Toxic Smog Threatens to Suffocate India’s Tourism Industry
India’s tourism industry is facing a crisis as the country’s notorious pollution leads visitors to defer or cancel trips to destinations such as Delhi, Agra and Varanasi, tour operators have warned.
India is the world’s most polluted country, with toxic smog enveloping big cities for months at a time during high season, which runs from around October to March. Operators say concerns about the health effects are increasingly prompting tourists to avoid the region.
“It is a problem, it is going to definitely be a bigger problem,” said Dipak Deva, managing director of Thomas Cook-owned Travel Corporation India, the country’s largest tour operator for international visitors.
“It’s a terrible situation to have. Even when people arrive here, they are absolutely under shock.” TCI brings about 180,000 people to India each year, some 70,000 of whom pass through Delhi, Mr Deva said.
But he warned the company was braced for a decline in the number visiting northern India, where the country’s pollution is worst, in the coming years. EM Najeeb, chairman of tour operator Airtravel Enterprises, said the number of tourists his company had brought to Delhi had fallen 25 per cent because of the pollution. Those coming to the city were limiting their stay.
“We want a solution for this menace,” he said. All 10 of the world’s most polluted cities are in India. The average annual count of fine particulate matter in Delhi, Agra and Varanasi exceeded the World Health Organisation’s safe limit by 10 times or more in 2016, according to the most recent data.