Webinar on Tourism and Hoteling Industry in Pakistan: Challenges and Way Forward
[Music] on behalf of the iqbal institute of policy studies i welcome you to our webinar titled tourism and hotelling industry in pakistan challenges and way forward to begin with i would like to say a few words about the institute and what it represents it is an independent research institute with the mission to generate track and advocate public policies towards the achievement of sustainable development in pakistan it is the first think tank in the country with a sharp focus on research on all dimensions of the real estate sector in addition to taking on projects for policy advocacy ips has embarked upon the concept of swift research wherein it undertakes tank around research and compiles a series of reports for policy and decision makers attention coming to our topic tourism is recognized as one of the key sectors of development in all countries and a major source of income jobs and wealth creation it also plays a wider role in promoting the image and international perception of a country and is a key driver of economic growth consistent with the sustainable developmental goals tourism and hospitality industry of pakistan has experienced a strong growth in recent years a trend which is expected to continue growth within the industry has been encouraged by economic prosperity in urban areas and real estate development pakistan with its rich natural and cultural resources has the potential to become one of the world's leading tourist destinations the south asian country has already topped several international travel lists and according to the world travel and tourism council pakistan's tourism sector can become a 40 billion dollar industry within a decade however challenges in the social and services sector policy design safety and security tourism infrastructure and lack of an enabling environment have led to a weak competitive position for pakistan therefore pakistan must develop intelligent policies and seek their effective implementation to revitalize its tourism and hospitality sector we are fortunate to have eminent panelists from diverse backgrounds who are considered specialists in their respective professions our first panelist is mr aftabu rahman rana he has more than 35 years of experience in the tourism industry and is currently serving as the managing director of ptdc he is also the founder of sustainable tourism movement in pakistan and the fellow of leadership for environment and development previously he has served as the director general of invention foundation pakistan as the senior tourism promotion officer at tdce he has also worked with world bank usaid and asian development bank as tourism development consultant he is also the winner of a number of international and national awards in the field of tourism he will speak on the topic potential and challenges of tourism industry in pakistan we also have with us mr ishad the anjum is the director of operations at ferletti hotels he has more than 40 years of experience in the hotel management ranging from bhuti to full service hotels he is known for his hospitality and leadership skills as he has been an integral part of the harshu group and had the honor of shaping the success stories of per continental hotels and resorts while serving at the post of regional vice president operations north and then director operations pakistan he will speak on the topic importance of hotels in promotion of tourism we also have with us ms mumnar isvan who is the head of leasing and brands at imarat group pakistan's largest commercial residential and hospitality conglomerate she is a certified marketing and data science professional skilled in digital and analytics platforms she has worked as a consultant for digital transformation for prime minister of pakistan ministry of overseas pakistanis and human resource development national tourism board and ptdc her experience in the public and private sector makes her an expert in marketing business development and client management she will speak on the topic role of real estate development and promotion of tourism finally we have with us mr dr shujaat ali who is a retired civil servant and has held many important appointments including special secretary of finance and secondary industries commerce and investments he has also served as a board member of several prestigious public and private companies like nbp ubl saudi park real estate company he will speak on the topic importance of urban planning in effective governance we also have with us retired muhammad harun aslam who is a veteran with more than 40 years of experience in the armed forces of pakistan and more than eight years of experience in the private sector he is the president of its advisory board and i welcome you search is an honor for us to host you as regards with the conduct of the webinar each participant will speak on a particular topic for 20 minutes 15 to 20 minutes after the round of speech by all participants we will have a general discussion and q and a session now i would like to request lieutenant general harlan aslam to open the webinar with his introductory remarks uh thank you very much lady and gentlemen and all the listeners who are watching us thank you very much for your time panelists it is an eminent uh group of panelists and i'm sure that we will be able to bring out certain recommendations finally conclusions and recommendations so that we badly need to you know give a boost to our uh tourism industry um a lot is being done but a lot needs to be done yes english this is just the few tips i would like to give please commence umar thank you thank you i would like to request mister after the stage thank you thank you mr omar for this detailed introduction and uh thank you very much uh jenna haroon for inviting me in this very important webinar and i hope in today's discussion we will find out some good recommendations which will be useful for the promotion of tourism sector and especially the hospitality sector i have prepared a presentation which i would like to share on my screen and accordingly i'll move on and later on i can have a question on answers as well um here we go i hope you can see my screen properly yes sir it's very clear okay so uh as the topic uh i'll be talking about the potential of tourism in pakistan as well as some challenges and uh very particularly i will talk about a very specific challenge which is hampering the tourism in pakistan right now because of the mushroom growth taking place all over uh at various locations and if you look at this uh map of pakistan which is the tourist destination map you will understand that pakistan is one of those countries in the world which are blessed with diverse inventory of tourism attraction and this is based basically on the unique endowment of natural landscape feature its biodiversity and rich cultural heritage and almost all the provincial areas have something unique in their own territories which could become a huge tourist attraction to invite tourists from all around the world and from the domestic market as well if we look at the landscape aspect of pakistan pakistan's northern part is a place where we have great mountain ranges meeting together and this is the place where we have five peaks over 8 000 meter and more than 100 peaks over 7000 meter and this kind of mountain grandeur is not available anywhere else on the earth and pakistan is unique in that not only that we also have one of the longest glaciers in pakistan not rather one of their five thousand glaciers all over in the northern territories and all this glaciated region which is unique out of the polish regions in the world is a great place for adventure tourism which include mountaining trekking uh skiing river rafting rock climbing ice climbing and various other new extreme adventure sports so lots of potential available in our mountain areas for the promotion of adventure tourism when we descend down from the high mountains they are very interesting landscape of beautiful valleys along the karakoram mountains like this and when we travel on karakoram highway descending down from the chinese border at punjab we reach to the places which are the lower himalayas and the hindu question uh mountains and deer costa in savate and in valley where there's a lush green meadows and pastures and thick forest and the number of interesting and beautiful lakes which could be developed as tourist resorts and only few of these lakes are still accessible and many lakes are only accessible by foot and if we look at the history side we can say pakistan is unique in terms of the place which has more or less nine thousand years of human history starting from mexico while the mega is one of the earliest farming settlement in southeast asia and it's located in the blojossan province and then we have monjodoro which has a history of about 5000 years of humankind and most developed civilization of its time uh remains uh are there right now to explore by the tourists the other places of hindu religion available almost all over the country in different provinces and they have their own value in terms of sacred sites for hindu religion as well as for heritage tourism promotion and one of the unique aspect is the gandhara area which is uh uh of from the peshawar to the lower swath area and touching on this side up to the tax line even down this place is basically the place from where the mahayana buddhism originated which is these days mostly practiced in china in korea and japan and many other forestry countries so they have millions of buddhist mahayana buddhist followers who who could be easily attracted to visit this kandhara region in pakistan in terms of urban tourism pakistan is some of the most beautiful cities in the world like peshawar is considered one of the oldest living city in south asia and this is its own culture and beauty and you know lots of different attractions in terms of its living you know culture and history available with us punjab uh the lahore city is basically hub of mobile era heritage sites also they are set sites of british taj and many other later dynasties it could become a kind of a heart of culture tourism in pakistan with proper planning and development policy making this is also the region from where the sikh religion originated and their very nice intact gurudwavara is available to promote sikh heritage and religious tourism in pakistan the sin is famous as the land of sufis and shades has various sites of historical and cultural aspect as well as a number of sharings of sufficients available in this area and in between there's a desert of cholestan which has its own culture its beauty and its uh you know living aspect of the people and thirty people which is very very attractive for the western tourist as well descending down towards south uh there's a huge macaron coast more than 750 kilometers long which has the rocky terrain on one side and beautiful golden sandy beaches on other side so great potential available for the promotion of marine tourism in pakistan which is almost unexplored so far the most important aspect of pakistan tourism is this living culture the more than 74 languages are spoken in pakistan and when you are traveling in pakistan from north to south or south to south to north you can find that every 70 to 80 kilometers is a change of culture there's a change of faces there's a change of cuisine so great diversity of cultural aspect is available for tourists to explore in this country and one of these living culture we have ancient people of kalasha who live in three valleys uh in the chitral district and they are one of the oldest indigenous people who are still following their uh thousands of years old religion and traditions and customs as pakistan is unique in landscape diversity so it is unique in its eco regions as well we have nine eco region from alpine zone at the top to the marine zone of the arabian sea so there's a great diversity of wildlife available to to promote eco-tourism and to promote wildlife based tourism as most of the african countries are doing these things the pakistani food and cuisine is so rich and available in abundance everywhere people love to have you know the great variety of food available all around in pakistan uh same as the case for the handicrafts is a very very rich country where in every town in city and village people are producing very attractive and colorful handicrafts which people buy especially the tourists when they go back they take these products as souvenirs for their family and their friends uh although uh the kicket is a game of passion for pakistan but we also play lots of other traditional games like polo the wrestling the tan pegging the camel dancing and the bull race and many other so they are all played in its most regional form and they are also kind of a tourist attraction and one of the highest polo field is available at the border of kp and gilgit and every year in july there's a big festival where thousands of people come to watch the game of poland's most regional form which is played at shandu tournament capital city of islamabad has its own charm it's a modern capital one of the most beautiful capitals and it's a great gateway for tourism to all over pakistan and based on all this uh tourism which we have in pakistan i've just shown you a glimpse of that we cannot just promote one or two kind of tourism in pakistan rather we have opportunity to promote various segments like the recreation the adventure the culture the religious tourism the sports the eco-tourism wellness and health tourism education and conferences agri-tourism shopping tourism business youth and many many more so it's a very very diverse products available with us which can be promoted based on the rich potential we have over the years the tourism is growing quite rapidly in pakistan in 2014 we had almost 1.5 million tourists traveling within country in one year which has now already crossed the figure of 6.6 million in 2018. although the largest portion of
this tourist is the pakistani domestic market which is almost 96 percent and only four percent is the foreign tourist market which so far we have so we need to do quite a lot of effort to develop more foreign tourism in pakistan if we look at the overall impact of this tourism so far we have pakistan tourism industry is contributing something about 5.9 percent in the total gdp of pakistan economy and more or less 2 285 billion rupees annually it's contributing in the revenue of the country the more than 3.9 million people who are involved in tourism sector in terms of jobs a half of this is the direct and half of this is almost indirect and we are making something about 852 million us dollar from foreign tourism in pakistan so although pakistan tourism industry is not as developed as in many other countries but still it's handsomely contributing in the national economy in the employment creation and also in foreign exchange earning for the country recently the government has taken various steps to develop tourism on model 9 and the government in last three years have done quite a remarkable project in pakistan in terms of developing national tourism coordination board restructuring pddc introducing e-visa 491 countries developing a national tourism strategy for 10 years introducing integrated tourism plan for new destinations in various provinces tourism brand which is just ready to be launched to promote pakistan abroad as a tourist destination a national minimum standard document has already been prepared and ready to be launched and e-portal to promote tourism and provide up-to-date information is ready to be launched and schedule airport has been upgraded as an international airport ptdc which is a national tourism organization is going to privatize all its tourism motels all over the country uh to private sector uh to upgrade them to the level of three and four star level so all these steps are some have been already done and some are in the final stages so tourism has now a great potential in this country and if the present efforts continue i hope in next two to three years its contribution will further increase in the overall national economy cpac which is linking pakistan through a great road network i am sure is going to open lots of new opportunities for the development of hospitality sector because all along this new new highway there are new tourism zones which have been created where the new infrastructure will be required and huge private structure investment will come in to develop the facilities and that now the second part i would like to talk about the challenge which we are facing right now although on one side we are moving on on a fast paced growth but as they say tourism is like fire you can cook your food on it but if you're not careful it can burn your horse down so the specific challenge which i'm going to share with you is tourism's own impact on the natural environment because natural environment is something which is basically the basic element on which tourism is based so what is happening the huge increase in the tourism flow to the various sites have been observed over the last few years so the tourism flow is increasing very rapidly and we have seen the overcrowding at tourist sites like this is the condition of safar maluk sometime during summer days when there are thousands of tourists going there every every day to see the lake so this phenomena is also impacting rapidly on the natural environment which basically attract tourists to these areas for example on the murray hills there used to be mystic forests like this the jungles they have been vanished and now the jungles of concrete the huge infrastructure is coming up and mostly the boring and large and the hotel facilities which have been added over the years without realizing the natural landscape the beauty and also the aspect of environment in these areas the landscape of valleys are under threat and there's a now uncontrolled mushroom growth development of infrastructure and hotel industries going on without any check at various places like this is the photo of naran which was not like this a few years back this is the kind of infrastructure which is self designed the water supply lines the sewage mixed up in the natural water courses which is damaging the aqua environment of these areas and the dumping of solid waste into the rivers by the hotels and the shops and all the facilities of tourism in these areas is all need now very very careful assessment and development to manage all these aspects and this you see the condition of savart which is rapidly changing these days the skyscraper hotels the buildings coming up everywhere sawath has been famous as a switzerland of asia uh but where is switzerland in this landscape you can see this is bahrain which was a nice green spot in the past but now it's all a concrete jungle again so if it's switzerland it must have been like this so we have not taken care of our landscape of our uh the the natural heritage so things are going on on a such a rapid pace which are damaging the very base of tourism in pakistan the lakes like cefa maluk was like this many years ago when i used to go for trekking in my school and college days because now this condition is like this so it's a big challenge for us even the high mountains like k2 are never spared and there's now a waste dumping sites like this the expeditions going there and dumping waste at the various base camps and the camping sites the heritage sites are even are facing this the same conditions and all that and the wildlife which we haven't so far worked out how we can promote it for ecotourism but in indiscriminate killing is ultimately will uh create such an impact that all the wildlife will be vanished by the time yeah we are just finishing uh that's the life slide so i want to emphasize that we need to now focus more on the sustainable model of tourism in which we could do development for the present tourist and host communities but we should also keep in mind that tourism should go on for the longer period of time and it should provide opportunities for the future as well right so this thanksgiving we need to follow and we need to create a balance in that thank you very much thank you sir thank you for your discussion you have highlighted the vast potential of tourism in pakistan be it religious heritage urban tourism or tourism related to different cultures languages and the biodiversity and you highlighted a very important point that we do not need to promote only one or two areas of tourism rather we can promote tourism in multiple areas which you also provided a list of and you also shared some interesting numbers regarding the tourism sector of pakistan and its contribution to our gdp and employment and jobs you also shared what the government has done regarding promoting tourism and the past three years which is a very good outlook but you also highlighted some of the challenges associated with the sector such as the environmental challenges the uncontrolled and unplanned development of infrastructure and the unfortunate issue of waste generation in tourist areas uh thank you for your time sir i would like to now request our second speaker mr ishaq to speak on the topic of importance of hotels in promotion of tourism over to you sir this malay morning welcome to everybody by the grace of almighty allah we are doing the best in pakistan things are getting foreign
2022-05-08 21:40
