AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808

KARNATAKA STRATEGY FOR TOURISM POST COVID – AN ANALYSIS WITH THE WORLD SCENARIO

G. Srikumar (Wg Cdr) Research Scholar, Maharaja Research Foundation, Mysore University, Karnataka India. email: [email protected]) & Dr. Manoj Kumara NV Associate Professor, Maharaja Institute of Technology, Belavadi, Mandya District, Karnataka, India. email : [email protected] Author

Abstract

The tourism industry has been one of the main and supportive industries with a clear growth over the last two decades. It has also been creating job to the tune of close to 10% on an average in almost all the countries of the world. During the year 2019 the theme “Tourism & Jobs for all “ has been assigned to India by UNWTO. In 2019 tourism industry has generated about 1.97 lakh crores to the GDP which is 9.2 % of the total economy and 5.7% of the GDP. It also has generated 4.26 million jobs in 2018 (India 2019 annual research WTTC). However since the beginning of 2020 the tourism industry has been affected by Covid-19 world over, bringing it close to nil growth, leaving so many millions of people jobless and leaving hotel owners and tourist operators with a blank scope for months ahead. There is an expectation of the GDP to go down by 3% world over. As per UNWTO report international tourist could decline from 1462 million in 2019 to a mere 320-610 million in 2020 (based on three different scenario predictions). The revival though it is not an overnight exercise, is being looked into by all countries and states, making strategies for getting back to track. This article is specifically concerned on the revival plan and how strategically benefits the tourism in Karnataka post 2019.

Keywords: Tourism strategy, revival of tourism, plan for future of tourism, advantage tourism Karnataka

1.INTRODUCTION

The tourism industry has been supporting the state of Karnataka with undeterred growth and job opportunity for the past two decades. It had also improved the share of national tourism revenue to the state of Karnataka from 2.7% to more than 4% during the last 3 years. It has also been an economy driver generating about 9329 crores of rupees to the state of Karnataka which is about 14% of the SGDP. The state tourism department was strategizing to reach 20% of SGDP by 2025 and to create 65 lakh direct and indirect job in Karnataka through tourism industry as per the plan. (Vision 2025 Karnataka tourism). How ever this statement of strategy for development plan is a statement of past since the state is affected by Covid-19 from March 2020. Tourism and travels have been the

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worst hit of all. This phenomena had been the trend world over and no country is left from this scenario. The Q1 of 2020 has gone down on international arrival by 67 million and a loss of receipt of $80 billion. The top two countries like Spain and France are having more number of people affected with Covid-19 and high casualties and finding less scope for an early revival especially international tourists.

The travel world over has come to a stand still keeping domestic & international tourism at bay, leaving tourism sector with no business what so ever. As per the UNWTO report dt 02 May 2020 about 215 countries are affected worldwide. Depending on the speed and spread of the disease it could amount to a decrease of 58-78 % of the international tourist arrival for the year. (UNWTO Barometer May 2020).

2.. PRESENT CONTEXT

By far this has been the worst of the international tourism since 1950. The revival of tourism faces challenges of travel restrictions imposed by different states and countries, the duration of the pandemic which is unknown to anyone and the economic condition of the country to withstand and to revive. The Asia pacific region which was to grow at a faster pace than the rest of the world (UNWTO report 2017) saw the highest decrease of tourist arrival by 35% in the first quarter of 2020 especially in March to the tune of 64% drop. The Asia and Pacific region saw the air bookings decline by almost 98% in the same period. The hotel occupancy had come down from 20 - 70% the world over.

While the pandemic would impact to the tune of 100-120 million jobs at risk and a loss to the tune of $910 - $1-2 trillion revenue, it is expected that the tourism industry will revive by Q4 of 2020 and by 2021 given the track record of revival during the past three crises (Asia SARS 2003, Europe Global Economic crisis 2009, America September 11, 2001). It took 11 months after SARS, 42 months after Sep 11 and 19 months after global economic crisis for revival. It is estimated that Africa which is affected the least out of all the countries / regions will revive faster, while America will take time to revive on this industry. However there had been mixed feelings and reactions on the faster recovery of middle east and Asia Pacific region.

Though the world tourism has seen three major crises during the last two decades no country has made any alternative plan for an eventuality or a major disaster disrupting the industry. Tourism per se represents 10.3% of Global GDP and 10% of job opportunity. Indian tourism policy 2002 and subsequent policies of the states have been attracting people around the world to India, have been initiating action for tourism development and accounts for 12.75% of the employment with 9.2% of GDP. Countries like China, Germany, USA and UK contribute to the major foreign tourist arrival to

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India and except China all the other three are yet to come out the pandemic effect. The effect of this would be on the major job cuts and on tourism related like hotels, hospitality, tour agencies, tour operators, taxis and ancillaries like guides, local business. In India this pandemic effect is likely to cost a loss of more than 5 lakh crores to the states and with an equal amount of job loss of almost 70% the work force. As per World Travel and Tourism Council the impact is likely to be there for at least 10 months.

The government of Karnataka was getting a contribution of nearly 2.5 lakh crore rupees through this industry and with rupees 9329 crores to the state’s exchequer in the form of revenue. During the last 5 years it had seen a steady growth of 16%. The state was mainly concentrating on heritage, wildlife and business tourism to Bangalore, the IT hub of the state. Karnataka is holding the third position among states on domestic tourism with around 215 million visitors in 2018. With lockdown and disruption of domestic and international travel and very less chance of quick revival the moving forward has become an uphill task. How ever the tourism department held a ministerial meeting on 14 Apr 2020 for deciding on actions and future plan. The industry has estimated a loss of about 5000 crores rupees per month with the hotel and hospitality industry bearing the major share of almost 80% of the loss.

During the meeting the state has expressed its revival plan in five proposed phases.

Phase I being under lockdown and no tourism and travel all over the country.

Phase II comes with the restrictions being lifted starts with local tourism, dining out with family, restaurants being operative and smaller movements with in the city or nearby places of interest.

Phase III With a considerable decrease in the cases of Covid and most of places getting back to normal expecting people to move with in region, weekend and back pack tourism with an intention to get away from the trauma of lock down. It is more of intra state tourism.

Phase IV As the country contains the pandemic to a great extent with major relaxations and opening of borders of the state to start with domestic flights and train operation looking for more domestic tourism and longer duration of travel and stay in the state. It is an opening of interstate tourism.

Phase V This is the stage reaching back to the old track of international travel with flight operations in full with business travelers moving across the globe and also leisure tourism beginning with economy getting back to the revival mode.

Further to the above KSTDC has come up with a revival plan (06 May 2020) christened with a model named as “Love Your Local” campaigned mainly to encourage locals to move out from their

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home and dine out. It is “survival first followed by revival” to cover up the job loss and to get industry back on track. As part of the revival they are trying to promote Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibition (MICE) along with wellness and sports tourism.

Goa feels that the state to state level travel will start with the development of vaccine and cure which will bring tourism movement in their state as mentioned by the minister Mr Ajgaonkar.

2.1 The Kerala Model

The first state in India to bear the Covid19 impact was Kerala when a student from Wuhan was tested positive in Kerala. It received travel adversaries from Europe and Latin America. However the scenario changed within three month in Kerala, where in the world started applauding the government. The state had issued health advisories to the people of the state much before the central guidelines from Ministry of Home Affairs and to adopt precautionary measures in terms of hygiene and welfare of workers. The tourism stake holders took the challenge, co-ordinated the stay of tourists, treatment and safe return of the people to their state and countries, including sending back ceremoniously from Bangalore. the last person from Italy who was treated for Covid19 (Sindhu R Babu 2020).

Kerala can be described as a Champion of Covid19. This state had a growth of 17.2% on tourism during 2018. During Covid19 Kerala had handled 8,000 foreign tourists who were with them, with care, treated the patients and sent them back safely. Kerala would like to exhibit this as their power for attracting foreign tourist Post Covid. Many of the foreigners who have gone back have assured their return to the state. The Brand of Kerala is their Health Status which they are planning to poster for investments from foreign nationals mainly for developing tourism infrastructure. As it stands Kerala is looking for a big success in the Kerala Boat League during the current year itself. To revive the damage to the tourism industry, Kerala government has made a three pronged strategy for the revival with short, long and medium term. The short being extending financial assistance to those who lost jobs from tourism industry and medium to extend market development assistance to the industry by extending loan and the long term with an aggressive market strategy, by depicting Kerala being the safest and caring.

2.2 Tourism outside India

The USA has reported more than a lakh death and more than 12 million unemployment insurance claims. With stressed finances the travel outbound of USA seems to be recovering much late compared to European countries ( Statista Survey). Italy’s economy faces disaster without tourism if the foreigners don’t turn up (Georgio Chigline, May 21). It will be a very big loss since the week long carnival generates close to 3.3 billion euros. As the popular saying goes “Tourism is Italy’s oil”, amounting to 13% of GDP. Out of 23 million work force 4 million Italians work for tourism and

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the tourism industry keeps the economy floating. For the first time in the history, the city of Venice had no visitor at all, which otherwise is known for over tourism.

With 80 million visitors in a year, Spain is the second most visited country in the world. It was one of the worst hit nations with death of more than 27,000 people and infection of 2,35,772 people. With a strict lock down for two months the country is ready to receive people from other countries from 01 Jul 2020 with no quarantine. “Spain will be waiting for you from July” says Pedro Sanchez (Guardian 23 May 2020, Forbes 25 May 2020 Tamara Thiessen). Tourism in Spain provides 12% of the GDP. The scenario is different in French with tour operators warning tourists from visiting France. They are only looking for people from Belgium and Switzerland. They are yet to decide on the arrival of foreigners. For Spain, France, Italy and Greece the dependency is so much on tourism that almost every one in five jobs are linked to tourism, especially less skilled, which can directly affect the rural communities (Jonathan Eval). While Spain and France not being the option for tourists of international travel it is destination India at the advantage with mere 2,27,000 cases and the least death rate of all 6,367 (as on 06 Jun 2020) a mere 3% compared to the other nations in the world ranging up to 14%. Due to Covid19 countries in Central and South Asia and Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Maldives, Macao are in dire financial positions with nil tourism.

Though Europe is hard hit with drop of revenue, European commission has started issuing guidelines for enabling tourism allowing citizens to travel. Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are allowing citizens to travel between them with no restrictions. New Zealand and Australian prime ministers announced their commitment for a mutually beneficial trade and economic recovery reviving tourism, by introducing Trans-tasman covid19-safe zones. Revival of tourism as predicted by UNWTO is placed as Table -1

ESCAP suggested to close borders restricting outward travel and substitute by local tourism with price incentives and other attractions to keep the industry surviving and also the safety and security of the people of their own nation ( ESCAP 20 Mar 2020).

Table-1

Revival of Tourism Source : UNWTO

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2.3 Advantage Karnataka

Coming back to the state of Karnataka it is more advantageous for tourism with the cases of Covid19 being a mere 2% of the India’s tally of cases. Also with Maharastra and Chennai having more than 40% of the total cases of India and high mortality, it naturally induces the safety factor in the mind of the people to travel in and to Karnataka. The control of the pandemic is high in Karnataka and the relaxations are in place well ahead of other states.

The wise man sees opportunities in every problem. Now on one side we think it is a disaster but with the unexpected problem there are also some advantages to the state. At present Karnataka holds the third position on the domestic tourism and that is best stage for the state to grow. Given a chance of least amount of cases of Covid19 during the past three months and well controlled strategy this becomes the first major state to attract the locals and tourists to move around with safety & hygiene.

With Maharastra and Tamil Nadu which collects almost 40% of the tourism revenue and the pandemic still not in control, it should be taken as an opportunity knocking at the door of this state to show and open the facility to explore the opportunity. The natural surroundings and green zones are a great welcome for the visitors.

An additional advantage for the state of Karnataka is that of being located in between two major tourism hubs as neighboring states like Kerala and Goa and being cleared of Covid19 in a major share. Both the states had already been opened up for tour operators and visitors.

The confidence building has been done by the state government with the Karnataka Government being the first to allow inter district travel on the state transport corporation run buses and private buses with social distancing the tourism is likely to pick up at an earlier pace than expected. This will amount to early revival of back pack tourism with in the state. The advantage of the greenery in the state can gain confidence of the people to move around worry free with major

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districts being on the “Green Zone” of Covid19 unlike Mumbai & Chennai which will take time to recover from the present position. The government also have allowed the Cabs and Taxis to operate and ply with the guidelines of Covid19 lockdown 4.0.

The wellness tourism with health& hospitality industry should revive itself with rural, natural and health tourism for its sustainability. Hygiene and Security being the paramount for the public to move, Karnataka has the potential to offer both to public with the right tourism concept being stressed upon to every one for sustainability. Infact the future strategy should include equal importance for tourism and travel with wellness and hospitality since while the tourism is affected with such pandemic, the hospitality and wellness will have the least impact allowing natural sustainability of the industry.

Goa feels that the state to state level travel will start with the development of vaccine and cure which will bring tourism movement in their state as the minister Mr Ajgaonkar states.

3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Bringing new culture to tourism will have to start with shifting focus to local market with local, regional and national concentration on hospitality and tourism with higher hygiene with contact less checkin, payment etc and destination offering wellness and safety of tourists.

The tourism recovery will be slow with leisure tourism being affected the most. Business and mandatory travels will start in phases. Recovery predicted by UNWTO is placed as Table-2. Munnmunn Marwah on her article on 12 May 2020 refers phase I from May – September and Phase II from September to December as period of vaccine and virus control. She mentions the start of international travel to safe destinations by summer 2021. In the revival of tourism with fewer cases of Covid19, South East Asia and Middle East are likely to play an important role on out bound tourism. She states tourism as the first industry to revive back and people who were not moving abroad for a long time due to covid19 will explore international travel. She predicts self-driven journeys with accommodation and home stays will be preferred with social distancing and safety being the prime cause. The luxury hotels will come into play rather than smaller hotels. The French hotel chain, Accor, has even come forward to offer consultations and medical insurance for the customers during their stay.

The new norms of tours are with keeping a mandatory social distancing and preference of place away from the city with lesser population and located remotely. The business meetings will be replaced by video conferencing which will take back almost one third of the business travels and occupancy. Cost cutting being the factor for industries most of the business travels will find its depletion, also the online booking will find the reduction of business of travel agents.

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Table-2

When do you expect international demand for your destination will start to recover?

(Source : UNWTO Barometer 2020)

While this being so, it is estimated that the hospitality and the domestic tourism is likely to be the first one to find a recovery path better than the other manufacturing industry. As per the report the tourism in India with domestic business tourism and leisure tourism will revive to almost 90% at the earliest. The travel agents and service providers have to re-designate them as relationship managers and consultants with technological developments. When the fear is in the mind of the traveler, it is the “Brand” for reliability and service which will stand out and recoup their value for money from the tourists. Like Make in India it is going to be “Travel in India” with responsible tourism with wildlife, new destination of remote places, rural and travel will be the norms of the day. Health and medical tourism in the name of wellness will find a special place in the future. (FAITH report )

4.. CONCLUSION

The scope of domestic tourism is very high for India with the country being safe compared to other countries in the world. While the percentage of fatal due to Covid19 in India is low compared to America, Italy, Spain etc (a mere 3% for such high population), the mortality and infection rate of Karnataka is further low compared to the national average. The state has mere 2% the tally of the nation with mere 1% death of the Covid19 cases. This is the symbol of safety and security for the traveler with good amount of care and greenery to its advantage. Also nearby hospital facilities are plenty in nature to support if needed.

Secondly the state has more than 75% of the tourism from Bangalore which will be accessible to all places. It is the safest city of all the metros in the country with mere 149 cases of Covid19 and well controlled for the safety of the visitors, though being a place of international visitors. The state

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has already opened its jungle lodges, homestays and resorts allowing the mobility for travelers for tourism.

Also the state has ceased collection of entry taxes for other state vehicles which is a boon for boosting tourist inflow with a good amount of savings to the taxi/ vehicle owners. The linking of tourism by tourist operators with states like Goa and Kerala will enhance the inflow and also will increase the scope for both the states too.

The new norm of additional expenditure for hygiene and safety with social distancing will be a challenge to the destination managers to keep the cost in tact and attract the visitors imposing confidence. As the Mr Kumar Puskar says ( MD KSTDC) ‘ challenge is to infuse confidence among tourists of the safety and hygiene that will be in place post Covid19 and these two elements will be tagline of the promotional drive”. The mantra for the present time is “Produce Global Travel Local”. Since local travel will be a buffer with very little business/leisure travel abroad, the tourism industry has to capitalize the opportunity and the strength of the state to deliver with confidence of safety of tourists and visitors to this state at this crisis time. New innovations and digitization have to be brought in with new models of marketing and sustainable business techniques. The underlined fact is “Everything online” with no/less human touch. No matter, where ever we are, the activation will deliver results. Karnataka tourism has the advantage to explore, act upon, deliver and revitalize the tourism industry of the state.

References [1]A step by step guide for tourism recovery during and after Covid-19 “ Tourism crisis Recovery Check list” eTN managing editor,eturbonews 07 Apr 2020

[2]Ayyappan R, “Hit hard but Kerala could be most valuable destination post COVID”, Manorama Tourism, May 20, 2020

[3]Covid impact on Indian economy- KPMG report

[4]How Goa tourism plans to get back on its feet after lockdown, Live Mint, 07 May 2020

[5]Jonathan Eval, Europe seeking ways to revive tourism after coronavirus lockdown, Strait Times, 19 May 2020

[6]Karnataka tourism Covid19 Exit strategy, Dept of Tourism, Karnataka

[7]Munnmunn Marwah, Covid and its impact on Tourism , BW Hotelier, 12 May 2020

[8]Natasha Butler, France tourism looks to reopen as coronavirus restrictions ease, Aljazeera 21 May 2020

[9]Natalia Huet, “ Coronavirus and tourism : Iceland pitches for post lockdown visitors Euro News 20 May 2020

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[10]Phocuswire Destination-X “ Five coronavirus recovery strategies for the tourism industry 07 April 2020 [11]Tamara Thiessen, Why you can forget French Travel This year, Tourism operators warn, Forbes 02 May 2020.

[12]Tourism management and destination recovery through the crisis – Suggestions for moving your destination through the economics of Covid -19 , JLL

[13]UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, - “ Special Focus on the Impact of Covid-19” May 2020

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