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India’s Message to Foreign Women
Don’t move alone, don’t go anywhere at midnight and don’t get into a vehicle without first taking a photo of the license plate with your mobile phone.
India plans to distribute the advice to visitors in a list of “do’s and don’ts,” according to Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma. The move, along with plans to clean India’s streets, is designed to improve India’s image among women who have been spooked by a scourge of high-profile gang rapes in recent years.
“Definitely the two issues which we have not been able to address are cleanliness and security,” Sharma said in an interview in New Delhi on Jan. 21. “We are concerned about that. India will be more clean and secure.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking to double the number of tourists to India by 2017 as he looks to revive Asia’s third-biggest economy. He has swept streets in public, promoted women’s safety and made it easier to get visas, allowing for spontaneous trips that were all but impossible.
Tourist arrivals in India fell sharply in the months after a 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a moving bus made global headlines. Over the past three years, growth in arrivals has averaged 6 percent, compared with 10 percent over the prior decade, according to Tourism Ministry statistics.
India’s 7.4 million tourists lags far behind Asian powerhouses Thailand and Malaysia, both of which attract more than three times as many visitors with far less coastline, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Even tiny, landlocked neighbor Bhutan logged the world’s fastest tourist arrival growth rate between 2007 to 2012 by offering what India couldn’t: pristine Himalayan air, low crime and a litter-free landscape.
Other plans to improve women’s safety include a crisis hotline in 12 languages and taxis equipped with GPS locators, Sharma said. By 2017, India wants 14 million visitors a year who spend more than 2 trillion rupees ($32.6 billion), almost double the $18 billion that foreign investors poured into the nation’s stocks on average each year since 2010.
Lagging Thailand
“Something can be done and should be done to bring more tourists,” Sharma said. “We need to make the world aware of really how incredible India is.”
“Your children talk about going to India, but they turn their nose up at us because they think it’s dirty,” Modi said in Fiji on Nov. 19. “I’m going to make such a country your children will want to come and see. They will never again turn their nose up at India.”
India?s Message to Women: Come Visit, We Will Become Safer - Bloomberg
Don’t move alone, don’t go anywhere at midnight and don’t get into a vehicle without first taking a photo of the license plate with your mobile phone.
India plans to distribute the advice to visitors in a list of “do’s and don’ts,” according to Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma. The move, along with plans to clean India’s streets, is designed to improve India’s image among women who have been spooked by a scourge of high-profile gang rapes in recent years.
“Definitely the two issues which we have not been able to address are cleanliness and security,” Sharma said in an interview in New Delhi on Jan. 21. “We are concerned about that. India will be more clean and secure.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking to double the number of tourists to India by 2017 as he looks to revive Asia’s third-biggest economy. He has swept streets in public, promoted women’s safety and made it easier to get visas, allowing for spontaneous trips that were all but impossible.
Tourist arrivals in India fell sharply in the months after a 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a moving bus made global headlines. Over the past three years, growth in arrivals has averaged 6 percent, compared with 10 percent over the prior decade, according to Tourism Ministry statistics.
India’s 7.4 million tourists lags far behind Asian powerhouses Thailand and Malaysia, both of which attract more than three times as many visitors with far less coastline, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Even tiny, landlocked neighbor Bhutan logged the world’s fastest tourist arrival growth rate between 2007 to 2012 by offering what India couldn’t: pristine Himalayan air, low crime and a litter-free landscape.
Other plans to improve women’s safety include a crisis hotline in 12 languages and taxis equipped with GPS locators, Sharma said. By 2017, India wants 14 million visitors a year who spend more than 2 trillion rupees ($32.6 billion), almost double the $18 billion that foreign investors poured into the nation’s stocks on average each year since 2010.
Lagging Thailand
“Something can be done and should be done to bring more tourists,” Sharma said. “We need to make the world aware of really how incredible India is.”
“Your children talk about going to India, but they turn their nose up at us because they think it’s dirty,” Modi said in Fiji on Nov. 19. “I’m going to make such a country your children will want to come and see. They will never again turn their nose up at India.”
India?s Message to Women: Come Visit, We Will Become Safer - Bloomberg
