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 Volume 8, Issue 7, 2020 http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 297 AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 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 Volume 8, Issue 7, 2020 http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 298 AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 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 Volume 8, Issue 7, 2020 http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 299 AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 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.