Class 10 NCERT Solutions English Chapter 5(D) - Promoting Tourism

· Tourism refers to travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes or the provision of services to support this leisure travel.

· Tourists visit places due to various reasons such as-

1. Curiosity about off places;

2. To study a place's culture and ethnicity;

3. To do shopping;

4. To seek adventure;

5. To experience a wide variety of cuisine;

6. In search of peace and relaxation, away from one's monotonous life.

· Most of the reasons to visit places, like learning a place's culture and ethnicity and tasting good food, are the same, irrespective of the tourists being Indian or foreigner.

The author uses published statistics like: India managed to attract just 5.1 million tourists in 2009. Malaysia, on the other hand, attracted 23.6 million foreign arrivals and China attracted 50.9 million tourists in the same year. Malaysia and China entered tourism markets decades after India and yet they rank 9^th and 4^th respectively while India does not figure in the top 10 tourist places in the world.

There can be many causes for India being a less attractive tourist destination. A few of them could be lack of safety and security, rise of terrorism, lack of infrastructure, unfriendly behavior of the locals towards the tourists, lack of hygiene and bad maintenance of historical monuments.

The author suggests that instead of trying to attract foreign tourists, the focus could be Indian tourists. Indian tourists are well-heeled, tolerant, keen to discover India and impatient to go abroad. Unlike before, their attitude towards travelling has changed for the better.

The two initiatives taken by Karnataka that signify marked change in its marketing strategy are as follows:

(a) The state's glamorous Golden Chariot Tourist train, designed for foreigners, now also does a shorter Jewel of the South tour for upper middle-class Indian tourists.

(b) The state's very successful and luxury class, Jungle Lodges and Resorts, has created a no-frills clone in their Jungle Camps and Trails for a younger clientele, tapping the growing ranks of junior executives.

The major focus for all the states was to attract foreign tourists. However, Kerala made domestic tourists the focus and allocated their tourism resources accordingly. By tapping the tourism market in the non-metros, Kerala's tourism has become very successful. The other states still depend on the fickle, demanding, overseas market because of which they remain static.

In 2009, 5.11 million foreign tourists visited India. On the other hand, 11.07 million Indians went to tourist destinations outside India. The author says that in order to decrease the outflow of tourists and rupees, the domestic tourist should be made the focus of promotional activities.

Improvement of infrastructure like roads, airports and hygiene are some of the areas which should be focused on.

Why does the author say, "Clearly Tourism, like Charity, begins at home?"

(a) to renovate, redo, or revise (paragraph 1): revamp

(b) trying to win the favour, preference, or goodwill of (paragraph 1): re-woo

(c) come in small numbers (paragraph 4): trickling

(d) well-off; rich (paragraph 5): well-heeled

(e) friendly (paragraph 6): affable

(f) wanting or enjoying expensive pleasures (paragraph 6): exotic

Both groups of Indian and foreign tourists have shown an increase in number. The number of Indian tourists has almost doubled (from about 25,000 to close to 50,000) over the past five years. On the other hand, the number of foreign tourists has shown a much higher growth rate, i.e. from close to 40,000 to nearly 100,000.

For Indian tourists, guest houses are the most popular type of accommodation while for the foreign tourists 5 star and 4 star hotels are the most popular type of accommodation.

5 star hotels, 4 star hotels and youth hostels are the types of accommodation that have occupancy rates of 85% or over.