Pakistan’s swirling tourism industry and the ramifications of Global War on Terror

Pakistan’s swirling tourism industry and the ramifications of Global War on Terror

Now better known for its regular suicide bombings and as a haven for the world’s most-wanted terrorists, Pakistan hardly qualifies as a favorite tourist destination. But that doesn’t mean Pakistani authorities have given up on luring foreign visitors.

Pakistan possesses plenty of potential tourist draws, from prime examples of Mughal and Buddhist architecture to some of the world’s highest mountains. But in recent years convincing foreigners to come visit Pakistan’s wonders has been an uphill battle.

“Tourism is next to nil,” Mehr Tarar, a columnist for Pakistan’s Daily Times, wrote last week. “To tempt people from any country to visit Pakistan would be more difficult today than to outline a workable peace plan between Palestine and Israel.”

This past summer Karachi’s chamber of commerce organized an event to attract foreigners titled “My Karachi: an Oasis of Harmony” during that city’s deadliest violence spree on record. Last winter, the owners of Pakistan’s only skiing resort declared it reopened
years after the Taliban had destroyed the resort’s only hotel and chairlift. The problem? The hotel and chairlift are still in ruins, and skiers were forced to carry their skis uphill before hitting the slopes.

Other times the timing was not quite right. Pakistan’s government declared 2007 the “Visit Pakistan Year,” but that year also happened to be the birth year of the Pakistani Taliban, a group that has claimed responsibility for nearly every bombing that has
taken place in the country since then.

At the end of last year, the province announced plans to revive a steam train between the province’s capital Peshawar and the Khyber Pass on the Afghan border. Earlier this month, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa participated in the International Tourism Fair in Madrid,
the first Pakistani presence at the fair in more than a decade. Also this week, Peshawar’s chamber of commerce issued a blueprint to revive the province’s tourism sector.

Whether any of these efforts will pan out, remains to be seen. Local tourism promoters bemoan the country’s bad rap and point out that most foreign tourists go back home unharmed, but Pakistan’s reputation for violence and instability still looms large in
the minds of outsiders. The fate of two Swiss tourists abducted in July remains unknown.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=11378

Posted by Naveed A Bari on Feb 1 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry