Making the most of tourism
According to an article titled, “The 10 Coolest Places to Go in 2019”, which was published on Forbes the most recently, Mongolia ranked seventh in the list of the top 10 countries to travel to this year.
Contributor of Forbes Ann Abel, who is a travel writer and editor for 15 years – including several as a senior editor at ForbesLife, wrote this article. The article shared some ideas about Mongolia by Tina Liadis, an Asia specialist with GeoEx.
Tina is an Asian expert in the travel industry, and has logged more than 20 years working in the travel industry.
Observed Tina, “With its wideopen spaces, dramatic landscapes, and warm nomadic culture, Mongolia has long held a special place in our hearts,”
The expert said, “Traveling there still feels like visiting the ends of the earth! Our custom journeys provide ample opportunities to hike, bike, rock climb and stay in welcoming, comfortable ger camps.”
We love arranging remarkable Mongolia adventures for our travelers, lining up access to authentic experiences, such as time with nomads, outings with Kazakh eagle hunters and visits with local shamans.”
Two years ago, Lonely Planet, the largest travel guide book publisher in the world, marked Mongolia as one of the top 10 countries to travel in 2017, and at the same time the Telegraph also published a story in which Mongolia was one of the 17 unusual destinations where terror threat is low.
Last summer, Crown Prince of United Arab Emirates’ Dubai Hamdan Al Maktoum shared fascinating photos about his summer vacation in Mongolia with more than 6.5 million followers on his Instagram account.
These reports are very good news for the development of Mongolia’s tourism industry and for becoming an attractive destination to foreign tourists, but they require us to pay more focus on the tourism sector and be more responsible in dealing with the many challenges facing this sector.
Every government claims to take active measures for developing the nation’s tourism industry and targets to attract a particular number of foreign tourists. Unfortunately, their policies and documents remain only remain on paper and never put to real action.
First of all, we should understand that tourism development depends on a lot of factors such as management, infrastructure, and transport.
The government put forward many plans, programs, projects, and activities for developing tourism but most of them cannot be put into action due to financial difficulties, which is why their results miss their targets.
Implementing few robust and continuous policies at a smaller cost is the most important thing to remember for the development of the country’s tourism industry.
Two years ago, the government implemented a 72-hour visa-free transit policy in Mongolia and to carry out fare reductions for passengers taking direct flights to Ulaanbaatar through the Mongolian Airlines (MIAT) for a certain period of time, but this policy was not well executed at all as many believe that MIAT doesn’t offer good service to its passengers and its tickets are overpriced.
Promoting Mongolia abroad is very important to developing tourism, and the Mongolian embassies, consulates and trade offices must play a leadership role in promoting the country abroad, especially in their respective countries where their missions are accredited by the government.
Many say that Mongolian diplomatic mission offices don’t make enough efforts in engaging in activities for promoting the country abroad, developing the country’s tourism and attracting foreign tourists, and that may be true.
Many embassies in foreign countries representing Mongolia only show a short-term presentation about Mongolia when they hold an annual reception for representatives of the diplomatic corps.
You can see wonderful pictures about France whenever you pass by the Embassy of France in Ulaanbaatar, which is a very cost effective way of promoting their country.
When Kazakhstan’s embassy in Ulaanbaatar hosts its annual reception, the embassy gives the reception’s guests a well-made small booklet with illustrations of Kazakhstan’s beautiful landscape, which might encourage many to travel to this country. The government of Kazakhstan spends a lot of money for developing its tourism by broadcasting its national TV channel about tourism, producing movies about its history and untouched nature, and offering affordible flights to European tourists.
The Mongolian National Broadcaster launched its new channel named MNB World few days ago, which should play an important role in promoting the development of the nation’s tourism and offering adventure tourism to foreign travelers, but the channel cannot lower the country’s image by broadcasting films about “stupid” Mongolians bogged down in superstitions of Buddhism, how Mongolia was freed from the dictatorship of Manchu Dynasty, or how Uzbeks make their national instruments.
As part of the government’s main goal for developing tourism, developing free competition among tourist companies, improving standards for tourist camps, building tourism infrastructure, improving tourism education of the public and herders, and tackling the problem of crimes against tourists such as pick pocketing and mugging are the key priorities. And all of this requires a lot of funding. If we want to develop tourism, spending in this sector needs to be expanded and made efficient as a form of investment towards our future.