India’s vast natural heritage, if optimized, has the potential to possibly add additional US $ 50-80 billion in new tourism revenue, according ATOAI’s Sr. Vice President and Managing Director of Far Horizon Tours, Sanjay Basu. Nature based tourism including adventure, eco, cruise and luxury and leisure activities in nature, presents massive untapped opportunity. The sector has failed to take-off in the absence of facilitative guidelines and supports such as inter-ministerial and Centre-States collaboration aimed at promoting and monetizing India’s vast natural resources.
“Nature has not been greatly promoted from India. Despite the fact that our natural heritage is 5th greatest in the world as rated by the World Economic Forum, in Adventure Tourism we stand at 90th position. There is potential to be at the 5th position. In sustainability we have been rated at 134 out of 140 countries. By 2026, nature based tourism on a worldwide basis is expected to touch US $ 1.64 trillion. It’s already over US $ 700 billion,” say Basu, an industry veteran and a prominent Adventure Tourism face in the country. Although pre-Covid data, these number points to a staggering future opportunity that the country exploit.
‘And if we are able to move up to 5th position in nature based tourism, in line with our global rating in natural heritage, we will possibly be adding US $ 50 to 80 billion in new tourism revenue to the country through just the nature itself!We really need to monetize the nature because that gives employment,” he added.
Basu insists that there is need of multi-directional approach with holistic cooperation and facilitation between different government departments at the Centre and State. “A lot of our nature is locked under Forest or Defense or Home. Remote area air connectivity, amendments in laws like the Forest Conservation Act of MoEF etc. in a sustainable controlled manner to allow nature-based tourism like eco and adventure activities to happen in forest, are required. We estimate a million new jobs could be created in the most remote and rural part of the country alone which are most impoverished,” he added.
The ATOAI Sr. Vice President rued that for such vast natural assets and being home to more than 70 per cent of the Himalayas, India does not even have luxury resorts overlooking snow-covered peaks of the world’s highest mountain ranges except the odd ones in Gulmarg or Leh etc. and such infrastructure needs to be build up.
“We have focused a lot on getting the government attention in this direction. They are respective. ATOAI has already submitted an 18-point agenda in this regard. When these get included it will give more dimension to India’s tourism offerings.But again, Ministry of Tourism alone won’t be able to give us the facility and reliefs that we require. It will need to be a multi-ministerial and coordinated efforts by Centre and States,” he stressed.
“We have 70 per cent of the Himalayas. India is the only country of the world which has three types of desert- the golden desert of Thar, the silver desert of Rann of Kutch and the cold high-altitude desert of Ladakh. We have three types of forest – Equatorial rainforest of the Andaman, the tropical rainforest of South India and North East and then the Alpine forest of the Himalayas. There are seven navigable rivers, 105 white and small rivers, ocean, the largest coral islands of the world, active volcano and so much more to monetize,” said Basu while concluding.
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