LUMINARIES from the tourism and hospitality industries mooted the idea of creating a tourism promotion council assist and advise the Government of Rajasthan's Tourism Department at a BW Hotelier Roundtable at the ITC Rajputana in Jaipur this past weekend. The gathering discussed the present situation of hotel occupancies and tourist arrivals in the state and the problems that needed to be addressed. The idea of forming the council, to act like a "think tank for tourism", was discussed among those present, who were also a part of the newly formed and soon to be registered Federation of Travel and Hospitality, Rajasthan (FTHR). The discussion started with Bhim Singh, who founded Rajasthan Tours in 1959, going down memory lane. "I remember tourism in post-Independence Jaipur really began in the 1950s, when the city had only one hotel, in front of the railway station, called Kesar-e-Hind," he reminisced.

The establishment was run by a Muslim gentleman who used to be the manager, cook and waiter, and also operated the pick-up and drop facility for guests to and from the railway station. Much progress has been made since then. "I think there is an imbalance between the glut of rooms and tourist arrivals in Jaipur," said Randhir Vikram Singh, Joint Managing Director of Hotel Castle Mandawa. "A lot of people who are not professional hoteliers but are involved in the real estate or in the alcohol business park their money in hotels, drawing a number of chain hotels from across the world to start operating out of Jaipur," Singh said. This has led to an explosion of hotel room numbers in the city.

There is also an imbalance of trained manpower and the number of rooms available in the city. There are more problems as well. Jaipur airport hasn't really developed as an international terminal. You only have four international flights coming in daily from the Middle East. You have no European airline coming into Jaipur. Everyone lands in Delhi and uses travel agents there to come into the state. Rajasthan is actually losing out in the bargain, Randhir Vikram Singh informed us. The hotels too are now betting against each other, trying to fill up rooms. The ARRs compare poorly with South India, for instance. "What sells for $250 a night there, can be got in Rajasthan for $30," Randhir Vikram Singh said. But there is always the brighter side. "When we used to have our meetings a decade ago, we used to talk only about the shortage of rooms, I remember the room requirement in the starred category then used to be a mere 3,000," Gyan Prakash, ex-director of FICCI, Rajasthan, said.

The shortfall doesn't exist anymore. "The present government is very proactive on tourism, so the situation is looking good," he said. One of the great contributors to tourism revenue in Rajasthan is the domestic traffic, he added, saying that this really helps shorten the off-season, which confronts you if you are dependent entirely on the international market. "The biggest challenge today is to push marketing initiatives in Europe and the US to help bring in more international tourists into the state," said Kuldeep Singh Chandela, Managing Director, Spice Court Restaurant. When we speak to tourists from those countries, we discover that there is hardly any marketing effort for Rajasthan as a destination in those markets, he said. "We should have more extensive campaigns and the official delegations should include more tour and travel operators as well as hoteliers, not just government officials," he said.

There is no longer a dearth of rooms in Jaipur, Chandela emphasised. What was needed, though, was a regular flow of tourists "so that we can fill up the rooms". Mohan Singh, Managing Director, Rajasthan Tours, raised the issue of air connectivity, saying Rajasthan was better off in this regard between 1984 and 2004. "We are missing the connectivity among tourist centres within the state. Jaipur, Udaipur and Jodhpur are not connected, which hampers the way we can package Rajasthan," Singh said. "Rajasthan is the most mature tourism market in India, yet growth has been lopsided. Moreover, a mere 20 per cent of the industry is organised," Sunil Gupta, General Manager, ITC Rajputana, and President, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Rajasthan.

What the sector needs, he said, is a structured approach, structured marketing, structured selling and structured functioning. The widespread concern over saturation of the rooms market came across in the discussion. It may take a couple of years for the market to stabilise and even as it heads in that direction, the industry is getting focused on bringing in many more tourists from all over the world and, more importantly, within India. Bikramjit Ray is the Executive Editor of BW Hotelier.