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| Kathmandu, Monday February 17, 2003 Falgun 05, 2059. |
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Gulf
War repercussions and tourism
< By ADITYA
BARAL <
The opposite of war
should not nec-essarily be peace. Psychological turbulence hinges on between these two
words. The ongoing conflict scenario brewed by the warlike situation in the Gulf is
looming large with uncertainty to everyone’s speculation. The dark clouds hovering in
the sky from 1990 have not been able to shower the solution yet today. Hence, it is
possibly going to create a slight tremor in the balance maintained by the various nations.
There will, however, be newer alliances and polarization of distinct character.
In view of the
geopolitical situation of Nepal, it will have to bear the brunt in the following areas
with the imminent threat or eruption of war:
Overseas employment
opportunities, mainly in the Gulf countries, will be hard hit with the imminent threat of
war. As flying overseas for employment has become a fad amongst the youngsters, the
suspension of such opportunities will have a turn around effect on our social-milieu. This
will breed a massive despondency amongst the rural poverty-stricken youth. The slowdown or
non-existence of travel will tremendously decrease the transaction of foreign currency
within the nation. The volume of operation carried out by the financial institution will
also reduce. Overall, the aggregate economic transaction of the nation will get a severe
blow with the direct cumulative effect of money repatriation from overseas. Money
circulation in the market will dry. As a result, the gap between the haves and have-nots
will be wider. The government will run with deficiency of budgetary allocation.
Ultimately, development projects will be hampered to the highest extent.
Tourism will also be
dragged at its lowest ebb because of several problems associated with it. The possibility
of increase in the Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) will act as fuel in the fire to escalate the
cost of traveling. The increase in the cost of fuel, landing and take off, parking,
insurance will inflate the cost which means the air travel will be expensive. The
re-routing due to the unavailability of the sky for over flying through Gulf demands extra
hours of travelling. The deep-seated fear psychosis implanted the potential travellers
will force people to abandon the non-essential travel. Even the essential travel will have
higher probability of either being postponed or cancelled. The travellers will have no
other option than to "wait and see". The exorbitant cost incurred on travel will
de-motivate the travellers to travel. The overall increment in the ingredient pushes the
cargo price to soar up, which means that prices of commodities imported from the third
countries by air will go up. The commodity price will soar up as a consequence and overall
inflation rate will swell. On the other hand, less travel means fewer financial
transactions. Again we plunge into the same vicious cycle explained above. Erosion in the
competitive edge will make destination repositioning arduous in the international market
place, which forces the international airlines to suspend their flights. In fact, most of
the busy airlines operating flights to Nepal originate from Gulf countries for a gateway
to western nations. The pull out of these major airlines will brew connectivity problem to
Nepal which means less arrivals of tourists. Again, hotels go empty, shops will have less
business hatching multiple possibilities of recession and turnaround effects.
Likewise, the ailing
tourism industry was just anticipating new rays of hope to revive business following the
recent cease-fire announcement. Subsequently, a widespread enthusiasm was conspicuous in
the travel trade industry. The spring tourist season has already seen a spurt in tourist
arrivals, and these numbers are expected to grow as the kingdom prepares to head toward
the lasting peace. The healthy growth in the number of tourist arrival in the month of
January 2003 (19 percent by air) shows the sign of revival of confidence amongst the
visitors coming to Nepal.
The de-stabilisation of
the situation in the domestic front or international front will have equal and paramount
effect in our major economic affairs. As the information technology has pervasively
intervened in our daily lives and transformed the world into a global village. Any
untoward incident happened in one corner of the planet would have a cascading effect of
direct and indirect order to the other. And, the country like ours, whose economy is
basically dependent on imports with less amount of exports, whose balance of payment is
always against its favour, sky would be the limit to this type of fragility for any sorts
of casualty precipitation. The wild speculated rumors would also inflict the national
level of riots and vandalism. Take the horrendous scar perpetrated by the Hrithik Roshan
episode, which shook the nation. The perpetuation of such feud for a long may help develop
a permanent scar or irritants in the course of maintaining the congenial and conducive
diplomacy mainly with the neighboring states. So, small nation like ours constantly bears
the pain of cold waves of hot dangers mainly from proximate universe. Sometimes, mere
shadow or harbingers of war also posed a threat to our thoughts viz Kargil or Kashmir.
Today, there are many
ways and means to reach from one destination to another. The perennial war in some
countries would of course deter the visitors from visiting those countries but not
necessarily hinder them to visit other nearby countries if we reassure them about our home
security. Take for instance the case of Sri Lanka, although the country was fighting with
its rebels for 18 years, but India and Nepal were receiving a large number of tourists (in
1999 and 2000) corresponding to their efforts.
Today, smaller
nation’s job is merely confined to define casualty estimate and its direct
consequence for and against with the possible eruption of war against Iraq. So as peace
loving nation, we should concentrate our efforts in devising strategy for absorbing the
impacts that occur abroad. Let us leave aside our own domestic political epidemic for a
while, as they are controllable to some extent. Let us keep our home perfect and intact in
order to showcase our precious harmony and composite ethnicity at the backdrop of
prolonged domestic as well as international crisis.
(The author is
associated with Nepal Tourism Board)
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