Not sightings, go for the sites
Shoba Mohan, Founder Partner, RARE India, says that the tiger-centric focus of the Indian traveller needs to change and encompass the entire forest. Guests need to get off the jeeps and into the forest to experience nature.
Today, the domestic traveller is a person of interest and a lot of changes in the way our wildlife costing is done is packaged to encompass the travelling habits and pricing demands of Indian travellers. The inbound that we target for our lodges is more focused on the wildlife experience which includes frequent trips into the jungles, making their per-night cost quite high. Also, not every Indian traveller is out in the wild for the morning and evening safaris that our lodges promote as a per-night programme. Not only does this make the budgets very high, a traveller's general idea of holiday is some down time, and full-day safaris are not on everyone’s agenda. There are not many Indian travellers yet who will pay ` 45,000 for a rural escape.
We felt that if lodges pitched themselves only to the inbound audience, business opportunities were limited and also affected by changing market scenarios depending on weather, economic and political conditions. When we began in 2004, Inbound contributed to over 90 per cent of our lodges’ bookings and hence, revenues. Today, we are tilted towards an inbound average of 60-70 per cent and the rest is domestic. Many of our wildlife lodges get serious wildlife travellers who take advantage of their time in Indian forests by opting for every safari that is part of their package. Indian travellers, on the other hand, have a more social outlook towards a wildlife holiday, wishing to linger at the bar and have late dinners. This poses a problem for most lodges, typically with small inventories of 12-14 rooms. Their service and kitchen staff has to cater to the F&B demands of early risers who head out for a morning safari into the jungle as early as 5 am. It is tough to match the expectations of two different kinds of travellers, but those who appreciate the domestic business are making the necessary adjustments. For domestic tourism, which is increasingly a big contributor to the tourism economy, we must work towards some selfregulation and rules for wildlife tourism. It is currently focused on tigers and this has to change to a more inclusive tourism that can highlight the forests. Activities should get people to fall in love with our natural heritage. In my opinion, children should be taken off the jeeps and taken for walks in the forest, be allowed to touch trees, pick up rocks to take a closer look at the creepy-crawlies, see a couple of snakes, etc. Sitting on jeeps and zipping around in search of a tiger is no experience. Tiger is our national animal and there is a huge focus on its protection. Should we not educate children about threats to the tiger and how to protect them and respect their space and habitat? They are picture when a bunch of jeeps surround the animal and create commotion. The parks should have a protocol about how to behave in a jungle and travellers should be made aware. That can only happen if we reimagine tourism in the national parks. You have to fall in love with the jungle. When I go into a national park, everything from birds to dragon marks, scats and the tree canopy fascinate me. One of the key highlights of RARE lodges is the quality of our naturalists. Sadly, for a guest who has paid over a lakh to stay at a lodge and ‘ kuchdikhanahi the sum total of his experience. But you’ve seen a sloth bear, a python, a monitor lizard, a pine marten, a serpent eagle, maybe a giant squirrel, but none of this matters. When they ask kuch
dikhakya, they mean a tiger or rarely a leopard. The domestic market can really be a boon for wildlife tourism in India. Educated tour operators can entice travellers to be wildlife lovers, understand conservation, see the life and culture of tribal communities around. Initiatives like the Ranthambore School of Art encourages villages to see tigers as a support to their livelihood, and how diminishing habitats affect the life of the tiger. I love it that parents are taking their kids on jungle safaris and getting them to understand their national heritage at a young age.
Wildlife tourism is focused on tigers and this has to change to a more inclusive tourism that highlights forests