, hoteliers and all other small scale establishments which are solely dependent on tourism. As per the official statistics, year 2018-2019 (up to December 2019) around 47,10,971 domestic tourists and 25,739 foreign tourists visited Assam. Altogether 84,820 foreign tourists visited Assam in 2017 and in 2016 the number was 66,302 which is a growth of 40 per cent. Meghalaya had an impressively increased number of tourist flow of 10,02, 907 in 2017 in comparison to 839, 363 in 2016, out of which 9,90,856 were domestic and 12,051 were foreign tourists. In 2016-17 altogether 4,14,000 tourists visited Arunachal Pradesh, which was a 20 per cent growth in comparison to 3,43,000 number of tourists visiting the state in 2015-16.

The tourist destinations of North East like Kaziranga National Park, Manas National Park and Nameri National Park, Majuli, Shillong, Sohra, Tawang, Ziro, Loktak lake, Kohima, Mon etc with their unique natural beauty, cultural diversity, varieties of flora and fauna, adventure activities, ethnic cuisine, pure hospitality have turned these spots to favourite tourist destinations for both domestic and foreign tourists.

It is estimated that approximately three lakhs families in Assam who are directly or indirectly associated with tourism industry where one or two members per family are the bread owners through this industry. If we see the rough distribution of the share of money received by a vehicle owner, driver, guide, hoteliers, naturalist, fruits and vegetables growers, livestock entrepreneurs, dairy farmers etc then we can have an idea of losses faced by the tourism professionals and all other stakeholders in the industry.

“As per the Economic Survey of Assam (2018-19) there are 9711 vehicles registered under All Assam Tourist Taxi component (and thus involve about 17,000 persons in this taxi component alone), and 41,676 taxis in other categories. Reportedly there are 100 tour operators at Guwahati and thus coordinate with thousands of tourist vehicles in the state. In addition there are about 600 Jeeps for safaris in the National Parks and Sanctuaries of Kaziranga, Manas and Pobitora involving drivers and guides,” states the “Report on Economy of Assam in the Backdrop of COVID 19 Pandemic” prepared by the State Innovation and Transformation Aayog (SITA), Government of Assam in collaboration with the OKD Institute of Social Change and Development.

The last tour prior to outbreak of the pandemic I had was with the couple from Netherlands in February-March 2020. Even though the tour expenses varies from tour to tour but hiring a commercial Innova vehicle roughly costs is Rs.5000 a day, driver allowance is Rs.500-700, guide charge is Rs.2500 and hotel room cost an average of Rs.3500-4000 a day, and so on. On an average two to three such tours are booked by international tourists with a tour guide in the region. This gives a rough idea of the losses caused to the tourism professionals and other stakeholders in the region ever since the disruption began in December 2019 during anti-CAA agitation and later came to grinding halt following the nation-wide lockdown in March this year.

Tourism, popularly known as the smokeless industry is at the same time a highly revenue generating industry for the state of Assam. The Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) data show that the corporation generated Rs 4.22 crore revenue in 2017-18, which is almost double the amount of Rs 2.24 crore in 2016-17.

Though our noble concept of “Atithi Debo Bhaba” has encountered a temporary pause, we are hopeful that with the help of technically correct and timely public education and a collaborative effort of central and state governments along with its stakeholders, the industry will get its pace back very soon.

Udit Bhanu Borthakur

Photographs courtesy Udit Bhanu Borthakur

(The author is the Director of Eastern Iconic Tours& Travels. He can be reached at [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], his Mobile is 9954164589 and WhatsApp contact is 8473905163. The views expressed are the author’s own)