A session at the recent FHRAI Sustainable Tourism Summit held in Delhi. Participants included: Dr. Sanjana John, filmmaker and philanthropist, Moderator; His Excellency, Dr. Shankar Prasad Sharma, Ambassador of Nepal to India; His Excellency, Mr. Fernando Xavier Bucheli Vargas, Ambassador of Ecuador to India; Glenn Mandziuk, CEO, World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, UK; Kazem Samandari, Veteran Economist, Executive Chairman, L’Opéra, President KCSH & Associates; President Terra Firma International and Dr Bart S. Fisher, twice Nobel Prize nominee, official Managing Partner, Law Office of Bart Fisher, Washington, DC.
Dr. Sanjana John: It is really important to know how the world is changing and as we step forward, hospitality and sustainability, why it is integral to adapt the new methods. Mr. Glenn, I would love to start with you – as a global leader in the sustainable hospitality movement. Can you share your perspective on why sustainable tourism is now considered a critical policy imperative for governments around the world?
Glenn Mandziuk: Obviously, tourism in itself is a great economic resilience opportunity for communities that struggle in their economic development. It’s imperative that policies should encourage tourism in certain areas. But what we don’t want to happen is over tourism in areas where we’re not balancing the growth versus the development. I think another area, of course, why sustainable tourism is so imperative is because we want to protect the very environment and tourism can be that guardian of nature because we have an economic opportunity; responsibility as a sector to take care of the very destination for which we have the privilege to operate. Other areas that I think where there are opportunities is the protection of the cultural systems, language, traditions. Tourism can play a big role in the interpretation of that and policy development. We see that happening at the government level.
Dr. Sanjana John: That’s wonderful. And coming from the global perspective, since you’re working all over the world, I’m sure in India, there’s a lot that we can adapt and change.
Glenn Mandziuk: We have a global responsibility. I mean, we have commitments at national levels towards Paris Accords and other elements. Tourism can play a big role in helping countries achieve their objectives, if they act responsibly within the policy development.
Dr. Sanjana John: I would like to ask the same question to you, excellency, what do you think? Because I know Nepal is, again a great tourist destination and you are in India, another great tourist destination.
Dr. Shankar Prasad Sharma: Thank you. When we talk about sustainable tourism, I think we can talk about a couple of things. One is, it should be environmentally sustainable. We have to conserve the environment. Second point which is the retention of the income should increase in the rural areas so that these people can also protect the environment. And the third one is, if we promote the culture and heritage in that area, I think that will also help in improving the cultural sites and heritage sites. So. talking about Nepal, I think I will greatly say that the tourism of Nepal is basically sustainable tourism. When we see the activities, when we talk about the activities that we have in Nepal, we talk normally about mountaineering. Now we normally talk about trekking. I think enjoying the nature eco-trek, eco-walk, cultural heritage, rafting. Nepal has done extremely well in the area of forest conservation. 45% of our total land is under forest cover, 24% of our land area is under the national park and the protection area. And then if we are talking about home stays, it is growing very rapidly. Early 2023, there were about 2200 home stays registered with the government. There are also so many other unregistered home stays in the rural areas and community areas. Bed and breakfast schemes are also coming to basically the city areas.
Nepal is largely classified as a country which is following the sustainable tourism. But I think there are also some issues. I think once in a while you can see that the Everest area has become a bit polluted because a lot of people carry oxygen tanks and things like that and plastic bottles. So now, we have done some regulation in that area. Plus, I think on the appropriate day when the weather is fantastic, lots of people go and try to climb the Everest, so we have put some restriction on that by raising the mountaineering fee.
Dr. Sanjana John: Along with promotion and propagation, there should be some kind of regulation, and that’s what’s required. The same question, His Excellency Bucheli, what is your take?
Mr. Fernando Xavier Bucheli Vargas: I would like to present what is the perspective how governments think about sustainable tourism? Sustainable tourism is not an option, it’s a necessity. If the private sector is not taking these issues seriously, then simply, we will be out of the market. That’s very important. You know, tourists generate 10% of GDP in the world. In the case of Ecuador, it is around 5%, but brings jobs for thousands of people. And the most important, the tourist meets the face of your country. You communicate with people, you communicate with the culture, who you communicate with the music. We are not dealing only with politics and with economics but also important is culture, and including tourism.
For that, it’s important the governments have to have appropriate tourist policy because if you do not do the right things, you could have degradation of your environment, and you could lose also your heritage, your culture. I think governments have to take in account three things in order to promote tourism.
Very important is preserve biodiversity. If you don’t preserve natural biodiversity, you will destroy your source of income. This is not used for today. It’s not a short-term income. We have to think of long-term revenues for the industry.
Second, very important thing to take into account that for the governments to apply tourist policy is to support local economies. You cannot do tourism only for making business without helping the people who are living in that place. The colloquial community has to be involved with in all these programmes. Also, you were talking about the challenge that tourists have to reduce the carbon print on the world.
Dr. Sanjana John: We love the input, especially when we know worldwide tourism is so important, but how can we balance it, is what is even more important. And of course, not to lose our culture in the bargain. So, we come over to you, Mr. Kazem Samandari, what is your take on the same?
Kazem Samandari: If you allow me, I would like to deviate a little from the question you asked and put in perspective the subject that we are working. We heard about the importance of tourism. What I would like to share with you some numbers that illustrate the potential of tourism for a country like India, which we have made our home. France has a population of 68 million, and last year received 100 million tourists. Morocco has a population of 38 million and last year received 17 million tourists. Thailand has a population of 71 million, received 36 million tourists last year.
India has a population nearing 1.5 billion and received 8 million tourists. So, it means if we benchmark against France, India’s number of incoming tourists should be multiplied by a factor 270, not two times, three times, four times, 270 times! If we want to be like Morocco, we have to increase the number of tourists by 85. So, the potential is enormous in terms of job creation in or in in terms of wealth creation. I agree we have the challenge to build the basis and the foundations that we can cater. France has not been destroyed, I assure you. France is still France with so many tourists. Morocco is still Morocco. Thailand is still Thailand. But then it needs many elements. Yes, the plastic bottles are one thing, but this sustainability is also about the institutions.
And we heard some of the speakers mentioned. It starts with a visa. It starts with the immigration officer, with the transport, with the road, with the reservation of railway, with the hotels, with the restaurants, with the cultural sites, with the museums, with the commerce shops, how they treat the tourists with the security on the road, with the development of human resources in our own company. That’s very small contribution to the tourism and what we do in hospitality, we will need in the next six years to train 4,000 people – 4,000 additional staff in my own business. But we should take a global approach to that particular question. Excuse me. if I didn’t answer specifically your question.
Dr. Sanjana John: You actually explained it in a different economical term. The economist in you brought out a lot of figures, which I think we all enjoyed, and it’s important to know. And with that, we come over to you, Dr. Fisher.
Dr Bart S. Fisher: Thank you very much. The underlining your point in international commerce, you have three discreet flows in commerce – trade in goods, trade in services and trade in capital. This is trade and services, and that’s what you’re pointing out. And it as such, it can add tremendously to India’s foreign exchange reserves, economic growth, and its potential. And you’re right, it’s vastly underdeveloped in terms of the potential. And it should be an opening to the world, is the idea. Also, I do trade, and it’s relevant to the issue of protectionism too. We don’t want to have protectionism across the board.
So, what I see from the United States perspective is we want to build bridges to India, and this is a great way to do that. Bringing the tourists in a two-way traffic and taking advantage of the diaspora of 5 million Indians in the United States. Have them come back, have the people from India, go to the United States. And sometimes I have to say in Washington DC it’s not all that easy-to-get visas, and it’s not all that consumer friendly.
So, it begins at the beginning with trying to get here. And once you get here there’s a need for more training, staff, hotels. But basically, I view it as a way to build bridges between our countries, and that’s another reason and improve international relations. My game is to see that the trade and investment flows continue, that the countries developed together, and that this is an engine of economic growth. That’s how we have to look at it.
Dr. Sanjana John: You know what’s really interesting our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ the world is our family has integrated a lot of tourists coming from all over. And I can see a huge surge, but balanced with sustainability, and I’m sure we are all with our visions, making sure that’s happening. With that, we come to the next question. What are some key lessons that global leaders in the tourism industry have learned in terms of integrating sustainability into tourism policies? Can you provide examples where policy changes have had a significant positive impact on tourism and sustainability?
Glenn Mandziuk: Great question. Well, you know, I have the privilege of working within an alliance that has roughly 50% of all the rooms in the world engaged in this conversation and what they talk about. I think first and foremost, sustainability is a very holistic element. It’s not just environmental, it’s absolutely social dimensions. It’s about the community. The community has to be a pillar of this conversation, and it is about making money. So, it’s a balancing act that we have to make around this effort. So holistic collaboration is king. We have to break down the silos in this industry. And I will say over the last five years or so, a lot of those walls have come down. It used to be where the walls were there all around, and everybody did their own thing in their own little area and actually didn’t contribute as a collective.
And I think policy has helped that conversation, but also industry’s understanding. And so, within our alliance, having the conversation as a collaborative effort. Also, around data driven thinking, obviously governments, the investor community you know even customers want to have transparent data to measure our absolute progress. Otherwise, how do we actually know what we’re doing? If we don’t have clear transparency that we’re all measuring apples to apples around the world it’s important that that happens. And we are seeing that conversation take hold in the area. Another area, of course, policy can really help, and you’ve mentioned it already on the stage here, is about long-term vision. You know, the policy that’s set by government has to have a longer term vision, and that doesn’t happen very often as we know, but we have to think about this. This is a long term commitment, and finally it’s about innovation.
This is a real opportunity for hospitality and tourism to innovate in ways that they we’re not seen as an industry that innovates a lot. But technology in this case, can play a big role in absolutely developing sustainability within tourism. And so, I think this is where the work between public and private can really help invest in things like innovation to show our leadership as an industry in our contribution, as I mentioned earlier, to be the guardians of the planet because we have a vested interest in protecting the planet, and I dare say, no other economic sector does. So, we could really stand out from the rest in showing our leadership in in how we’re taking action.
Dr. Sanjana John: That is wonderful. And I’m sure everybody is seeing your vision and absolutely it’s going to help even the policymakers, when they see the vision of all of you, there’s going to be a lot of integration into the policy making. So, thank you. And your excellency, a few words, we just want everybody’s vision, which will help.
Dr. Shankar Prasad Sharma: I think one of the experiences that I have seen in Nepal is basically the restoration, preservation and conservation of the cultural sites. If you talk about Katmandu Valley, I think just to give you one particular example there are three Darbar Square sites. One in Kathmandu, the second one in Patan, and another one is Bhaktapur. Bhaktapur was restored about 20-25 years ago, and Patan, very recently, I’ll say. But even after the earthquake of 2015 in Nepal, they were restored, retrofitted and then conserved and preserved. So, I see lot of people, lots of visitors coming to those places, those cultural sites that have been restored the way it was built earlier. So, I think that was one of the examples. The second is also the local food. I know, I think India has so many different varieties of food, but Nepal the most popular is Dal Bhat. So, if you ask any tourists sitting in the plane, they’ll say that did you love Nepali food? Your Dal Bhat is so nice, also healthy.
The third one I saw is more and more people are I think buying the local goods, local handicrafts, built by the local communities. And then I think that’s also fantastic that will help people in the community. But in addition to that, I think there are macro level pictures too. I think in Nepal as for example, all our energy sources are renewable hydropower. We have also started exporting to India, the hydropower. Second is it’s so fantastic to see in Nepal, the increase of electrical vehicles. EV among the new sold cars is 83%. That’s fantastic. People are becoming very conscious, and this is a good time to address the sustainability in tourism, including from the regulatory side.
Dr. Sanjana John: That is wonderful. At least we can see that Nepal is taking great strides in stepping up, and it’s great to know that EV is catching up big time.
Mr. Fernando Xavier Bucheli Vargas: In Ecuador, the food is totally different. But that’s the challenge to Indian people, to experience something different. Depends on the region, because Ecuador, we have the sea coast. We are the South America, our neighbours in the northeast Colombia. Southeast Peru, east is the Pacific Ocean food. We have four natural regions in Ecuador. One is the coast, you eat bananas and so on. The landscape is quite similar here with Goa. But you go to the Highlands, the Andes Mountains, we produce potatoes, we produce meat, we eat a lot of meat. And the customs, the weather is different. And you go to the Amazon region also, you have different kind of food, different kind of people and so on. And also, we have the marvelous Galapagos Islands, also. It’s a challenge because the food is a way to communicate between people. And let me tell you, which are the countries that succeed in this sustainable tourism. I think it’s very important to consider. First, the government has to have a strong commitment to support, especially the private sector. The rules have to be clear. We have to give also some incentives. We have to create loans to promote tourism. Second, it is very important to have partnerships.
Things can be done, things cannot be done only by the private sector. You need the support of the government, making good infrastructure. They have good airports and so on. And also we could have some partnerships, some joint projects between public and private sector. The third point is that successful countries who have succeeded in this sustainable tourism are the countries who have strong connections with the community. That’s very important. All the revenues, all the gains have to back to the community. Who is offering that such wonderful service of tourism. And also, we don’t have to forget this more than you were talking about technology, how to improve the hotel management and so on, for India is a challenge because I was trying to compare with Japan. I was last month in Tokyo, and saw how modernised are the hotels?
But in India, you have a lot of human power. You have to combine. You cannot do the same. You have to find a way to adopt technology, but at the same time, to keep the people working. But anyways, the thing is how to balance sustainable tourists and the increase of number of tourists.
Dr. Sanjana John: So true. It’s all about the balance. And even though technology can edit a lot of workforces in India, we need to keep that so that we can provide more jobs out here.
Kazem Samandari: What are the larger tendencies? One is the move from quantity to quality. The second one is to have the requirement to have an array of offerings, not only high-end, but also medium and low end. Because if you do that, you have a better balancing of the incoming tourists. You are not putting too much pressure by distributing the load. Then the other thing is the question of moderation. And I would like to illustrate some of these examples so that we can imagine what is happening. One is, for example we know there was this mass tourism in Bali, but now there is a very voluntary policy of the government to raise the level of the tourists.
We have the same challenge in Venice. So, they have introduced an entry fee even to the city. Then we have obviously even in Ecuador it’s the access to Galapagos is regulated. And then obviously we have the extreme example of that, which is a neighbour of India, which is Bhutan. So you have tourism, but it is moderated and it is very respectful of the culture of the traditions that are prevailing.
This is my opinion, if you want to go and just be at a swimming pool and then have a drink, et cetera, why you want to do 5,000 kilometres go to another place? So, the, there is a question of the purpose of tourism, and it has to have a meaning. You have to discover people, you have to discover cultures, you have to interact. Otherwise, you can always find an Indian restaurant in Paris, New York, or London if it’s just for the food. So, it’s not the fun of it, it’s be interacting with the people, exchanging, mingling. So, if we go back also to the main purpose of tourism, that by itself, it’ll introduce an element of sustainability because we are now handling human beings and not just a monument and a means of transport.
Dr. Sanjana John: The balance is always required. With that, over to you Bart.
Dr Bart S. Fisher: Well, on your point about the importance of culture in tourism, we were just in Bangalore where we’re leading a campaign to save Nandi Hills, which has got a lot of cultural, religious and environmental significance for Bangalore. And so this involves working with the United Nations, the UNESCO World Heritage Programme. But you heard the word all day about over commercializing over tourists. That’s a problem with Nandy Hills. You’re going to end up destroying it.
Nandy Hills, the five rivers coming to a confluence are dry. So, you have to protect them from the global warming. So, you have to have a purpose that protects the environment. And you can do this. We’re working to do this in Nandy Hills. I’m a board of directors of a company Clean Vision, in West Virginia, where we recycle plastics and we turn the plastics into clean fuel. So, you have to figure out innovative ways to protect the environment through tourism.
