Not all is despair

While we must wait for the original ‘Visit India Year’ to close before we know the actual foreign tourist arrivals and the percentage fall in traffic as compared to 1990, it is possible to arrive at some projections based on available data.

A rather pessimistic estimate is that the 17.1 per cent fall in arrivals for the first six months of 1991 will continue throughout the year. Arrivals by this count will total a meager 1.102 million. This is marginally lower than the 1988 figures. In other words, the fall in arrivals in 1991 will be to the tune of 17.02 per cent compared to the actual foreign arrivals in 1990. The shortfall from the IIPO projections for 1991 will be a staggering 35 per cent.

But cassandras could also be falsified on more than one account and actual arrival figures for 1991 may be higher than the projections. This is especially so because the domestic political situation is likely to be an improvement over what prevailed in 1990. Another helpful factor is that global tension have eased and there is little prospect of another catastrophe like the Gulf war. The only factors that may continue to affect the foreign arrivals negatively are worldwide recession and the fear of terrorism. The optimistic view however discounts the effects of recession and terrorism because there are no clear indices to adjust their effects. Infact, optimists feel that the worst is over. From July 1990 to June 1991 was the worst period and now we should expect trends similar to 1989 before the Gulf war and the political strife in this country.