Mumbai Ka Manifesto: Focus on tourism to ensure holistic execution of strategy

It has museums, colonial-era forts, heritage structures, beaches and a huge waterfront, temples and rock-cut caves – a variety of features that would make any global tourist destination green with envy. But Mumbai lacks something that could have pitched it as a global tourist destination – a coherent strategy and holistic execution.

Despite high tourist inflows into the city, stakeholders in the tourism industry rue that a chunk domestic and international tourists to Mumbai use it as a transit spot to halt for a night or two rather than spend time in the city. The reason? Lack of adequate tourist infrastructure.

"To be frank, we don't have a strategy. (Or) the strategy is all over the place, but there is no focus," noted Bharat Gothoskar, founder, Khaki Tours. He stressed on the need to benchmark tourism policies for the city with global standards.

"There is no tourist infrastructure for groups like children. Around 2,000 tourists visit Dharavi daily. But, this is unorganised. There is no interpretation center, no trained local guides or tourism police for the safety of tourists. Bollywood is the biggest attraction, but it is not pitched to tourists," lamented Gothoskar.

He said while old theatres like Capitol were shutting down, there was no attempt by the state to take over these spaces and convert them into cultural experiences for Bollywood shows.

Gothoskar also emphasised on the need to pitch the numerous museums in the city to a larger audience. "Mumbai's maritime potential is huge, but we have no water sports. There is a trend toward experimental tourism. People travel for experiences and not just for visiting monuments and clicking photos," he said.

"There is almost no policy push from the top, and zero consultation with stakeholders. Even basic infrastructure like signages have not been put up at tourist sites," said a tourism department official. He added that many tourist guides and stakeholders like taxi and rickshaw drivers lacked soft skills.

Many guides focussed on earning commissions from vendors by providing them shoppers rather than focus their energies on educating tourists. A tourist police cadre to guide and protect tourists needed to be developed.

A senior official from the state department of culture lamented that there were no cross-department, integrated efforts to promote tourism. "In Mumbai, one of the biggest problems is encroachments in and around tourist sites. Be it forts like that at Dharavi or the Banganga temple complex, these encroachers cannot be removed due to vote-bank politics and lack of political will. Infrastructure like sound-and-light shows can be created later, first these sites have to be cleared of encumbrances," he explained.

While Mumbai's forts like those at Bandra, Mahim, Dharavi, and Worli, are largely unknown to tourists, a senior bureaucrat admitted that lack of an organised ecosystem for verticals like medical tourism was leading to fly-by-night operators coming into the picture. The city planners have also not managed to develop open spaces in the congested city.

Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) legislator Jayant Patil, who runs a catamaran service from Mumbai to Raigad, said it was necessary to develop tourists spots beyond the city for weekend tourism. He rued that the tourism department spent funds on roads, instead of holistic infrastructure.

"The Bene Israel Jews arrived at Nagaon in Raigad thousands of years ago by sea. This can be developed into a destination for the international Jewish community. Similarly, Chaul, which was ancient Champavati, has around 150 small and big temples," said

VISIT THE MAYANAGRI

No more a transit spot, lets make tourists stay

MANIFESTO SUGGESTIONS

• Make a coherent strategy to create tourist destinations and build accompanying infrastructure
   
• Exploit Bollywood’s attraction and revive old theatres and convert them into cultural experiences for movie lovers
   
• Constitute a ‘tourism police’ to guide and protect tourists
   
• Infrastructure like sound-and-light shows can be created around historical sites like forts
   
• Develop sites for water sports on beaches and organise ecosystem for verticals like medical tourism

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